Last night I went to a solstice celebration.  We arranged ourselves in a circle and one by one we walked up to an altar and lit a  candle. Then we took a percussion instrument from a basket and went back to our seat where we joined the drumming started by Susie, the officiator. The room progressively got lighter and lighter as each candle was lit. It also got louder and louder as each person began drumming. It was amazing and so fun. As we were drumming I thought about what I wanted for the coming year. What are the desires of my heart? Photography instantly popped up, as it usually does. I also want to delve deeper into the Dharma. I also thought about how I want to experience more love and light. I feel like the world needs more of it lately. These are the things I thought about as I was clacking my two sticks together. It felt good. It felt good to get in touch with that part of myself that can keep a beat. It is primal. You don’t think. You just do.

Instagram. I decided to quit Instagram, like many others. You probably already know what happened. They made it clear in their TOS that they would use our photos in advertisements. Facebook currently does this and I hate it. It is sleazy. Frankly, I am fed up with it. I put up with Facebook because everyone I know is on it and I actually use it to communicate with people. But Instagram? No. I don’t care if the photos I have over there are crap, it still doesn’t change the fact that this practice is sleazy. Because of the backlash, Instagram changed their mind and I guess the new story now is that they are not going to use our photos? I guess? I don’t know and I don’t care because I am not going back. The fact is that I have been wanting to scale back a bit anyway. I use Flickr and I pay for the service so I will use it for all of my photo hosting needs. Plus, they have a fantastic new iPhone app (how excellent is their timing?!?).

I am also thinking about starting up my daily photography blog again. Maybe do a daily Hipstamatic post or something? I love playing around with iPhone photo apps and this seems like a good place to post these photos. I have a nerdy plan for this that is mind-blowing. Have you heard of IFTTT? It is the best website ever. I created a recipe that will post a new photo post when I upoad and tag a Flickr photo. I used it for yesterday’s Wayback Wednesday post. I am going to use this to post images to my photoblog from Flickr so that I only have to upload to one service. I am in nerd heaven right now.

Related articles

• Instagram’s new terms of service: How Facebook got everything wrong (deathandtaxesmag.com)
• National Geographic Is Suspending Posts on Instagram Because of Instagram’s New Icky Terms of Service (gizmodo.com)
• Why I Quit Instagram And Am Moving To Flickr (readwrite.com)
• Instagram photos in ads: Your photos may be used in ads (wjla.com)
• Instagram’s Absurd New Terms of Use Agreement Is Already Being Called Its ‘Suicide Note’ (gawker.com)
• Facebook’s Instagram monetization plan: License users’ photos without paying for them (bgr.com)
• Instagram: ‘We Don’t Want To Sell Your Photos’ (Updating) (gizmodo.com)
• The Real Instagram Lesson: Poor Writing Gets You Into Trouble (lifehacker.com.au)