| « Previous | Home | Next » | ONE YEAR LATER! Friday, June 09, 2006 |
 Today's post represents Forgingahead's one year anniversary. This montage represents my personal favorites from each month of the last year plus the center image which, for many personal reasons that some regular visitors my recall, is my favorite from the entire year. I began this endeavor with only two specific goals in minds. First, to use the daily post as a means of disciplining myself to do something photographically every day and second to use photography as an outlet for my slumbering creative self. In the ensuing months I learned many things about myself, about the photoblogging community, about the interplay between personal mood and creative output, and much much more. I set as a personal goal to post a new picture every day, no matter what. That meant that some days I posted crap. Many of you can't do that. For you, the blog is where you post a polished final product. For me, the blog has been more of place to let a piece of my soul -- no matter how dark, no matter how troubled -- find expression. I am content to post a photo that is not perfect but that says something about me and how I feel at that time. I reached my goal. In fact, I surpassed it. While I do not recall multiple posts, somehow I ended up with 371 pictures posted on forgingahead since June 9, 2005 I did slip on the goal of doing something photographically every day. In the beginning I used the warm summer days as a way to combine taking pictures with getting some exercise, so I was shooting everyday. But as the cooler days descended on us, that discipline diminished and I, like so many of us do, fell back on the archives for my daily posts. So be it. I began to accumulate a group of regular visitors after a couple of months. There are a few of you who have been visiting almost since the beginning (Lynn at Focus on Photography has been here since day one and left her first comment on my third day!). Many of you started your blogs about the same time I did (I notice a lot of us are celebrating our first year now). I have grown to know and respect so many people around the world from this photoblogging community. You are all my second family and I truly wish to meet you all someday and spend some time talking, walking, and shooting together. In the fall, I went through a wild few weeks in my personal life that had two direct impacts on this site. First, for a few weeks I paid little attention to the blog. But as the personal situation played out, I found a new enthusiasm for photoblogging and began to spend more of my time visiting new sites, commenting, and developing many new online friendships. I fell into a trap many of us do from time to time. I wanted traffic, and more traffic. I wanted comments and lots of them. I learned that if you leave comments you get comments. I nearly burned myself out visiting hundreds of blogs every day and commenting on most of them. My traffic did explode. My comments followed as well. I felt great. But it was a pace I simply could not maintain. So, as the year comes to an end, I find myself back to the original goals. I do this for myself. I love the people I have met here. But I still do this for me and no one else. My daily traffic has dropped back to numbers about where they were a few months after I started, averaging about 50 or 60 unique visitors each day (I peaked at nearly 300, and cannot imagine sites that hit thousands per day). But I know almost all of you who visit every day and welcome new visitors regularly. Where does forgingahead go in the next year? I will continue to post daily, but no longer feel the same pressure to do so. I made my one year goal and really don't care to set a second year goal like that again. If it happens, that is great. I think you may find more 'educational' series in which I may cover a particular theme for a few days accompanied by explanation of what the theme is. I hope to do more people. I am growing tired of landscapes, urban decay, and many other repeating themes in my past year of work. I will be lookng for new ways to see the world through my lens and hope many of you are with me for the next year. And of course there is my companion site Scanning My Life, where I have begun to post older photos taken either by myself or my father (and soon even older ones taken by who knows who). That site is intended as a tribute to my father (how approriate to mention with Father's Day just a few days away). Thanks to all for a great year! | |
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Posted by forgingahead Archived under: Architecture, Buds and Blossoms, Found Things, History, Landscapes, Nature, People, Places, Still Life, Street |
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