"... what are you doing with that freedom?"

Al and I ran in the Starlight 5k, which let us use our race bibs to get into the Rose Festival city fair for free after watching the Starlight Parade.

I love taking pictures of fairs and carnivals at night, and we were on the midway just before the fair shut down for the evening. Usually I'd be there with the fastest lenses and "the good camera," whichever that happens to be when an opportunity presents. 

This time, I spent a little time before it was time to head downtown thinking about my choices, and I decided it'd be an interesting thing to try with the Ricoh, because I'm still not completely used to taking pictures with it. And also because I have been trying to remind myself of that C.J. Chilvers quote about "invisibility": 

Few people are really “following” your work. Even fewer care. What are you doing with that freedom?

What I've been trying to do with it, lately, has been to care less about some things if I think they are getting in the way of things I like to do, and would do more if I were less hung up about whatever it is I can get hung up about.

So I let myself not care about a bunch of things I'd usually care about in favor of seeing how I'd feel about things after I could see the effects of not caring.

Better than the past? Worst? 

Better. Because in the process of not caring about some things, or taking pictures I wouldn't have bothered with, or keeping ones I would have discarded, I feel closer to what matters, and want to pull on that string harder.