Johnathan FireEater*

I began crafting a really long twitter thread last weekend to highlight some of my favorite photography that has yet to sell out, and began having a hard time keeping it all organized. This pinned tweet will serve as an ongoing labor of love to highlight these works.

18 months ago. Some unexpected expenses and budget stuff also slowed me down a lot but overall I'd say I still feel the same way I did in Sept. 2024 with regard to new purchases. If I have to worry about constant shuffling of assets or checking for news and notifications, that's a big deterrent when I always felt physical prints looked better to begin with.

@hauglandphoto It really has. There are certain genres of photography I love but I do think it's so critical to find your own voice and then hold onto it if you're doing this for yourself and not for the social media dopamine rush.

@JFireeater Everyone using the same gear, same YouTube videos with all kinds of misinformation, copying each others subjects, using the same presets, so many things. Its become a bit stale

I feel like photography as a whole has been elevated in terms of your average person getting better at composition and editing but I can't help but feel as though a loss of personal identity and voice has come along for the ride. Much of it is from social media, I'm certain.

Where you’ll find me.

Al Sabr - A Triptych

Portrait Of An Iraqi Woman

The present and the future are less about “can we do this” and more about “should we do this” Sort of like me and tweeting when 6 people will see it now.

Get off my lawn.

I’m out to lunch right now so all televisions are on mute, but one of them is showing what I assume to be a pop act or boy band type of performance and I can’t help but notice how aggressively mediocre it seems. If your performance needs to have that much distraction from the actual music, your music can’t be that good. There must be 25+ people involved in this nonsense. Give me a stripped down and vulnerable performance with real talent over a watered down 4th of July type performance any day of the week. I look at art the same way, for better or worse. The more you try to distract me with things the more I question why you’re doing it.

@OliverWDahl Looks like the Close Encounters of the Third Kind mothership except with combo meals, which makes sense with the location. I just think the shape they picked is funny because it's what we all imagine.

Unironically one of the top destinations left on my US bucket list

@lBattleRhino Exactly. Arman or Islam are the only real fights you can try to make for Topuria, and the Islam one feels totally off the table.

What’s the point of even winning at 155 dawg the reward is just getting nuked into the atmosphere by illia again

Happy International Women's Day to all the women out there, especially one very special one to me. I hope that those close to you are celebrating you and giving you the day you all deserve.

I fear this will turn out more like a caricature than someplace I want to be.

A tough but sometimes useful thought exercise: If you removed all semblance of names and locations and just listed events that were occurring, what would you think about it if you stepped away and examined it later?

Another downside of digital assets is having to pay to move them when the company previously holding them is about to close. At least when you buy a print you just own the print, and can actually display the print in a way that makes it look good. Long way to go.

@ItsSnibby Completely agree and just followed back. It's been interesting to see this exact cycle play out in both a very new market and also a very old market. I guess that just speaks to human behaviors and patterns.

@JFireeater Very familiar pattern. Hype cycles distort price discovery everywhere. The quiet operators with track records usually end up being the real value once the noise fades and buyers start caring about consistency again. @JFireeater follow back appreciated fr

Over the past couple years I took a deep dive into wine and even though I have a pretty small collection at home I've just been enjoying reading up on it. Anyways, one thing I noticed in the wine world is that a lot of newer winemakers have been extremely hyped up to the point where the median outcome is going to be really disappointing early investors and having the value of their wines, and possibly their reputations, take a dive. It won't really be their fault. The distributors and people who can influence the market have created this hype and artificial rarity and then newer wine buyers with money aren't doing enough research to realize what's happening. This has resulted in many older winemakers with more talent, more consistency, and better cuvees becoming the undervalued buys. I write all this only to ask a single question. Sound familiar at all?

I still think about this (the concept, not this tweet) occasionally.

A belated happy and healthy new year to anyone who may still see anything I type on here. Taking extended breaks is indeed punitive but I never wrote things more consistently for reasons other than having something to say. Hopefully that feeling returns, too.

If this was done overnight for altruistic reasons then there are dozens more to go. If it was done to fulfill a specific agenda then it’s already over. A tale as old as time.

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