Zach of all Trades, Master of…… Fun?

Paris, July 2009 ©ZMcDuffie 2009

“I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” -Albert Einstein

Blogs, Twitter, Photography and the Information Age

If you would have told me a year ago that I would be actively writing blogs and have a twitter account I most certainly would not have believed it. I still don’t even really like the word “blog”, it ranks up there with other words that make me cringe like “cloister” and “pecan”. Not only did I not like the sound of the word, but I considered blogs, tweets, and status updates to be mostly senseless jibber-jabber for people that are in front of their computers way too much or highly addicted to their iphones. I use the internet like a battery charger. I plug in just long enough to get some new ideas, connect with important people, and then I’m done. Time to go back outside and live/love/learn. Ahhh but then my uncle, the “ad man”, told me that I was looking at social media from the wrong perspective…. and I listened because his advice has helped me stay ahead in the business world (which has ultimately helped me stay outside).

The most important change that blogs and sites like Twitter and Facebook bring is that people are now getting their news from their friends, their peers, and their common interest groups on a scale that competes with the traditional media. Not all of that news is interesting, but that is the downside to free flow information… we get stuck weeding through the irrelevant to find what interests us. This means that the key to using social media to your advantage is to separate quality content from fluff. For example, now instead of random searches on google to find interesting photography news and sites, I can follow blogs and twitter feeds from people that spend their time finding interesting quality content on the web (or creating their own quality content). It is like having a team of like-minded people researching for me. I can also see what my favorite photographers are into right now, not in 2 years when their next book ends up on the shelf.

One of the coolest things about the age that we are living in right now is that tools to make and broadcast movies, books, photographs, and music are available and within most people’s reach. Reaching a broad audience with an artistic or journalistic message is easier than ever. Artists can now skip past publishers, record labels, TV and film studios, and take their message straight to the web. It was in thinking about this concept, and thinking about what I had to contribute to the web world (in relation to quality content), that I ended up with the idea for my latest project, Out to See.

Zach of all trades, master of….. fun?

My life is centered around being passionately curious. It seems that my greatest area of expertise isn’t in one particular subject, but rather in trying to learn how to do a little bit of everything that interests me (and enjoying the hell out of life in the process). Reaching this conclusion was a comical epiphany. I guess I’m somewhere between modern renaissance adventurer and just a kid trapped in an adult body ( a kid with a global case of Attention Deficit Disorder). I realized that I was in a unique position to share a lot of inspiring information with a wide audience (about my experiences with learning and travel). I didn’t need to convince a publisher to let me write a book about it; I could just do it on my own. So I started a blog called Out to See . It did mean accepting the fact that I would be pouring hours of work into a project that had no real financial return, but that would be the test of my artistic purpose. I decided to spend (at least) one year creating a blog with inspiring stories, interviews, and advice for my fellow travelers and soul searchers out there in the world. This project’s success will be measured by the number of people it reaches and inspires. So if you enjoy it, please pass the word along.

Since this blog site (that you are reading now) is going to remain more related to my photography and personal art exploration, I’ll wrap up this post with a couple of recent images I’ve taken here in Costa Rica. Hope you enjoy the photos and the new site…

©ZMcDuffie 2010

©ZMcDuffie 2010

©ZMcDuffie 2010

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