September photo 📷 challenge day 8: Yonder
September photo 📷 challenge day 7: Panorama
From Bar Harobr :)
I’m in Bar Harbor, Maine. It’s pretty here, quiet. There are plenty of boats and fewer cars, no air conditioning. Thankfully it’s not needed, especially around the evening. Too bad I’m not a lobster person, but there are plenty of other good things to enjoy.
September photo 📷 challenge day 6: well
I’m on vacation, and while there’s no well, I’m doing well myself 😊
The Mastodon in the room
I recently wondered if the folks on Mastodon who read my posts are aware of my Micro.blog blog. The answer is not really:
While not surprising, this was still somewhat discouraging.
My independent Mastodon account on Fosstodon is not set to automatically cross-post my content from the blog; I use my Micro.blog Mastodon account for that. I like to keep my Mastodon content separate from Fosstodon since both places have different communities and follow other interests. Another reason is formatting and hashtags: Micro.blog does not use hashtags (for a good reason, in my opinion), and formatting as well as the length of posts work differently.
What I usually end up doing is to reply to my Micro.blog Mastodon account with my Fosstodon one. This comes up on the blog as a footer with additional remarks that didn’t make it to the main post while also giving the option to use hashtags and converse with Mastodon folks directly.
The problem is that people don’t seem to make the connection that both of those accounts are mine. I presume some Mastodon folks find my blog through my Fosstodon account’s retoots, but I don’t know how many (tinylytics might come in handy here).
I’m considering re-posting some of my older posts on Fosstodon semi-regularly to point folks to my posts without trying to be too obnoxious about it. I do want more comments and discussions on my blog, but I don’t want to become one of those folks who chime into any conversation that might be remotely connected to something they wrote and point to some vague reference on a post I wrote a couple of years back. I unfollow people who do that myself religiously.
September photo 📷 challenge day 5: Forest
A magical path in the woods…
September photo 📷 challenge day 4: Orange
A woman and her dog taking a nap between stops on the NYC subway, which happens to have orange seats.
September photo 📷 challenge day 3: Precious
I can’t think of anything precious that is not some sort of an inside joke, so here’s something I enjoy: homemade pizzas when my partner makes them. Precious.
Where do my photos belong?
A few weeks ago, Jack decided to stop using Glass. Around that time, Manton wrote about what’s wrong with Glass, raising different yet related questions about the service. I wanted to reply at length, but I was still forming my own opinion.
I recently started to use my camera (Sony Alpha 6000) again and take it in a bag almost every time I leave home. This practice allowed me to capture photos I wouldn’t otherwise capture with my phone, which is the opposite route most folks take: usually, it’s the camera that starts collecting dust in favor of the phone.
The best answer I have for this is that certain things just cause an “itch” to my photo sense in a way my phone doesn’t. There’s something about holding the camera that elevates that sense in a way the phone can’t. Unless the photo idea is very obvious, with an object staring me right in the face, I need to search for it. I move around with the camera, crab-dancing sideways hece and forth, kneeling and standing again, playing with the light. I used to be more conscious about this, but when you live in NYC, everyone’s a weirdo, and no one is at the same time. Doing this with the phone doesn’t work.
My phone photos are usually snapshots of life routines. Making coffee. Writing in my notebook. A pretty flower. These photos end up on my blog or on Mastodon, where I discuss these routines, which are further illustrated in the photo. Micro.blog connects to Pixelfed (as well as Mastodon, of course), so every picture on the blog also shows up on Pixelfed.social.
The better photos, the ones I take with my camera and filtered by my selection process back at home, end up on Glass. I sometimes also post those on the blog, but not always. I should do that, especially now that I have a dedicated Photos page, but the blog still feels like an “everything” place, and these Photos feel more unique. I don’t feel my photos can be viewed as “art,” but the concept of it makes sense to me. The photos on Glass are usually processed and worked on with a sense of purpose. They convey a message or a story. Roughly, one in eight shots stands out to me as “timeless,” relevant today as it would be in 50 years. These photos don’t need a blog post to stand with; they express themselves. At least, that’s how I view them, and I hope others can see them this way as well.
This brings me to the other usage of Glass: following other story-teller photographers. I love how the platform is built. I like their filtered tags, which are somewhere between too little and too much. I found several photographers whose work I enjoy looking at on Glass. While I agree with Manton that Glass is eventually a silo and should offer more sharable options, Glass is still the place for just photos and nothing else.
Meanwhile, Instagram is the exact opposite. I started posting to Instagram again about a year ago to mostly show some of my photos to family and friends, and this is also where I interact with them. I don’t like Instagram as a photo platform; it has long become a place for ads and cheap brands. People barely use it for photos as much as they use it for communication. I post to Instagram when I want to say something to a bunch of people I know; I post to Glass when a photo I take wants to say something to a bunch of strangers.
Of course, this is all a personal conceptualization of these services. Some great photographers post to their blogs regularly alongside lengthy posts. There is also the notion that what I think today is one thing, and what I’ll feel next week is another. For now, that’s how my brain makes sense of it.
September photo 📷 challenge day 2: Buildup
