Using some old photographic technology to improve your health

Even farmers sometime sat down while they worked.

As I rapidly approach 70 life and wear and tear has been catching up with me.

I have put on weight and have an often chronic back condition.

In fact those two problems have been with me a long time.

I first injured my back playing cricket as a young person and then, being employed most of my life in a sedentary occupation, I did not get natural exercise that stopped me putting on weight.

The last 10 years of my working life were mostly spent locked in to a desk and a computer.

When I retired from active sport I did not continue to maintain fitness with regular training.

As I write my back has been pretty bad for about a week.

So what do I need to do?

Commonsense really but how often do we ignore commonsense in our lives?

Watch what I eat,exercise and avoid sitting for long periods!

I spend lot of time at my computer.

Blogging,

 importing photos and editing them,

creating personal photo books for family and friends and just as an upmarket retrospective of my work.

writing sermons,

watching youtube,

ongoing learning about photography

creating my own content for training others

recording and digitising old taped addresses

archiving and scanning.

In other words heaps of stuff where I am sitting looking at screen for periods longer than I should.

Well as far as the sitting is concerned I have known about one solution for a long time but not actually practised it.

Many of us photographers of days gone by used to hold family slide nights.

If we were serious about it we had a special projector stand.

Made out of metal and with the capacity to be raised to about chest height.

So I have started placing my laptop on my extended slide projector stand and standing up while working.

Now you can buy especially raised desks for your office for this sort of solution.

But this has cost me nothing and not only that I can take it anywhere.

I have about 3 of these and also 2 portable pulpit stands from churches no longer using them.

I started doing this this week so in about a month I will report back on how I am going.

I have got a bit more living to do yet so I don’t want my body to be a lost cause.

I will put up a picture of my solution when I can find time to do so.