Time flies when you're having fun!
4th day ahead of the not-so-ordinary ordinary items challenge. Absolutely love this shot. Even though it is almost an exact copy of one of the official Ledger campaign photographs. Disclaimer: This photograph is just for educational (and fun) purposes, whereas I try to push myself as a photographer and have some fun with product photography along the way. Furthermore, the photograph illustrates the thoughts coming with the item that I photographed. Fun fact; this shot was done in less than 10 minutes, including post-edit. I think I got pretty creative with this one.
Not your keys, not your crypto
Ever since I've been in the space, I learned the phrase: "not your keys, not your crypto" pretty early on. This year proves the importance of exactly that. The number of people who lost their money by having faith in centralized exchanges. Taking care and responsibility for managing your assets and (shit)tokens is crucial if you do not want to get involved with shady people running centralized exchanges. I've been using my ledger for a few years now. Not that I have a lot of cryptos, but anything above a month's rent worth of crypto should be stored on a ledger IMO.
The FTX shitshow
I've only recently started following @jeffjagoe, whom I met during HiveFest this year. He's my dark'n'stormy homie haha (a great spiced rum cocktail). But this guy did some serious research and this rabbit hole many wanted to dive into just became a gravel pit by his hands. He has been exposing FTX and Alameda Research to some very contradicting (yet obvious it is true) information.
This thread is a must-read for everyone who is in crypto. This gives you a great overview (and idea) of what has been going on. And why we all bleed. Great job shoveling there, Jeff! Holy shit. And so have many others jumped in on the thread and/or did their research. Massive. Massive I tell you. The attack on crypto and blockchain is so obviously planned.
Centralized exchanges
One huge benefit of cryptocurrencies is that it completely takes out the middle-man. Still, many use a centralized exchange. "Not your keys, not your crypto". I can't stress it enough to get your tokens out of there (and do some research before you invest in clown projects). Centralized exchanges are getting paid to list tokens, just remember that.
Treat centralized exchanges like public restrooms: do your business and get out as fast as possible. I believe it is something that Andreas Antonopoulos said. And this strategy may seem funny, but it is seriously the best advice anyone can give you about using (centralized) exchanges. Of course, if you work with capital on exchanges, it might be quite a hassle to move and store your assets every day at least twice. But hey, not your keys, not your crypto. A lot of things can happen overnight.
Blockchain tech
Speaking of Andreas Antonopoulos, he is my teacher at the University of Nicosia, where I study to get a certificate in blockchain technology and digital currencies. So far I'm nailing the tests, and hopefully, I will get a BA score when I finish! I might wanna do my Master's when I can save up some money for it.
The reason why I'm taking this course is that I think blockchain technology is absolutely groundbreaking and will change the world (it already is). It will make things so much easier, and more importantly: transparent. Imagine voting with NFT/Smart Contracts. Whether it be politicians or some sort of proposal. This is why I think Hive is such a great and powerful blockchain. We're already mimicking and can facilitate real-world solutions.
What I'm trying to say is, blockchain technology is worth studying. Educate yourself just a tiny bit and you'll recognize the dumb projects versus the powerful ones. I don't know about you, but seeing how Hive handles things like this bear market and FUD; I can only stay bullish on Hive. But if you're bearish; please do share!
The creative process
For this photograph, I used ground coffee bean powder which I dried overnight. Not gonna lie, but padded on the back after it worked like a charm. Placing a ledger on the dirty coffee powder wasn't much of an issue. Did you know that a bit of coffee powder together with soap works like a scrub and can clean your hands really great? I used one lighting set-up for this. The reflection of the light is key in a photograph like this. You really want to have this shine covering the entire ledger.
I used my striplight with just one diffuser in front of it. Usually, I use two diffusers with different angles, but that wouldn't work as well as this. Instead, I used my big diffuser as a backdrop. To finish things up, I placed a crystal next to the ledger. Of course, there is some room for improvement with composition, but I think it adds a lot to the photograph while the placement of it could have been better. In post-edit, I punched down the saturation of the brown coffee and worked with two curve layers to highlight the ledger and darken the edges of the photograph.
Technical details
Camera
Sony A7 MARK II
Lens
Sigma 105mm f/2.8
Shutterspeed
1/50
Aperture
f/8.0
ISO
320
About the challenge
Photograph and write a little bit about 30 ordinary items that I used a lot in 2022. You can read more about the challenge, and join yourself here. This challenge is just a little experiment.
Use a ledger
For the third time in this post: Not your keys, not your crypto. Store your crypto on a hardware cold storage wallet. Don't use exchanges, keep your VALUE safe, and TAKE responsibility. You've taken the step to be free, so take the responsibility that comes with it. Educate the people around you and teach them the importance, no, of the gift that comes with blockchain technology and digital currencies.
Cheers,
Ruben
I really like the theme you chose for today because it is very educational.
📝 And I would love to have one of those.
Happy Sunday... Well, there must not be much Sunday left for you. Here in Cuba it's half past four in the afternoon.
I really like Hive. I arrived at the end of September and it is one of the best things that has happened to me this year.
Cheer up, 26 days to go...
There was no Sunday left! haha. Hive is one of the few projects that is pretty solid, and offers so many opportunities. Even if Hive/HBD goes to zero, if there are people who run nodes, there will be a Hive. Quite valuable!
I bought a Ledger this time last year, set it up then forgot to write down they password. So I spent ages resetting it, then still forgot to write down the password 😰
Ask Santa for a pen (and a memory thing; calendar)! It took me some time to set it up first, but once it is set-up, it's pretty dang easy.
This is a super interesting challenge, I have read some of the posts about the challenge and have really enjoyed it. I was commenting to @nanixxx who also writes about the challenge, that it's funny how we think that certain objects have no value or meaning, however this challenge shows us that it's the opposite.
Your advice is also correct, and I learned that once, when for not investigating, I invested where I shouldn't have. That is another reason why I love HIVE, I read about the project and sought the opinion of some friends, the way in which the members of the community are protected is unique, like you I also believe that HIVE can and is doing great things.
Absolutely :)) I'm glad that you enjoy the challenge and have been tracking it ^^ You might as well want to join the challenge yourself in January, @tibfox is maybe starting in January :D. I'm feeling a bit numb today, so my responses are a bit shorter than usual.
I would like to do it, but I'm not a photographer, not even good taken photos 😂 nonetheless I suppose I could try. In the meantime I'm enjoying this challenge. It's awesome.
Hope you feel better tomorrow.