C.<p>One sad aspect of the advertising industry's switch from dead-tree postal spam to email, online ads, and in-app paid placements...</p><p>Once upon a time, when businesses sent postage-paid reply cards with their spam, if they were truly obnoxious, you could cost them (real) money by putting a rock or a brick in a box and taping the reply card to the outside. Some people just taped the card to a literal brick, no box.</p><p>I pity the postal employees who had to handle and deliver these, but I would have loved to be a fly on the wall in the mailroom at the offending companies' offices.</p><p><a href="https://mindly.social/tags/spam" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>spam</span></a> <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/DeadTree" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>DeadTree</span></a> <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/marketing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>marketing</span></a> <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/obnoxious" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>obnoxious</span></a> <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/revenge" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>revenge</span></a> <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/post" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>post</span></a> <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/mail" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>mail</span></a> <a href="https://mindly.social/tags/postal" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">#<span>postal</span></a></p>
This is more of a #photomanipulation than a #digitalpainting - though there are touch ups. Originally, when I created this, it was meant to represent how I was feeling at the same, particularly during February, one of the most #depressing months. And now I reflect on how much has changed. Though I have experienced #dark days, I have also learned the value and necessity of finding meaning (i.e., finding #alifeworthliving). This can be anything from arts, nature, crafts, activities, hobbies, meditation, relationships and so on. Reflecting back on 2012, I am happy to say that life is much more bright nowadays. However, life would not be so bright without those dark days.
"Suffering should be creative.
Should give birth to something
good and lovely." -Chinua Achebe
I love forests and trees. However, from a photographic perspective, I struggle to compose a clear subject in the seemingly chaotic environment. Most of the time, I walk through the forest without taking a single photo, enjoying the Shinrin-yoku ('forest bathing') but feeling frustrated that I didn’t find a subject. It’s so much easier to capture man-made things in a clean and minimalist way than to isolate a tree, which has a mind of its own, from its surroundings as a subject. But that doesn’t stop me from trying again and again. :-)
Help me identify what’s eating this oak tree please? Not completely dead. Branches have almost no buds, but there are a few. The entire thing looks like it’s been chewed up by a mythically huge animal though. All this has happened within 2 weeks, that’s been the amazing thing. It’s being devoured. Is in a private UK east anglian woodland. Little holes make me think beetles. Anyone?
Ambassador 
