After the accident, I had problems working with Photoshop. I remembered few of my prior image processing skills. When I tried to follow an established processing routine, I became lost and frustrated. Writing extensive notes to myself was cumbersome and time consuming, and introduced a new source of frustration in the form of transcription errors.

I ceased trying to do serious image work and simply began to dabble, like a young boy playing with his first watercolour set. I maintained no record of the process; in fact, I discarded the Photoshop file and kept only the web jpeg output. This is a big no-no as the Photoshop file serves as the archival master. Working from this archival master file permits the creation of multiple image variations targeted to the needs of different media. I was not concerned with this. My sole concern the creation of a library of interesting images for the blog.

So I played. And fumbled around. And dabbled. And futzed. Messing about with images had a calming effect. It was easier than working with text. There was no need to worry about syntax, spelling, or punctuation. The word finding problem did not apply. A digital image is nothing but little blobs of coloured light and there is no such thing as a misspelled blob of colour.

On those nights when I was unable to sleep, I would come downstairs and play with images until sunrise. If overcome by despair, I found myself gravitating towards Photoshop and my set of small windows on a happier world. Futzing with images provided both a distraction and a sense of meaningful engagement. There was no sense of “learning,” no targeted outcome, no objective. The activity was pure play.

Yet it was more than that. The past nine months of futzing around have resulted in my acquisition of a new Photoshop skill set. This is not the same skill set associated with my previous interaction with Photoshop. My prior activity was highly formalized and consisted of following established “recipes,” or routines. My current interaction is much more innate, more intuitive, more elemental. If you were to ask how I achieved a certain result, I would be unable to tell you. The final image was arrived at simply through messing around. I kept no records. The master file was not saved. All that remains are the frozen blobs of light you may observe in the header at the top of the page.