Musings on Obsucras

Before you click through for my newest 'Obscura', be warned, this is a post ABOUT the Obscura's.  I don't do any write up for each post, but I do still like to chat about what I've made... so I'll occasionally do a post like this.  To help seperate them, I'm trying a new format.... so you can read the begining of the post and help differentiate this from a standard 'Obscura' post.

In the most general sense, I'm enjoying the Obsuras.  I like looking through images and seeing snippets of stories.  Where I thought I might put some of these up as partial stories, I still do a bit more.  I don't think I've put anything out yet that couldn't stand up on it's own.  Sure, they aren't polished at all and almost every single one would need a good polish to make it truly cap worthy... but it's still more than I thought it would be.

A few that I particularly liked:  A Little More Attractive, Words Are Lies, Endless Supply Of Milk, A Taste Of What's To Come, and You Are What You See.  I think those all really fit the short(er) story with an image format.  I don't think this format works all that well with the 'hawt' or more porn like stories.  The images are fun enough, but I think those are best when there is a good descriptive situation to go along with the image.

Some of these I could see returning to and making into caps.  I'd probably still struggle mightily though and probably would fail to live up to expectations.  And what would those expectations be?  Well... the cap would have to be a LOT better than the Obscura.

I seem to make these in small batches.  Yes, I'm posting only one a day, but more often than not, I make them two, three, or even four at a time.   That's why you get several with the same vibe, like the red/white and devil/angle angle.  Or the 'reaction to a change' angle.  If I were making caps I'd either gather these similar feelings up into a single cap or combine them into a multiple panel story.  Here... I think they're fine.  It's like having two tracks on an album that sound similar.  It's fine.

I do love seeing peoples comments and reactions.  But it's also a dual edged sword... I want to make better Obscura's to get better reactions.  At the same time, one of the main reasons for doing this was that I wouldn't allow quality conserns to stop me from making attempts.  For example I almost didn't post the 'Recruiting Advantage' Obscura as I don't feel it's very good.  So I'll have to see how I can temper my desire to 'just do it' with the desire to make good work.

I may drop the 'Obscura' from the title of each post.  I alrady label the title graphic and have the blog label 'Obscura' to let people know it's not a cap.  And frankly seeing all the posts on the front page starting with 'Obscura' bothers me.  I don't think I'll post enough things other than Obscura to have to differentiate those posts any further. If every third post or so was a 'musing' or a cap it would make more sense.

I'm not sure what to do about names.  Some of these stories just feel better with names.... but then I feel like some might be better if targeted toward particular people.  The problem with putting their names in is that I think it makes it seem like I made it FOR them.  But again, I'm not putting that much effort into it.  For example if I use 'Simone', it's not FOR Simone... it's just a mental image or idea that I have of Simone.   It's 'my' Simone, and not 'for' Simone or 'actually' Simone... does that make sense?  I'm still confusing myself, so probably not.

I'm also trying to find another source of material.  As the 'porn' ones don't work out as well, Fuskator is becoming less and less useful.  But it still has a LOT of images on it's first page of beautiful woman.  As you can see in some of the recent Obscuras I've picked out 'clean' images from sets that include porn.  I think I'd like to find a site similar in design to fuskator that gets me a lot of 'clean' sets of photos.

There seems to be three levels of effort so far. The easiest is; see the image, write down my initial thoughts, post it.  It just flows.  The next level takes some thought on the writing... the initial idea is just too vague so I have to sit back for a moment or two and write a simple story around the thought.  The hardest ones are the ones that I think come out the best.  They get about a half of a polish.  I write out the initial idea, work at it a bit to make it better, and then post it.

Those hardest ones are also the ones I feel the most disappointed in (at least initially).  I feel like they have the most potential to become a cap, but I tap myself out quickly trying to make them better.

I guess that's enough thoughts for now.  Sorry for the disjointed manner of this post... I just had a lot of thoughts going around my head and wanted to put them out here for me to look at later.