I just saw a segment on the nightly network news broadcast regarding how much people are crunched for time today. With multi-tasking, people now do 31 hours worth of work in 24 hours, it said. The downside, of course, is that the more you do in any given stretch of time, the less quality you achieve with each thing.

That news segment was rather coincidental, as I was planning to write today about managing my time and something I have dubbed “the 8 o’clock rule.” I may be good at photography (or so some people tell me), but I really need to work at managing my time better. One of the problems is sitting here in front of me: my computer. I guess I’m not the only one who can sit down and find that hours have gone by and at which point you ask yourself, “What have I accomplished?”

So, I have set a goal for myself: to be finished with all of my internet business for the day (including wasting time surfing around) by 8 p.m. After that, it’ll be time for other things: relaxing in front of the TV watching a video or a ballgame, developing film, filing negatives or even using the computer to scan negatives. I also want to finish off things like paying bills before 8, too. I’ll also continue to check my e-mail and such things briefly before going to bed each night.
So far, in the few days that I’ve implemented this, I’ve been pretty successful. Let’s hope that I can keep up with it. I’ve recently switched to a new e-mail account because of the avalanche of spam I’m getting out the old one, and that takes up time, too.

By the way, the photo at the top was made at a workshop in Woodstock, New York, a couple of years ago.

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I read with sadness today that a photographer named Yuri Bonder died a week ago at the very young age of 41. I really didn’t know much about him, other than that he lived in Israel and had apparently moved there from Russia or another part of the former Soviet Union. All I knew about him were the photos that he posted on Deviant Art – and they were great. Yuri excelled at both nudes and portraits (the latter both formal and on the street) as well as things like landscapes.

I think I once sent him a message on Deviant Art saying that if I ever were to visit Israel again, I would want to try to meet him. I never received a response, but now the point is moot. That meeting will never happen. An excellent photographer is gone – and as a photo of his son is prominently displayed on his DA main page, obviously a father, too. My thoughts go out to his family.

You can view Yuri’s Deviant Art page at http://yuribonder.deviantart.com/ and his website at http://www.yuribonder.com/?lng=eng .

I don’t normally post other photographers’ work on my blog here, but in this case I think it is appropriate. You can see a few of his photos below.