Go Amuse Yourself

Do kids ever say they are bored these days? I'm not sure. Even young children seem to be online all the time, gaming, texting and whatever else. However, I imagine that most readers of this blog will remember the days when kids would say "I'm bored". And you all know what the answer from our parents was..."go find something to amuse yourself with".

For me, that usually meant reading or drawing. I did have three siblings, but they were much older than me. And I did have school friends, but they lived a fair distance from me and I wasn't able to get out and play with them as often as I would have liked. We lived on a busy street and although we all walked everywhere back then, most parents didn't want their kids walking by themselves to my home on one of the busiest streets in the city. 


The end result of all of this was that I became quite able to amuse myself with hobbies and imagination. I'm not sure whether I started out as an introvert, but I sure ended up that way.

Something interesting that I've noticed is that some of the same challenges apply as we age. We often have to find something to fill our time. I was a little shocked recently when it occurred to me that I have been retired for nine years now. Part of me wonders, where did the years go? And part of me is pleasantly surprised by the fact that I have been quite happily amusing myself for almost a decade.


I wasn't unhappy when I became an empty nester. And I certainly wasn't unhappy to sell my business and retire nine years ago. There are so many things to do! And never enough time to do them.

However, that is not to say that every day is a day of excitement and adventure. 


Some days I have to follow that old advice and find something to amuse myself with. One of the good things about being a photographer is that I have lots and lots of raw material to play with. Even bad photographs can turn into something interesting with a little bit of imagination and a tad of luck.

I am an anomaly in this age of selfie taking, but was tasked to take one for a photography challenge our club was assigned last summer. I had a vision in mind that I wanted to create, and took a trip to my local Frenchy's to find a skirt that would billow in the wind. I couldn't find what I was looking for, and had to settle for something different. Not quite my usual style, it was leopard patterned sheer with a small black slip. It made quite a statement. With my apologies to the original owner, I wasn't about to wear it until the moment I was ready to take the photograph. 


Even though this was a selfie exercise, my husband was willing to tag along so we headed to Hirtle's Beach with the dogs, camera, tripod, and outfit. I picked a spot and pulled my new to me skirt over my jeans and set up my camera on the timer mode. John held the dogs and watched me as I ran back and forth in my leopard skirt and tried to get two scarves to flutter in the wind. A lack of wind, incorrect exposure setting, a photo bombing dog, and the fact that I forgot to take off my Blundstone boots, all contributed to a set of selfie images that weren't quite the artistic vision I had in mind. 

The "before" photo - too dark, photo bombed by Riley, not enough wind, generally a bad photo!

I did manage to capture something similar to what I had in my mind's eye when we had a second excursion to Beach Meadows a few days later. No photo bombing dogs, and a better location suggested by my husband helped me achieve the look I was going for.

Now, what has that all got to do with where we started in this article? Well, on a recent snowy day with no tasks that needed to be done, I was finding something to amuse myself with. I was organizing all my images from last year and came across the photos from my selfie session. Since playing with photographs is a lot more interesting than digitally labeling and filing them, I picked one and started editing. The photo bombing dog got cropped. The clunky boots got cropped. I adjusted the exposure and decided to discard the colour. And then I played with a preset effect on some computer software. Voila, I had an image I was happy with, creating something out of an image I was going to discard.

The same photo with a bit of editing - I was going to discard the original photo, but I love it now!

I know not everyone is a photographer, and not everyone has the same luxury of time. But now and then we all get bored and need to amuse ourselves. And even a boring bit of organizing can turn into something interesting to focus on.