What day is it?

Face of an unemployed

Unemployment. The big word floating around the country at the moment. It's been approximately 74 days. Some days I savour every minute just being lazy and unproductive but after a while, doing nothing and lazing does get tiring. I've been meaning to find something productive to tackle with and one of them is to try and re-ignite this site more but I am not going to lie - it's hard to find any inspiration to blog about when all you do is...nothing.

But there have been a lot of 'maybe I shoulds' running through my head. For starter - lose some extra weight. Considering that I have not really been active for more than a year, with all the time I've got, I should just do some form of workout. But (yeah, it's always the but that gets the best of me) I don't have that drive in me like I used to.

Maybe I should start doing more with my social media platforms like videography or photography. But I don't know what I should capture. I do get a spur of inspiration on some days but not all the time. Like this last video where I decided to capture my mom baking her pineapple tarts. For someone who studied and majored in video production, I'm impressed with what can be achieved by simply using a smartphone and a few apps.

Which led me to my next thing that I decided to take advantage of whilst being unemployed. Decluttering. Over the past few days, I've started going through old stuffs laying around the house and selling it off on Facebook. One of my prized possession which I held for almost 11 years and probably invested thousand of dollars into its accessories, I ended up selling it for $800.

My beloved Nikon D80 kit. 

This was definitely hard to let go but I've had my fun with it for a good number of years and it's been sitting on the floor for the past 3 to 4 years. So I figured why not just sell it off while there is still some value in it and while it is still in a working condition. I suppose the hardest part isn't really letting go of the items itself but more of letting go of the identity. I think one of the main reason why I clung on to this old kit for so long was because it reaffirms me still being a 'photographer' despite not having any shoots for so many years.

But I still believe photography is an art where it all boils down to an individual's perspective. It is the eye that makes a photographer not the gear. Plus, with smartphones today (in particular the latest iPhones) churning out capabilities as good as a decent camera, I figured it should be more than enough for me to capture pictures which most of the time, ends up on a 4 by 4 frame on my Instagram. So really, there's no need for a gazillion full frame megapixels gear for me. At least not at this moment.

It did feel good eventually - making some quick bucks from selling off items that you once held on to so dearly. As the saying goes, one man's trash is another man's treasure. Rule of thumb to start decluttering - if you haven't utilised something for the past 6 months to a year, you should probably get rid of it. Give it a try!