Always Love (write.as/richardam/)

On it’s website, write.as describes itself as “A place for focussed writing…with no distractions to interupt your creative flow”. It’s a personal space for writing and publishing away from all the noise of social-media that immediately reminded me a lot of early days Tumblr, with it’s minimalism and customisation. Simpler times. Through recommendation, as creative writing practice, and as a result of recent ongoing meh-ntal health problems, I decided to sign up and give it a shot.

It feels odd doing so and even starting it as another blog effort because while I plan to natter away and be very much here, there’s an opportunity to do something different there as well. My thinking is it’s going to be (mostly) daily updates and a log full of positive ideas, happy feelings, and good memories. Just optimism. Always love, like the title suggests. You know, the stuff the internet doesn’t *really* favour. Obviously with 2020 in full effect it’s been doom after doom, so I’ve enjoyed trying to pick out some pleasant experiences and thoughts each day, and reminisce accordingly. What is happiness? Well, it’s hopefully a collection of some of these concepts. As a project I’m not sure how long i’m planning to run it, but if anyone wants to check it out or follow for some vibes (ugh?) give it a look. It’s all a bit experimental and looser than what i’m hoping to do here, but I like that sketchbook feeling of it, and crucially, I’m finding it helping with both the mental health and creative sides of things at the moment.

Films watched during UK Lockdown

I’m back to work properly tomorrow, I’ve had a haircut, and I’ve been out for lunch- I guess that’s lockdown fully over?

It’s been a really difficult few weeks that I’ve moaned about plenty already but in in that time I’ve missed having nights out/dinner, seeing friends, and most surprisingly of all: going to the cinema. I’ve missed the new film build-up, the hype, trailers, just the actual event of going to the cinema. The Coronavirus made for a nice backlog later in the year and next year as all the studios delay and postpone releases, but with all the stay-at-home practices in full effect, the last few weeks I watched a lot of films at home instead. Some of the films were new watches, but a vast majority of films watched were big, easy, familiar comforts instead, films sometimes just as rewarding even for the Nth time.

We watched The Dark Knight “trilogy”, all the Daniel Craig Bonds, The Hobbit/LOTR franchise (without ROTK, odd), lots of Taika Waititi, and more horrors than usual. 64 films in total, including plenty of my faves. I made a big list of everything I watched on Letterbox’d- it’s maybe not the most important film listing ever, but as we move further away from Lockdown (and hopefully Covid_19) it becomes worth remembering and tracking more. All those lost months. I’m having similar thoughts with my diary as we go through it, with the optimism that remembering all this in a year’s time will be a surreal, distant dream. We’ll see.

My own local cinema is still currently closed until the end of the month. I’m not sure if i’m quite ready to attend opening weekend of any film going forward, but it’s good to start taking steps “back to normal”.

1 Second Everyday: Two Years Later

As of this month i’ve now been filming -and sharing!- my 1 Second Everyday for two whole years! I never quite expected the project to get so far- I started using the app almost randomly and only expected to get one month or so out of it, but making these videos is something I now rely on daily. These last few months have been quite difficult but i’ve still enjoyed putting the videos together, so maybe i’ll just do this forever? Here is the video for June 2020- as ever i’ll be stiching all the months together at year end to make something bigger.

(Did you know embedding Instagram content -and videos!- on Squarespace are a lot harder than necessary? Today I found out they are)

June was a month of distancing, double birthdays, and doing #1secondeveryday for two whole years. Click for sound!

1 Second Everyday : 2019

2019 was pretty great. I listed some of the good and bad things about the year, and throughout the last 12 months I continued my 1 Second Everyday.

Using the app is now something that’s pretty much autonomous in my life- filming/recording each day is just a given. For as much enjoyment as I get out of making the video however, the greater delight is watching it afterwards, and seeing everything that’s happened.

The same is true here, where there is no way i’d have remembered nearly as much of the year as I would’ve without documenting it like this. The app and project have been a great way of identifying the smaller moments, scenes, and events of my life, and piecing them together like the patchwork of smaller moments -that life in itself is- has been incredibly rewarding. Equally fulfilling has been friends and family saying they look forward to seeing each completed month on Instagram- sometimes i’m invariably looking too closely at these seconds so its great to hear things like that.

As with last time i’ve uploaded the full video over on YouTube- any likes, comments or subscribes would be greatly appreciated!

1 Second Everyday : The First Seven Months! (2018)

Beginning in June 2018 I started using an app called 1SE to record a second of my life everyday. Piecing them all together made a slideshow carousel of all the small moments that made each month- here’s the completed project for 2018.

It’s something that I enjoyed doing immensely, encouraging me to plan days a little better, do things a bit more out of the ordinary and most of all, reflect on everything that I had completed/achieved or experienced over any given time period. Very rewarding! The video was part documentary/part vloggy, and part art-project, with lots of stuff covered.

So from June 1st 2018 to December 31st 2018, here’s my first year using the app. I’m hoping to keep doing this as long as I can- any likes or subscribes would be greatly appreciated!

We went to Amsterdam for a long weekend in September 2017. Here's the work-safe cut with lots of tourist/art/dog footage. Will hopefully be going back again at some point to explore a bit more of the country (and for longer!)- definitely one of the best places i've ever been to.

After months of meaning to, here’s the work-safe cut of our Amsterdam trip from 2017 with lots of tourist/gallery/dog footage. It was all shot on my now deceased iPhone 6S, but this is something I enjoyed making so I *might* look into doing more of this kinda thing with better means/editing at a later date.

It’s on a shiny new -but sadly empty- YouTube channel, so any likes/subscribes there would be greatly appreciated.