Photos of 2024
My top ten favorite essay thumbnails.
One of the most enjoyable parts of starting this SubStack has become creating the photos to represent my weekly essays. It’s a simple part of a simple routine, but the essay isn’t complete (and I can’t click publish) until I shoot, clean up, and resize the thumbnail.
90% of the time, I take a new photo. If I’m stuck for an object or know I have the perfect one in the archives, I’ll grab that and resize it to match the others.
Early on, I used a Canon 7D DLSR and lens extension tubes to achieve the macro effect. I don’t have a good macro lens, and I’m cheap so I choose to use workarounds rather than fork over any cash for one. However, I quickly swapped to using an 8x lupe for magnification and my iPhone to take the photos. The slowness of the old way caused just enough pain to force this easier, though less sophisticated, alternative.
The connection each thumbnail shares with the writing is at times as abstract as the image itself, but I always include something that relates directly to a part of the essay. My only other criteria is that it’s visually interesting (completely subjective and gut-generated) and as sharp as I can get it with a handheld setup. The first criteria is too fluid to make a tripod viable, as is the seat-of-the-pants nature of this whole operation.
My aim isn’t to confuse or perplex my readers, but I suspect if anything more than a passing thought is paid to these thumbnails, that’s the likely outcome. Rule of thumb - if my readers can’t even identify what the photo is, it’s unlikely they’ll see the connection. Anyway, in my effort to avoid overthinking about these things (I obviously failed), I tend to just shoot first ask questions later.
Let me know in the comments if you like/hate/care that my photos are abstract/obtuse/opaque and may or may not have any appreciable relation to what the story is about. Or do you like the mystery?
And if you do hate them, allow my identification of the subject and connection each of these photos had to the story it represented to be an olive branch. The connections between essay and photo are in bold:
From Tribulations, Fifth Grade Edition (July). Fifth grade = elementary school. Elementary school = arts and crafts. Arts and crafts = colored pencils. This was a little daddy/daughter coupon book my daughter made me that I could redeem for 1 on 1 time with her. At the time of this writing, I’ve redeemed two: Once for a nice brunch + shopping, and one for ice skating. Looks like I’m overdue for another one.
From The Magic Touch (August). Titling a story is a form of abstraction already, so many times I key into the title for photo inspiration. To do magic, what do magicians often need? Playing cards.
From Don't Worry, It's Not Important (December). Things always seem important at first, but let enough time pass and we find out the truth. Time = timepiece.
From Pains In The Ass (January). This one I had to pull from the archives. The essay was about learning valuable lessons from people with whom you’d like to spend less time. Something about that evoked thoughts of unwanted things, like rust on a nail. A bit of a stretch, I admit.
From Natural Life Enhancement (February). Another stretch, this one was a Hail Mary. Read nothing more into this than I wanted something beautiful and full of texture, and in no way intended to relate a male chicken, or cockerel, with the words natural or enhancement. Moving on.
From The Terror of Inaction (March). The fear of doing something wrong is only exceeded by that of not doing anything at all. Inaction leads to the build up of many things. If you don’t clean, the spiders (and their webs) will come for you.
From Reliving a Moment (March). In the way memories can sometimes be dreamlike, I wanted to create an image with an ephemeral quality. So far, the photos above have been recognizable enough, but I’m betting this one would stump any would-be guessers. This is a close-up of some leftover watercolor on a small plastic palette I had on my drawing table.
From Aim For Big (June). Some photos reference the ideas, feelings, or characters of a story, but this one was all about the setting. Sporting goods. This is a shot of one of the hundreds of shoes I sold in my time at City Sports in Philadelphia. My Adidas.
From Cause, Intent, Belief, & Results (April). When a story I tell wanders between settings, sometimes it’s difficult to pin down a worthy thumbnail. This example came to me from the second word in this essay, tribesman. It got me thinking about their jewelry, markings, and clothing, and I had this coaster my mother made out of Diamond Dots.
From Build It Anyway (November). What do you need to build anything? Fasteners.
Here’s to a new year and new creative possibilities. Keep going.
Love,
-Tim