Notes from some tough months
Well, it’s been a couple of tough months. My mom had a health issue (fortunately resolved now) that put my life on hold for two months, and afterward, I got sick myself due to the drop in my defenses from dealing with that. Nothing serious—just a flu and a stomach bug—but enough to keep me from functioning. To everyone I owe things to, I’m sorry, I’ll start getting back to normal as I sort out the whole putting-food-in-my-face thing again.
In the midst of all this, I was feeling a bit disconnected from the newsletter. I didn’t quite understand why I was doing it, similar to how I feel about so many projects that require investing time and/or money without a clear medium-term outcome, until four interesting things happened:
A few months ago, I conducted a workshop that I had been working on for a while, "Concepts of Photography and Visual Language for Effective Communication," privately for a company. The person who hired me liked the tone and content of Focus and my old articles on Tecnovortex. This also gave me the push I needed to finalize the project, leaving it ready to offer elsewhere or upload to YouTube—something I’d love to do, though it requires a ton of time.
A friend wrote to me, telling me she started running thanks to my post on the subject and is really pumped... And there are several others who have joined in as well. To that little person, keep going, you’ve got this. And to those who want to start but don't know where, maybe that's the way.
Several people told me they’ve reduced their consumption of alcohol or other substances they had a conflicted relationship with after reading and reflecting on my post about it. By the way, I recently marked two years clean, which I think is a great reason to celebrate.
Following my post on generative AI and the art crafts, a commercial photography studio reached out to me, and I’m now doing some work for them, creating assets for retouching with generative AI.
Conclusion: The internet is a vast place full of surprises, and you never know where the things you upload might end up or what impact they might have. If you have a project that's been sitting idle and you're not sure how to tackle it, I recommend Car Bonomini's course. Plus, if you use the code NACHODRAMIS at checkout, you'll get an extra discount :D.
Anyway, given my characteristic inconsistency, committing to releasing this every 15/30 days and then failing spectacularly doesn't make much sense for now. So, the newsletter officially moves to a "whenever I feel like it" frequency. It could be every 5 days or every 5 months—no idea. It depends on how much I have to say.
Oh, the photos accompanying this post are abstract and minimalist experiments I had lying around in my archive, all straight out of the camera in JPG.
Let's go with the usual playlist of full albums on Spotify and a live concert on YouTube:
So, what am I going to talk about in this edition of Focus? Well, throughout these strange and complicated months, I've been jotting down small phrases and concepts that I think are worth sharing here, in the usual organized chaos that characterizes this site.
Focus is a random frecuency newsletter written by Nacho Dramis. Subscribe to get it free in your email. If you enjoy the content and find it useful, you can make a financial contribution to support the project through Cafecito (Argentina) or PayPal (Worldwide). Making this content for free and ad-free takes a lot of time and effort!
Este newsletter también está disponible en español.
The perfect moment doesn’t exist. Tomorrow you’ll be older, with more obligations, and less energy. People get sick and die (and so will you). Yes, starting off with a real punch in the gut.
Fights, one at a time and with strategy. Even Floyd Mayweather would go home bruised if he tried to fight six people attacking from different directions; he wouldn’t have much of a chance against someone with a gun twenty meters away.
Creativity doesn’t understand capitalist production timelines, and vice versa.
The importance of writing everything down, whether in a notebook or an app, even if it seems meaningless at the moment. Learning to respect the timing of the mind.
Be wary of the instant gratification so typical of these times; don’t let the tree of triviality obscure the forest of accomplishment (?).
Stay alert to opportunities. My most interesting recent jobs came from there, including those mentioned above and others. Follow your instincts, but don’t do anything foolish.
Everything changes. It’s good to take a pause every now and then and think about why you’re doing what you’re doing, whether it’s what you want, if it’s for something in the future or just an automatic routine—be it work, relationships, life decisions, everything. I think people who do year-end reviews do it with that purpose in mind; for me, it happens randomly, but fortunately, it happens more often.
This newsletter was going to be about photography and video games, and now it’s turned into this kind of intimate motivational blog about creativity. No idea, I let it be whatever it wants to be. “Defining it limits it.” This probably isn’t a good idea for internet projects where niche specificity is directly proportional to success, but who knows, I’m not an SEO expert, but the only guaranteed way I know to enter a niche is to die (no way to translate the wordplay here, in spanish “nicho” is both a niche and a tomb xD).
If something that makes money seems easy to do, you’re probably analyzing it wrong. Almost everything requires a good idea, consistency, and patience. There is no magic formula.
It’s very, very rare for something to work out perfectly from the start. You might have some innate talent, but everything is practice. A lot. Of practice.
Over-focusing on the form and presentation of things can make them never see the light of day. Ideate, draft, test, refine, iterate. Extreme perfectionism kills projects.
When you study something artistic, formally or informally, you’re not seeking permission to do it (like you would with a law or medical license, which is not the only thing you seek at a university), but rather the tools to develop what’s inside you.
The vast majority of people who read and enjoy this publication are complete strangers, acquaintances I see rarely, or distant contacts with whom I don’t have a close bond and with whom I’d likely never discuss these things in person. Only a handful of people from my inner circle and daily life read what I write. Sometimes, your audience is not what you expect.
The internet is an amazing place for reading, entertainment, and learning; you just need to curate carefully and seek out what you want, rather than waiting for it to appear by algorithmic magic. This includes not only what we consume but also what we create. No matter how weird your interests may be, if you know how to search, you’ll find plenty of weirdos like you.
Trying to make a living from what you love and are good at isn’t wrong; what’s wrong is this fucked up society that forces you to do anything else. Not everyone can or wants to fight that battle, unfortunately, but you’re not crazy for trying. If you do try, just be prepared to have the whole universe against you.
To close, here are some links to videos and articles related to the topics discussed. Or not. You know how it goes.
The importance of failing, by Venus Theory.
Neat On The Rocks rambling about life and projects while playing Sonic. Really, it’s an amazing video, I can’t summarize it, just watch it.
Andrew Huang and Sarah Belle Reid discussing how experimentation and playing with “noise” gave them what classical musical training couldn’t give them.
Rob Scallon speaking about his mental health problems and how he fights them.
TEDx talk by Jannine Barron, accessing intuition as a tool.
The “enshittification” of internet platforms, by Isabella Di Biasi
https://ludwig.guru/blog/enshittification-the-end-of-the-internet-as-we-know-it/
Focus is a random frequency newsletter written by Nacho Dramis. Subscribe to get it free in your email. If you enjoy the content and find it useful, you can make a financial contribution to support the project through Cafecito (Argentina) or PayPal (Worldwide). Making this content for free and ad-free takes a lot of time and effort!
Another way to support the project is by purchasing prints and various items with my photos in my international store on RedBubble. I don't have a store for Argentina yet, but I hope to solve that soon.
The links to Notion Domestika and Moment are affiliate links, which means that if you buy something from them, you pay the same and I earn a commission.
You can also follow me on Instagram and Behance, . Sharing my articles helps a lot and is free :)
Este newsletter también está disponible en español.