#but given what i've been seeing from adaptations in the past few months/years. i really doubt it

[deanpinterester]

hi what

[duckielover151]

The One Piece Diaries

Episode Count: 450

Holy shit, guys... I'm back. I took another several months-long hiatus from One Piece... Mostly unintentionally... (I've been bouncing between a lot of other fandoms these past few months but have been brought back by the live action.) Where to start...

We've been in Impel Down for most of the last 40 or so episodes since my last update post. And not to go off on a tangent, but you know... I've noticed One Piece lumped in as one of the shows that's swamped with filler. And that really hasn't been my experience so far.

What I have noticed is that, around this point, the pacing gets pretty atrocious. There's a lot that happens in the journey to try and break Ace out of Impel Down... But is there 40 episodes worth of stuff? I have to argue no. It gets to the point where the first third of the episode is all recap, and barely anything is actually getting accomplished each episode. So that is a little off-putting.

But! There is a lot of good to be found in this arc too!

Okay, admittedly... Buggy was never my favorite... (outside of some brilliantly written fanfiction by stereden on AO3) And I would have been content to never see Mr. 3 again... But it is really cool to meet back up with so many of the old villains who only met their downfall and ended up here because of Luffy and to have them be on our side now. Really puts into perspective the morality of it all. Luffy's always fighting for the right things... but in the eyes of the government and greater world, he's a villain as well.

I've finally met Jimbei... (Jinbe? Jinbei? I've seen all 3, but Crunchyroll's subtitles use the 'm' spelling, so that's what I'm going with.) I haven't seen a lot of him yet, but I like him so far. He's tough, clearly, but also almost goofily polite, in a way that really complements Luffy's general blunt insensitiveness. I think it's still a while before he joins up as the last member of the crew, but I'm looking forward to getting to know him better.

This arc makes it really clear how Bon Clay came to be as beloved in the fandom as he is. And there's a lot that could be said about Ivankov... A lot that would very quickly derail this update and which I'm not totally, personally qualified to weigh in on...

Listen, One Piece's portrayal of queerness isn't perfect. But it's a hell of a lot better than the way so many other shows handle it, especially given the time this aired. (The Impel Down arc was originally adapted throughout late 2009-early 2010. Frankly, the 90s often included more and better handled LGBT+ characters than the 2000s era anime did, up until pretty recently.) Just the fact alone that this group is so out and proud about it and undeniably allied with and wholeheartedly accepted by the main protagonist is a fucking statement all on its own. It's beautiful. I can't underplay that by nitpicking the places the representation fell short by today's standards in a storyline that's 15 years old now. (I know there's a lot of shit in the future that goes down with Sanji in particular... So I may have less generous things to say later, but that's where we stand right now.)

And as for the arc's villains... Magellan's okay. This last episode particularly, the venom demon attack was pretty badass. (That image of the mushrooming skulls as it formed it was so good.)

And Hannyabal... Okay, there were some early moments that made me laugh. The gag about how he's clearly lusting for the warden's job and not great about hiding it could be pretty funny. But by the time he's defeated... and the anime starts in on a dramatic backstory for this asshole, trying to make him sympathetic... All I could say was, 'You've gotta be fucking kidding me...' I know it's kind of One Piece's thing to try and redeem everyone, but I was so bogged down by the pacing at that point... I did not have the patience for it. Good riddance to that dude in particular.

Episode 450 ends with our ragtag group officially making it out... And man, it's cool to see some of these older characters again, but I already miss our crew so much... Especially knowing what's coming...

I'm sure I've already mentioned that I know the bigger Marineford spoilers... But I'm still not sure I'm ready to see it firsthand.

Wish me luck.

[brucebocchi]

fresh off of watching them back to back, i went ahead and read the manga for both call of the night and insomniacs after school, also back to back, over the weekend. insomniacs just got a new chapter a couple hours ago so i'm more comfortable talking about it now than i was at like 2am yesterday

call of the night is a lot meatier than i was expecting given the anime's vibes-based economy, but i guess that's to be expected given that it's been running for nearly four years now and has been slowly building its world from the jump. i came to really like the characters outside of just the deuteragonists more than i was expecting to just from the anime; a lot of them get good time to shine, and even as new characters are introduced it's neat to see them slowly join the gang.

and while it's absolutely a coming of age story and in some parts a metaphor for puberty a la FLCL, i still have some real issues with how it handles its 14 year old characters and how these decades- if not centuries-old vampires are so blase with them. i have much bigger issues with how leery it gets with akira. i know that this is the pill you often have to swallow with anime and manga but jesus christ, nothing is improved by having people comment on a 14 year old girl's chest. kou and mahiru's situationships can be kind of fundamentally uncomfortable to witness, so i really can't blame anyone for writing this off because of it.

the hokkaido arc was great though. at some points kiku reminded me of makima to a very distressing degree, and i have to imagine that was intentional (there were denji and makima cosplayers in that one halloween spread, so). and to my previous point, i was... very nervous about where that was headed. a sad end to that one, but worthwhile.

also there's a character who is very tall and instantly falls in love with any guy who pays attention to her, and her name is rila echigo. echigo rila. ecchi gorilla. terrific.

as for insomniacs, not much more i need to say past what i've said about the anime! it's lovely and it stays lovely past what the anime adapted. there's at least another season's worth of material still out there, or there will be in another few months, but i feel like the anime kinda ended with no intention of continuing. and like i said after i finished the anime, i'd be okay with that.

that's not to say it doesn't stay good after volume 6! ganta and isaki go public with their relationship and it goes back to being a lovely high school slice of life again, with less focus on the insomnia itself and more on the root causes of their respective anxieties. and in isaki's case, you can guess where it goes. it flirts with going full fault in our stars on several occasions, which is partly why i wanted to see how today's chapter goes before saying anything, but i'm pleased to report that there is no tragedy porn here.

i have hangups with call of the night that kind of prevent me from recommending it broadly, so maybe ease yourself in through the anime and just take in the aesthetic if you're curious. insomniacs after school, though, get the fuck on that.

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

What do you think of the PR campaigns for the Oscars this year? I've noticed that with Christopher Nolan and Bradley Cooper, the campaigns seem to center around constant visibility and outrageous statements/anecdotes. Feels like the obvious "all press is good press" mantra.

What is surprising is how much of the promotional campaign of their movies is centered around their figures, more than anything. It's all about their process, and somehow less about the entire cast or the film itself. Not to say that there aren't any other PR directions for these productions, but I'm also not finding out statements from Cillian Murphy every single week, despite him being a favorite in his category.

As Stellan Skarsgard pointed out in one of his interviews last week, getting an Oscar means spending a lot of millions of dollars, which is what we've been seeing for the past few months. But I'm not sure what the purpose of their strategy is.

Cooper won't win a thing and he knows it. It became obvious quite early and it must have hurt, given those apparent 6 six years of learning how to conduct because acting doesn't cross his mind. His latest statements about his daughter are a step too far and I have had enough. It's like they went with making the public a bit outraged, but with no actual effect towards the award season. It's all in vain or perhaps it's all about painting Cooper as this weirdo/excentric, when he'll always fit more the image of a guy who acts in the Hungover movies.

In Nolan's case, due to the strikes last summer, it was sort of understandable for him to take center stage. Someone had to promote Oppenheimer at that time. I felt microdozed by facts about Nolan and facts about his genius work on the movie ever since and I really despise it.

I genuinely don't see how his behavior on set (which gets really close to HR violations in my opinion) are a good way to garner positive attention. I might find myself in a minority here because so far I don't really see a lot of people finding any of it weird.

The entire purpose of the PR campaign was to distance Nolan from his reputation as a blockbuster director with films that have box office success, to that of a sort of auteur (whatever that means now for the Hollywood industry). I find that it fails, particularly when you add him next to several other directors that have made their mark this year. Nolan is like the equivalent of a tech bro that now tries to pass as an artist. I guess the investment is working, the millions of dollars won't go to waste and he will get his awards because beating someone like Scorsese and his work on KOTFM (and lots of others) makes complete sense for the guy that is no more than a director who is actually at the level of making comic book adaptions.

[citrus-cactus]

I'm sure I've read those notes at some point (though it's been at least a few months... I've also listened to the DVD commentary on both "City of Stone" and "Avalon" more recently, and I'm trying to remember if there were any interesting tidbits in there). But there are definitely infinite-time-loop shenanigans at play in this moment for the reason you stated! I also remember Greg saying (somewhere in the archives of askgreg, most likely) that Demona has lived a bit of a charmed life, meaning that some twist of fate or another has always prevented her from sustaining truly grievous bodily harm or being smashed during the day. Regardless of whether that’s due to any last-minute intervention by the Weird Sisters or an added benefit of the original spell, it certainly is handy!—and it is interesting, since it would presumably apply to Macbeth as well.

One of the things that I find so compelling about their situation from a narrative perspective is that both of them were more-or-less elevated to the status of a "Chosen One" by the Archmage and Weird Sisters— it's just that superficially, the reason for this was 100% trite, petty, and motivated by malice, not to mention these “Chosen Ones” are flawed individuals who neither fit into nor attempt to conform to the stereotypical Hero’s Journey archetype (unlike, say, King Arthur or Rory/Cú Chulainn, who are both framed in a much more noble/fulfilling-a-heroic-destiny light than Macbeth is... though both of them have decidedly less screen/page time than he does, and who’s to say what would have happened if they’d gotten their respective spinoff series?). If there's some grander design at work in Macbeth’s life than the Archmage's schemes (that he was ordained by fate, or a time paradox, or what-have-you), I don't think there are any clear answers. Both he and Demona have been free of the Archmage's intended use for them since 1995, so... was that world domination plan really the sole purpose of their continued existence? Was it, really? In a thousand years, both of them have surely had an effect on certain events. They're woven into the fabric of history, whether they want to be or not. Demona's going to keep doing her thing (until she has some sort of change of heart), but what major or minor threads has Macbeth pulled on in the past? What does the future have in store for him? Why can't he yet be free of this pain??

I also think that, given he's always been in the position of being neither a true villain nor a true hero, Macbeth must occasionally struggle with the idea of being "chosen" for reasons he's never been able to understand (because surely he's framed his own existence through that "Chosen One" lens at least once in a while). He resents and is exhausted by his lifespan... but evidence suggests he hasn't given up on himself completely. He's stayed in peak physical condition, adapted to many iterations of the “modern world," learned a lot (including some magic), and attempted to do some good over the centuries—but very few (if any!) of those actions have been motivated purely by altruism. He just has a lot of time to kill... and a gargoyle to boot (if only he could!). On his worst days, he probably would say his sole purpose is to suffer… but he does seem to want to find meaning and a higher calling on occasion, it just has to be on his terms (see "Pendragon”).

I was being facetious in the original post, but what I really do find most interesting about his situation is the interplay between (seemingly) random happenstance and grand design, plus the nuance of character that that allows him to be both honorable and selfish, full of hopelessness and pride. He and Demona are simultaneously charmed and cursed, responsible for their own actions but manipulated by external forces beyond their control, and that’s just… so complex and fascinating and sympathetic and cool(/cruel). Meanwhile, the Weird Sisters can be mysterious and inscrutable when they want to be, and it's unlikely they’re truly done with the pair of them, either. There are indeed many possibilities to ponder! :D

Love that the Archmage is all "yeah my grand plan hinges on using my former apprentice as cannon fodder as well as this Some Guy who was born 20 years after I ceased to exist in linear time." Incredible, absolutely flawless, A+

[wander-wren]

Ok, here goes! I wanna preface this by saying that I've been in a serious writing rut for like the past six months, to the point where I've pretty much given up on my WIPs. It's not that I don't want to write, or that I don't have ideas, but the actual work of sitting down and getting words on the page feels like pulling my own teeth out. So I'm conducting research on writers I admire to see if I can learn anything from their processes. And so, without further ado:

How long have you been writing?

Do you start out knowing what's gonna happen in the story, like with a plot chart and everything, or does the story take shape as you go along?

Do you write in big chunks or a little bit at a time?

How many drafts do you typically do? Is your first draft usually like word vomit or something a little more polished?

Do you have a beta reader?

What's your editing process like?

Is there a certain time or place where you prefer to write?

What do you consider the hardest part of writing?

Have you ever struggled with perfectionism in your writing? Do you have any tricks for bypassing that "EVERYTHING MUST BE PERFECT" wall in your brain and just get words on the page?

That was a lot lol. Of course you don't have to answer all of them, but any insight you're willing to give will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you very much <3

woo okay let’s tackle this!! under the cut bc Long. strap in folks

How Long Have You Been Writing?

in any shape or form: since maybe 6 years old? but i started writing fanfiction at 12, started getting serious about writing in general at 15, and threw myself full tilt into fanfic at 17, so currently i haven’t written original fiction Really since june. which is a complicated answer. you didn’t specify if this is about original stuff or fic, but i’ll try to answer from both perspectives bc my process for each is wildly different.

Plotter or Pantser?

for both original fiction and longfics, i’m solidly in the middle; i usually start with a list of things i want to happen, and i always need some idea of where i’m going to end, even if it changes later. from there, i start writing the first few chapters. when i feel like i have a more solid grasp of where i’m going, i outline chapter-by-chapter through one “section” of the story, however i define that. once im done that section, i outline again. this gives me a lot more freedom to change things as i go and adapt to new decisions i make. i also add random ideas to my masterlist of stuff that i might want to include further down the line as i go.

with oneshots i never, or almost never, have a plan beyond the premise/summary, so they frequently get away from me and do all kinds of random things.

Big Chunks or Little At a Time?

i’m gonna say big chunks? i have adhd so i frequently hyperfixate on my projects and can work on them for hours and hours on end, which i don’t exactly recommend, but it happens. at any given time i have a “main” wip or two that i work on pretty much daily, and then others scattered around that i might pick up for a few hours if i get bored. but i try to finish fics as fast as possible bc if i move on there’s a 50% chance i won’t come back, at least not for months.

How Many Drafts?

for fanfic? one. every once in a while if something is REALLY not working i’ll rewrite sections, so that’s like 1.5 drafts, but it’s free labor i do for fun so while i take pride in it and want it to be good, i’m not going to expend THAT much energy, yknow?

for original stuff, like if we’re talking novels…at least three drafts? i haven’t gotten that far with most of my projects so i’m still learning about myself, but my general process seems to be that the first draft is about getting the main story beats and the emotions down. my first draft is always very heavy on the angst and catharsis, sometimes overdramatically so, bc there’s less plot to hold it up. then my second draft is more about plot and realism and structure, but i tend to lose some emotions in trying to do that. my third draft is about combining the two and continuing to polish stories/characters. i haven’t written any fourth drafts, so i’m not sure whats beyond that.

and my first drafts tend to be very polished. i wrote a little rant explaining the history of that aspect of my writing not long ago, so i won’t get into it again. part of that is just how i’ve always been, part of it is practice. i do feel sometimes that i write pretty enough to cover up structural/realism/continuity issues, which can be frustrating when looking for critique from people who can’t see past it.

Beta Reader?

yes! i have a small group of writer friends that i share things with, but that is pretty much always for cheer-betaing and minor critiques unless i ask for actual criticism, which i only do with my original stuff when i get to the second/third draft, partly bc it’s not ready before then, and partly because it’s a lot of mental work for the other people. shoutout to my main bnha betas, @rangerlexi and @spacetime-enthusiast, who are, as i said, mainly cheer betas, tho mav is also my resident bakugo expert bc he’s very hard for me to write sometimes. getting better tho!

can’t recommend finding betas enough, even if just to cheer you on. hell, i can’t make promises about super long works or original fic, but i’m always down to read fanfiction. i don’t even bite, i swear. obligatory note that you do gotta trust ppl tho yada yada thieves exist and mean people exist etc etc

Editing Process?

for fanfic: typically i reread one or two times right away while all my thought processes are fresh in my head. i’ll make spot edits and add or delete things here and there. then depending on how impatient i am, i wait a day or a few to send it to my betas and/or reread and edit again myself. then i post and i’m done!

for original works: i don’t bother to edit first drafts, or even second drafts sometimes. when it’s time to prep for a second draft, i reread and make notes on what i want to keep and what i want to change, then use those notes to make my next skeletal outline. usually my stories change drastically from one draft to the next, but the last time i did a third draft, i wanted it to be pretty close to the structure of the second, so instead of outlining at all i just did splitscreen and wrote the whole third draft while looking at the second, sometimes basically retyping a page word for word, sometimes going “well, that chapter is pointless” and skipping it entirely. when it came to line editing, i used hemingway bc i don’t trust computers to do my editing, BUT the different colored highlights were helpful to break up the monotony. hemingway is a lot more focused on concise/readable sentences and cutting adverbs than anything else, which was good for me as an overwriter. i cut 22k words the last time i used it, from a 130k draft.

Best Time or Place?

not really? i write everywhere and constantly. the advice about finding your niche of productive time never seemed to work for me because, as long as i’m not blocked/stuck, i pretty much always kind of want to write.

Hardest Part?

DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS OH MY GOD IT’S THE WORST. sorry. i hate. doing that. becoming friends? becoming family? falling in love? god. kill me. i love all [thing] to lovers in reading but in writing i tend to drift toward best friends to lovers bc then it’s kind of close. i love writing about people in relationships, tension and banter and softness and fights, but getting there is so awful.

Are You a Perfectionist? Tips?

hm. gonna try to answer this honestly and in the least asshole-ish sounding way possible lmao.

i’m not really a perfectionist? not in writing, anyway, idk about other stuff. but also it’s just like…i know i’m good at what i do. not perfect—i can see flaws in things i wrote even a few months ago—but good. More Than Satisfactory. sometimes fics just don’t work and i abandon them, sometimes it takes me a while to figure out what i’m doing, but i’m not generally paralyzed by the need for anything to be perfect because i’m happy where i am?

that’s a hard mindset to get to, though. and you will for sure feel good about something and then dislike it in a few months or years. that’s just the nature of improving your craft. i think if i had any tips, though, i would say a few things.

watch this video essay, the whole thing but specifically 5:39-9:20. i love cj the x and i agree with many of his takes on art, so. some of his other essays might be helpful as well but that one i know talks specifically about perfectionism.

or if you don’t want to, just have this quote that melted my brain a little when i heard it. “perfectionism is not an inherently bad impulse. but you have to earn that. you don’t get to be a perfectionist if it is unproven up to this point if you can even make a thing.”

read bad stories. like genuinely i’m such a petty spiteful person oops so. i don’t really seek them out much but reading like, really really badly written work is like “well, if that’s the bar, at least i’ve cleared it.” obviously don’t go attacking creators or posting the work to make fun of it, but read it. maybe make notes of exactly why it’s bad for yourself, even, it might help you get better at identifying problems in your own work if you can figure out why things are bad beyond just “i don’t like it.” there, that sounds less mean, right?

just post your shit, tbh. put it out there. most people on the internet, in fandoms, they’re nice, if you curate your space properly. it’s a confidence boost! put something out there that’s less-than-perfect, get a couple of kudos and realize the world didn’t implode, and maybe, maybe it’ll be easier to start/finish next time.

you kinda just gotta accept that you need practice, my dude. like. you can’t closer to perfect without work!! we know this!! just do it. i know i just said to post things but also if you hate what you made no one!! else!! has!! to!! know!! it can be a secret. it’s okay. this coming from a chronic oversharer lol i have the worst time trying not to shove my stuff at people….which, actually, kinda worked better as motivation for me, bc i couldn’t share something unfinished, so i had to Do The Thing in order to get validation/feedback/critique like i wanted. so either way, whatever works better for you.

The End

so yeah, those are my answers, i guess? i hope that makes sense and helps and everything!! i’m really sorry you’re in a rut, that’s the worst. if you have any more questions or just wanna chat about what you’re writing feel free to come say hi again!

[vanherst]

Petra

Another week has been and gone, and I think it's a funny how rebanding is usually more most active I ever get in terms of production.

Another thing I've been brewing on for the past couple months is trying to develop both myself and my own characters through drawing in my spare time. And after working on a few drawings across the past couple months, it's taken me this long to realise that I'm not an artist.

It's really bizare to me that it's taken me this long to realise after the past couple of years of enjoying drawing, and stewing on the idea of not being able to put on the paper EXACTLY what I want. Even saying that, ironically enough, I've never considered myself an artist in the first place. I never considered myself as one is more of a pretentious sense of not wanting to identify as something I'm not, which once again is ironically, something I never realised I was even doing.

That being said, I do think I'm particulary good at concept development, and for the past year or so I've been developing a new character that I think envisions my internal personality struggle, or something that at least envisions me as my artistic merit, rather than said personality struggle with a hint of anxiety.

Left: Original concept art of Petra, designed by me mid 2020. Right: A Commissioned piece of Petra, drawn by Sinnerpen mid 2021.

Here's Petra, a messy amalgamation of concept art created by myself and from now on will be the design I use to try and encapsulate myself as an artist, and finally envisioned in a manor I'm pretty happy with.

She's been a pretty simple design I envisioned as of a year or so ago, but with internal conflictions as which I wanted to do with myself, both as an artist and a person, I really didn't know what to do with her. I think my main struggle revolved around thinking that myself was the end all and be all of which I wanted to envision something to be, and then never being happy with it. When in reality I think I just needed someone else to capsulate inwhich I want to envision, as I don't think I will ever be happy with the drawings I create and share.

And how else to do that but get someone capable with doing a better job than I could?

That being said, I did some additional work after the fact to see how I could incorperate her into my branding moreso than just a profile picture, because I really do admire the drawing Sinnerpen managed to do for her.

And here we have it! A final result of a week of work and a month of mental torment. Especially with the logo having to specifically be designed around the new design elements I ended up giving to Petra as of late. But hopefully, you can agree that it's all been connected together in a nice little bow apposed to my previous set of branding.

I would have posted this earlier but I had to do a few adjustments to adapt this for all platforms I'm currently active on, usually I have a few issues with this due to something like the logo not working or looking as effective as possible due to the resolution given for a social media banner. But I have to say, for once I have to say I have no problems, which really is a first.

This logo adaption is long overdue and the lesson being that I think I'll stick to concept art and development rather than trying to earn the artist tag which I know i damn well don't deserve.

Looking back it's really bizzare to me all these issues with trying to point a finger at something and identify as it, I just never was able to see the hypocracy of trying to be something that I said I was never claiming to be. It's hard to put into words. Especially as someone not very good at formulating a sentence which relies on the muddled mess of mental amnesia of how I try and label myself and my personality.

It's a weird bunch of emotions I'm feeling right now, but hopefully in the long term I'll be a much better person for it. Either way, I hope you enjoy the design elements I've managed to produce out of this and I really hope you like Petra.

[leicamoments]

No One Cares

...or so it seems...

The photography market is saturated, making standing out from the crowd very difficult, if not impossible.

There are poor, good and exceptional photographers - their status of being an amateur, semi-pro or professional doesn't matter.

What does matter, is that there are an eye-watering number of photos posted every day.

For example...in 2014, one Internet trends report, estimated that an average of 1.8 billion digital images were uploaded every single day. 657 billion photos per year!

That was seven years ago, just imagine how that number has increased with better technology and easier access to social media now.

This makes the value of individual images seemingly almost worthless, although the recent trend of selling digital photos online as NFT's may [at face value] counter this argument.

An individual image may have taken a lot of planning, required a huge amount of effort to be captured, needed specific [expensive] equipment, and ultimately taken years of training and skill to realise...but no one cares.

People briefly look at it online - if you are lucky, hit the like button and then...they move on. Once looked at for five seconds, your image is yesterday's news.

Social media platforms allowed you at one time to send out your images to all those that followed you, but increasingly, they are allowing you to reach all your followers only if you pay to promote your work.

Many agencies are racing to the bottom with the price they sell your photos for. Not too long ago, getting anything from £10 to a few hundreds of pounds for the licensed use of an image meant you could make a living.

But the increased use of the subscription business model, means that many photographers are receiving just pennies for those same images now...nowhere near commensurate with the effort and skill that may have been involved in creating each photo.

User generated content policies of many news outlets (printed, online and TV) means that images are given away for free - with the promise of a 'credit'. Professional photographers can't survive like this.

A recession, Brexit and a pandemic have added to the difficulties for all photographers to make a living in what is a very competitive market.

I know that virtually all professional photographers have suffered over the past five years; some have hung on to their existing business model; some have adapted how they work; some have evolved their skillset and what they offer; and others have jumped tracks completely.

Many have simply left the industry.

I've seen 'poor' and 'average' photographers do really well - because they market themselves brilliantly; and I've seen fantastic photographers struggle because they don't know how to sell themselves and their images.

Ultimately it isn't about the 'cult of the photographer'...it is about the story/emotion/message conveyed by either a single frame or a series of images.

Personally, I am sick of seeing 'a name' of a photographer and all about them, rather than their images. Show me the images, show me how consistently great you are.

Simply - put up or shut up!

As a freelancer, I haven't received a single penny in support from the government or banks through the enforced isolation of the pandemic.

No furlough - essentially, if I don't work...the money required to live, pay the bills, put food on the table stops coming in.

This has been a highly frustrating time, especially since [as a business] we refreshed our camera systems, drones, video equipment, computer systems and software in 2019...based on a three year return.

That obviously has been blown apart completely.

It is clear there are more changes coming in the next 12 to 24 months and we all need to adapt and get ahead of the curve once more. Caught Light Photography intends to be at the forefront.