Frustration or Self criticism?

I am in a funny frame of mind at the moment, it is not unusual at this time of year as we run up to my Birthday ( and it’s a big one this year). It is a a feeling of frustration, self reflection and self criticism, resulting in a kind of mental paralysis where I have lots I want to do or need to do but have difficulty settling down to do anything, flirting from one thing to another and loosing my patience with all of them. When I do manage to focus on a job I become obsessed with it.

The only way I get through this that I have learnt from experience is to have goal to aim at, luckily this year I have had a few, I have given a couple of talks recently on Insects and plant photography and I am currently preparing some prints for an exhibition in the autumn, this latter one is however symptomatic of my problem. I need five prints, I have decided on the main one ( the header for this piece), it is printed and framed, but that leaves the other four and I have been going around in circles for weeks, I have a lot of potentials but not only can I not make a final choice, I keep going back and reworking them , changing the way they are processed, you know just minor tweaks that nobody but me will ever notice but I think are needed. I have even bought a new printer to make 10cm x 15cm prints so I can compare them. I did consider putting together va book of pictures to go with the exhibit, but I think my head would probably explode if I did that!

So what causes this? I think as I said at the beginning it always occurs at this time of year and I think it is the realisation that I am getting older and I have so much I want to do. Of course I know this is ridiculous and I actually (hopefully) have plenty of time to do the things I want too and the work I have already done will be part of my legacy in the future.

Anyway back to the editing, there is an annoying leaf I need to remove