I don't believe such people exist but if you do, let me know and we should hang out

If so or not, why?

I recently inherited ~$8M from my grandfather's passing and am unsure how to invest given the recent budget passed by the government. I was thinking of putting the money into more property, but it seems like property is a terrible investment now - as we have seen the market has gone down sharply in the recent weeks. I then considered putting it into shares, but with the minimum 30% CGT it seems like that is also a bad option. After tax I'd basically be losing money. I'm really concerned that I'll have to sell my portfolio of 35 houses to avoid living on the street. Recently the government has really made surviving in this country difficult.

Does anyone have any advice? Cheers.

I have just admitted to myself that my hate for Fujifilm users is too powerful. I have blocked all the Fuji subreddits, plus other photography subs like r/streetphotography. It was necessary for my health, because every time I see a Fuji photo, oh boy... A wave of shadow came upon me.

Seeing shot after shot of boring, uninspired, and predictable photos sent my head into a spin. The "gorgeous" lighting that Fuji makes you see. The "warm tones". The (lack of) subjects. The "unique composition". And simply the way Fujifilm cameras bring out the naiveity in a poor soul.

Oh, it was too much. I could barely control myself. I would leave comment after comment berating them for their cookiecutter style, mocking their colours, and goading at them that their posts would end up on r/photographycirclejerk. I religiously downvoted Fujifilm posts as if my life depended on it. All it took was the letters "X100VI" and that hint of yellow and within milliseconds my fingers were afly.

It was too much for one man to handle.

This is why, as of today, I am marking a new chapter in my life, completely free of Fujifilm. Godspeed, fellow photographers.

This is my hypothesis: we are progressively making socialising unacceptable in many contexts. And right now, we are a good way through that progression towards a complete lack of socialisation.

Clearly we are currently experiencing a mass decrease of social wellness. We know loneliness is at record levels and increasing. People have fewer friends and are spending less time socialising (in person). Anecdotally, it seems like many people are struggling to meet people and socialise. Community spaces are dwindling and other public social events are becoming increasingly commercialised.

Now I want to go further and hypothesise that a feedback loop is occurring where due to reduced socialising happening, as a society we are nornalising it, and it becomes less socially acceptable to socialise. Because now if you socialise, in many cases you are the outlier.

I mean think about it - try to strike up a conversation with someone on the street and watch them look at you as if you've suggested partaking in war crimes. Of course a random approach on the street is not the most prosocial scenario, but this disdain for socialising seem to be pervading many aspects of life. At least in my experience, even in traditionally social settings like bars, concerts, events, people are not very happy to casually socialise with new people. Or if you do get past an initial hello, they are not interested in socialising with you past that one-off.

I think we are currently witnessing a real decline into total lack of socialisation, and regardless of the root causes we are unknowingly codifying it ourselves.

IMO almost all discussion of improving one's social life is copium, peddled by people who are already successful and so they can basically claim any arbitrary thing works and it's vague enough to sound plausible.

Drop a comment with any suggestion and I'll tell you why it doesn't actually work.

Yeah basically what the title says. It seems like there's some broad "default" in humans, particularly in NTs, which is to like exercise to some extent. Many people are even quite fanatic about exercise. And I think I don't have that. I don't understand it. I really don't like exercising, sports, or anything of that nature.

I know exercise is meant to be difficult, but also many people seem to get a kick out of it? Well I kinda... don't. There's the whole "post-exercise endorphins" thing which people apparently can get addicted(?!) to. I don't think I experience that. I mean after exercising there's a bit of relaxation coming down from the challenge, but I wouldn't call it enjoyable. And then people say, "ok but you need to exercise regularly and THEN you'll be hooked" - and again, not really for me. The best I've experienced is working exercise into my schedule and then my brain is like "ok it's tuesday 12pm, time to exercise I guess", but it's still not enjoyable.

To add insult to injury, exercise and sport is a huge cultural and social event, so it's yet another way I don't fit in. People look at me weird when I say I don't enjoy any exercise.

In summary, exercise for me is all the challenge and suffering and no brain rewards. Does anyone else get this too? What is going on???

Society has:

- sown hatred and distrust between average people

- deconstructed community spaces

- idealised hyper-individual lifestyles

- increased urban sprawl so you're far from people

- reduced social time by increased work/responsibilities

- encouraged rent-seeking on social activities

- increased competitiveness and reduced social mobility

- shamed us for anything but a perfect social life

After all this, we wonder why we are alone and unhappy? It's obvious: society is set up to fuck us over.

NTs have brain damage. That's all, thank you.

Hey all, I'm an enthusiast photographer who's been at it for a few years, and I want to share some tips that may help you. I've seen many photos from this sub which could benefit from similar advice, so here it is.

1 - Composition Is Everything

Composition is probably the most important aspect for most photos. You can tweak various aspects of a photo, but if the composition is off, it's not going to work. I've seen so many photos which unfortunately don't make it past first base because the composition is just not there. You have to develop solid compositional skills to take great photos.

Unfortunately there is not necessarily a straightforward "recipe book" for composition, so I'd recommend looking at photos from expert photographers and see how they structure shots. You will start to recognise common elements.

Concepts to consider:

- The subject(s) and their size and placement.

- Background / distracting elements.

- Leading lines.

- Juxtaposition.

- Negative space.

- Symmetry/asymmetry.

- Balance.

- Visual narrative.

Look at photos and become opinionated on compositional forms. It's okay to emulate existing forms at first; this is how you learn. Your photos should relate to existing forms so the viewer can be brought along on a visual story. If your scene has no form, it's not compelling.

Consider these shots. Can you see how, even without spectacular lighting or colour, the placement of the subject and lines creates a story for the eye?

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20241210-img1620

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20251207-img9638

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20250320-img3712

2 - Dramatic Lighting

The next most important thing is lighting. Once you have an interesting composition, lighting adds focus, dynamism, and emotion to the photo. A shot without attention to lighting is going to fall flat and leave a lot to be desired.

Perhaps the most important basic lighting rule is to have your subject in light and brighter than the background. This is going to work because the eye is naturally drawn to bright objects. Even a basic composition with lighting that enhances the subject (rather than contradicts it) is a great start to a cohesive photo. Sometimes this is all you need when the subject is interesting.

From there, the sky is the limit with lighting, honestly. Think about how different lighting scenarios make you feel. Perhaps bright is happy, dark is sad or mysterious. Contrasty lighting might feel harsh. Use these elements to fine tune your photo.

In the following shots, consider how the light draws your eye and what emotions or narrative it evokes:

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20250828-img5505

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20250528-img5138

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20250111-img2246

3 - Emotional Colour Palettes

Finally, colour is like the icing on the cake. You have a solid composition, compelling lighting, and now you can add the final emotions and story to your photos with colour.

There are two main aspects of colour:

- Intrinsic colour associations.

- Colour relationships (colour palettes).

Colour associations are how we tend to associate emotions or concepts with colours. For example, some associations I have:

- Red: angry, love.

- Orange/yellow: warm.

- Green: nature, eerie.

- Blue: cold, calm.

- Purple: mysterious.

Then, we can create more complex visual narratives by combining colours. Colour palettes generally use only a few main colours, because too many becomes less compelling.

- 2 colours can be used for contrast (e.g. blue and orange).

- 3 colours can form a cohesive palette (e.g. red, orange, yellow), or something more complex (e.g. green, purple, yellow).

Search up "colour relationship theory" and see the different kinds of colour palettes and what feelings they evoke.

Here are some photos where colour is used to fine tune the feel of the scene. What thoughts, feelings, and imagery come to mind for you?

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20241005-img0442

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20240824-img9106

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20250320-img3812

https://rjones.photos/gallery/photo/20251004-img5711

4 - Miscellaneous Technical Tips

- Check your shutter speed to avoid blurry shots. For a handheld shot with a short-medium focal length lens, safe to keep the shutter at least 1/100 s. If you have a telephoto lens (e.g. 200+mm) you need to have a much faster shutter speed! The more you zoom in, the more camera shake affects the photo.

- Watch for areas in strong lighting becoming so bright that they lose all detail. This is called clipping, and it usually looks bad.

- Correct lens artifacts. Some cameras can do this, or you can do it with software like Lightroom. Artifacts to watch out for are vignetting and chromatic aberration. Once you see them, you'll never unsee them.

Going out by yourself to hopefully interact with people doesn't work, because everyone else is out in their own social bubble. I do basically everything alone because I'm a lonely mfer and seriously, I'm usually the only person by themselves. Everyone is in a group with friends, family, partners, colleagues, etc and totally wrapped up already. They are not open to socialising with you because they're already happy, and going outside their pre-established social group is uncomfortable. On the odd occasion you see someone by themselves, they're always headphones in, on their phone, trying to avoid everything.

So stop telling us to go out and be happy by ourselves. It doesn't work. Usually when I go out by myself I end up even more lonely because I realise just how impossible it is to socialise. The world is not a utopia of single people happily interacting. It's a shallow collection of closed social cliques who hate each other.

Not in a spiritual "woe is me" sense, but in a very practical sense. For some people the odds are just so against them that in reality they probably will experience a lot of isolation in their life.

I say this because after reflecting on my life, I think it's me. I used to think my life was normal enough and everyone had their struggles, but I've come to change my mind. Some people, through what you could only say is bad luck, got given a handful of factors that are simply going to predispose them to social failure.

I asked ChatGPT to give a list of factors which would contribute to a poor social life, and out of the dozen or so it provided, I have all but about two. Dysfunctional family, transient childhood, introverted personality, neurodivergence, social anxiety, unsocial job, etc. I mean what are you supposed to do in such a scenario? Sure, it's not impossible to turn your life around, but shit, it's just not likely in practice.

And most of the advice out there ignores this very practicality of there being only so much one can actually do. Become attractive, change your personality, go to social events daily, change your job, change your living arrangements, go to therapy - the list goes on and on. But there's only so much you can do and change day to day! And the more deficits you start with, the more you have to change.

So yeah. I think it's silly to ignore the practicality that some people are set up so far off base that overcoming loneliness is extremely difficult.

Hi all, I'm 26M living near Crows Nest and working in North Sydney. My social life is not great at the moment, so I'm looking for ideas for activities/groups/clubs to meet people and make friends!

Usually I see people suggest a running club, gym, sports, or something like that. However I'm really not a sporty guy (prefer to exercise at home), so I'm wondering about other social activities that could be good.

All ideas are appreciated! Or if you personally would like to meet up for an activity, that's cool also.

Ideally I'd like to find something close by that I can regularly join on a weekend or after work on a weekday.

Cheers

It’s honestly kind of amazing how Fuji cameras manage to be both “irrelevant” and the subject of endless, deeply confident opinions from people who don’t use them. You’ll hear the same lines every time - “APS-C isn’t professional,” “the autofocus can’t keep up,” “it’s basically an Instagram filter machine”, which is fascinating, because if even half of that were still true in any meaningful way, the system would’ve quietly died years ago. And yet, somehow, it keeps showing up in the hands of people producing work that looks suspiciously… intentional. Almost like the premise might be a little outdated.

The film simulation thing is where it really gets philosophical. Apparently, using something like Classic Chrome or Astia is “letting the camera decide for you,” which is a bold stance considering those same critics will happily apply a preset called “Portra-ish_Final_v7” and call it artistic authorship. Fuji users just make that decision earlier in the process, which, if you think about it, is arguably more authentic because it forces you to commit. And committing early is widely known to produce better art - there’s a reason no great painter ever changed their mind halfway through a canvas. (Or at least, none that people like to talk about.)

There’s also this very specific personality profile that Fuji seems to attract, and I don’t think that’s accidental. You’ll notice a pattern: people who are weirdly fixated on light that most others would walk past - flat overcast skies, harsh midday reflections, dim tungsten interiors that “shouldn’t” work but somehow do. They lean into slightly underexposed frames, let highlights bloom just a bit too much, and compose scenes where the subject isn’t always obvious, because the mood is the point. Lots of quiet streets, solitary figures, layered glass reflections, maybe a bicycle if we’re being honest. It’s not that Fuji makes you shoot like that, but it’s hard to ignore that people who don’t think that way tend not to stick with the system. Which, statistically speaking, probably means that’s the correct way to see the world.

And then of course there’s the technical discourse, which is always very serious and very spreadsheet-driven. “Full frame has better dynamic range,” people say, as if dynamic range has ever once saved a photograph that didn’t already work. Or “Fuji lenses are expensive,” which is true in the same way that anything well-made tends to cost more than its cheaper alternative, so it’s not entirely clear what the argument is supposed to prove. If anything, the consistent optical quality across the lineup suggests a kind of quiet competence that doesn’t translate well into spec-sheet comparisons, which might explain why it gets overlooked.

At some point it becomes less about the gear and more about what it signals. Fuji occupies this slightly uncomfortable middle ground where it’s neither the obvious “pro” choice nor the disposable beginner option, and that seems to bother people who prefer clearer hierarchies. It asks you to slow down, to notice color relationships, to accept that a photo can be a little imperfect and still feel complete. Naturally, that gets interpreted as a limitation rather than a choice, because it’s much easier to assume that anything you don’t personally value must be objectively worse.

Or maybe Fuji users are just overthinking everything while taking aesthetically pleasing photos of café windows and rainy sidewalks. But if that were true, you’d expect the results to look self-indulgent and forgettable - and they often don’t. Which is inconvenient for the narrative, so it’s probably best to ignore it.