Thread by @TheRealHoarse

I’m gonna post my weekly One Good Thing shortly but first, I’m gonna lead with one of my own.

I have unsmall ADHD. It is both debilitating and a super power. It makes me who I am (and I prefer it to who I would be without it).

It definitely makes my life harder…

1/

…but it also makes me endlessly hungry for new and different things.

The four golden pillars of ADHD are ‘NICU’.

Novelty
Interest
Challenge
Urgency

Things offering none of those, no matter how small, are like pushing boulders up a mountain.

2/

I would rather have to learn how to fly a plane than have to pair up my socks.

The plane thing would vastly take more effort but it isn’t the work that matters. It’s the NICU score.

Socks are a boulder. Flying would be a challenge - and the not-dying part would add urgency.

3/

A shitload of people I find interesting on here are ADHD.

That was eye-opening but makes sense.

We serve the same master: needing to pursue new, varied, interesting, challenging things.

We HAVE to. When we don’t, life kinda sucks TBH.

4/

So, if you’ve been riding along with me for a while now, you may have seen that I picked up photography a yr ago.

I started with pics of my son’s soccer and birds and an occasional landscape.

But it’s winter and I’m bored and that makes me depressed.

5/

So, I started thinking about maybe shooting pics of people.

I love good portraiture and I took an occasional portrait during my pre-child travels… but that was waaay back in the film days and those were spontaneous.

Those were just lucky captures.

6/

A wk ago though, a friend offered me a chance to combine my suddenly renewed interest in portrait photography with another of my interests - music - in one daunting opportunity:

Shooting a concert.

Im not saying I shit a brick but I shit at least a handful of shower tiles.

7/

But that is the goddamned ADHD superfecta:

Novelty, Interest, Challenge, AND Urgency.

Something new I’m interested in - which I have no idea how to do - and which I only get one shot at.

Sign me the fuck up.

Hell to the yes.

8/

So, I Google concert photography extensively.

No, I didn’t. I’m lying.

I read two articles and got bored because see above re: NICU.

But I read two articles and that seemed like plenty.

And then I recruited a friend to let me come over and practice.

9/

Jordan is a drummer. I’ve talked about him before. I will soon be talking about him and the band he plays with (@8Graves_) again.

So, I recruit Jordan to let me come over and shoot him practicing.

One hour. Small practice room. Work with whatever light he has. Shoot and go.

10

And that’s what we did.

I took a trillion pics at a fast pace; clocked out after our hour; downloaded lo-res samples of the pics in lo-res on my way to get my son; and hit them with quick, basic edits.

And folks, I’m not gonna lie, these made my day. Maybe my month.

11/

I dropped a few into BxW. I’ll work with the color versions later.

But these made. my. day.

12/

They capture my friend, Jordan, well.

They do justice to his energy and personality and performance.

They are faithful portraits that are both true to what I had imagined and true to the subject.

13/

And they’re what I kinda needed right now.

It has been a long month, a long winter, a long year.

I sort of needed this - and needed a win - more than I knew or could admit to myself.

These aren’t perfect. They aren’t supposed to be. But they made me perfectly happy today.

14/

That’s my one good thing.

I don’t usually share my own because I don’t want to upstage anyone else’s.

NICU, man. Novelty, interest, challenge, urgency.

Today was a superfecta. I kinda needed it.

And now shooting the concert is going to be a blast.

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