Accumulation - and Episode 45 of Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres

Even talk radio presenters get a break when the news or ads come on, so I think it should be OK to admit that I don't have to talk non-stop, uninterupted for 2½ hours for the podcast.

I need to make sure they are a bit shorter.

Even accounting for the fact there was problem near the beginning where the connection froze, and I've edited out close to 10 minutes worth of me trying to work out whether I'm still connected or not, last night was still the longest podcast to date.

And it was too long.

Not just for the couple of people who said they had to head off once we got past the 2 hour mark, and not just for those in different time zones meaning they were up until 3.30am.

It was too long for me.

The adrenaline can keep me going, but when I stop I suddenly realise I've overdone it, and the overwhelming exhaustion is no good for a man who is already living with Chronic Fatigue.

But I can't call it a night at that point – the recording still needs to be edited (another couple of hours) and rendered (which takes several hours, so I leave it to chug away doing that overnight).

Although I will have a wee break – go out into the garden and do a bit of Tai Chi, then come back into the warmth of the house for a cup of tea – I then have to crack on if there's any chance of me getting to bed before 2am.

So the problem is one of accumulation.

Each extra minute of air-time, means finishing later, being more tired, having more to edit, being slower at editing because I'm more tired, and needing a bigger buffer before I go to bed to unwind enough to be able to sleep.

Why not deal with it in the morning then?

Because I tried that back in the early podcasts, and the knock-on effect of accumulated time was even worse.

On Wednesdays, I also write the blog post, upload the video to YouTube (which takes more time, the longer the recording), sort out all the things like tags, descriptions, custom thumbnail (that has my logo on it rather than a random screenshot), and then create all the links to this blog and the video on the different social media platforms.

So if I don't start editing until Wednesday, I won't finish the rest of it until Thursday – which is currently reserved for me being flaked out all day, dribbling into my chest.

There is apparently a fairly straight forward solution: keep the podcasts shorter

Somewhere around an hour, possibly up to and hour and a half, but to avoid getting anywhere close to two hours, let alone beyond.

But the problem with that is, who's going to convince the (hyped up, slightly manic, show-off, performer) version of me, who is actually doing the podcasts live, and is so caught up in the moment loses all track of time until it's too late?

Meanwhile, here's last night's podcast, full of juicy ideas of ways you can photograph at home.

And you can hit the pause button every time you need a break...

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0:00 - Welcome, what's coming up, greetings and comments, and problems with the feed freezing up
5:56 - Introduction to the Still Life Photo Challenge
8:18 - Reviewing images on the theme "Still Life" submitted to the Facebook Group, "Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres"
51:59 - Understanding Still Life is about "creation" rather than "capture"
2:19:00 - Coming up next week
2:20:45 - End

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And, or course, if you would like to submit a photo for feedback, or just ask a photography related question, then do join my Understanding Photography with Kim Ayres  Facebook group and I will put it into the following podcast:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/240842990388815/