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| One of the first images I made in April of 2013 after starting my blog. (click to enlarge) Nikon D800E, 28-300mm f/3.5-5.6 lens @ 70mm; 1/800th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200 |
Now, five years and 876 posts later, we have come a long way together. I say 'we' as many of you have traveled this long road most of the way with me. I thank you for being interested in my words and thoughts. I can't express in words how much that means to me. Others of you have come and gone. That is fine. Maybe something I wrote caught your attention and you found interest. After that, some of you stayed and some moved on. That is the nature of these types of outlets. In all cases, I thank each and every one of you who have visited this blog for your interest.
Here is something that has been on my mind for a couple of months now. The problem I now face is that I am quickly running out of things about which to write. Many times over the past couple of months I've struggled to come up with topics of interest. I don't want to post for posting's sake, but on occasion I find myself doing just that—posting things of little interest to others just to continue my 3-posts-per-week schedule. In the near future I have to make a decision as to whether or not to continue with this blog and, if I decide to continue, how often to post. One of the cardinal sins of blog posting is to be irregular in one's posts. I don't want to fall into that trap. So, if I decide to continue, I may make a commitment to post, but on a basis less frequent than the Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays I now do.
What I have discovered over the past five years, as have most other photography bloggers, is that readers want posts about gear. My most read posts are about gear. Gear is good. I like gear. But gear is not everything. To me, photography is more about the end product than the gear used to produce it. I don't mind writing about gear but if you continually don't acquire new gear, you run out of gear posts as well.
This is a conundrum. A problem without solution as I cannot afford to endlessly buy or rent gear to test, use and about which to write. I don't get any money, gear, discounts or anything from anyone for this blog. I receive nothing but the satisfaction that I may be helping someone with their photographic endeavors out there. Every piece of gear I've tested has been purchased or rented by me at full price. I'm now retired and have limited income. In fact, last year I received a raise of $12 in retirement income. Gosh, if I save up 3 or 4 months of that raise, I can buy a cup of coffee! But that is not the issue. The issue is writing post of substantive interest that are not about gear.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy testing and writing about gear. As I've written in the past, photography satisfies that left brain/right brain need I have as it balances creativity with technology and science. Both give me fulfillment.
I'll figure it out. I still have things to say but maybe not so often. I enjoy writing immensely but I don't enjoy forced writing or writing about mundane or meaningless subjects. Time will tell.
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| This and the image below are two of the last images I've made. Freedom takes a backseat to food! (click to enlarge) Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 lens @ 20mm; 1/640th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200 |
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| Just behind me were thousands of individuals flying kites, eating, walking, children playing and just milling around enjoying a beautiful day on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. You would never know it by looking at this image. (click to enlarge) Olympus E-M1 Mark II, 12-100mm f/4 lens @ 13mm; 1/640th sec. @ f/8; ISO 200 |
Again, you flatter me by visiting, reading and commenting on this blog. You make this all worthwhile. Thank you once again.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
All content on this blog is © 2013-2018 Dennis A. Mook. All Rights Reserved. Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution. Permission may be granted for commercial use. Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.
Dennis, your blog is a refreshing change of pace. Please keep up the good work. I am sure that some of us would be willing to help. I know other sites that have asked readers to contribute articles. That approach might allow you personally to contribute less frequently, while giving others an outlet for expression. Yours is a small community of presumably like minded photographers.
ReplyDeleteGear blogs are everywhere. Blogs discussing how to create compelling images are far and few between. Please help your small community share techniques, approaches, and the images they feel are compelling. It would be fun to see that , and perhaps get support from your like minded community. While not yet retired, I am getting close, and would really enjoy the opportunity to focus on image qualty rather than gear quality.
Thanks for a solid body of work over the last five years!
Rudiger, thank you for your kind words. I do appreciate the feedback. I try to be thoughtful and complete in writing my posts. Some of them take quite long, as long as 6 hours, to research, write and edit (several times). When I don't get feedback, I start to wonder if anyone is reading them or if they don't really have value.
DeleteI like your suggestion of inviting others to periodically write for the blog. I don't mind sharing the platform, after all, the idea is to provide a methodology to help others and share experiences.
I probably will cut back to two or one post per week in the near future. I'm still trying to decide.
There are those out there who would be willing to volunteer to edit drafts for you. That would cut out one of the steps.
DeleteI appreciate the difficulty of creatively writing three posts each week over a five year stretch. Congratulations by the way. However, I am voting for you to continue. I think re-visiting and re-writing some of your older posts would be useful and I am happy even on the days you write sparingly. Your content is good and I have learned a lot so, again selfishly, I want you to publish regular items. Talk about some local trips, showcase one photo and why it did or did not turn out as you expected, worry over which system to keep: I like them all. Keep up the great work you are appreciated.
ReplyDeleteDave, I thank you for your kind words as well. Yours is another good idea. Revisiting old posts, updating and republishing ones that could bring additional value is well worth considering.
DeleteAgain, Dave, thank you for your kind words. If you ever have a specific question or a photographic problem which is difficult to solve, please email me and I will glad to help. My email address can be found on my website, dennismook.com That goes for anyone who I may be able to assist.
Bottom line Dennis, I’d really miss your blog should you pull up stakes and move out. I’ve been a regular reader for a year or two even though I haven’t posted but a couple of times. I find your photos very interesting, well done and at times quite striking. I like your approach to analyzing a problem or making a point. You state your issue clearly, discuss where you are coming from then present the facts and findings in a clear and concise manner. It never occurred to me that coming up with new and fresh topics on a regular basis would eventually become a problem but in reading your reasoning I can see that this is a major stumbling block. But then I’ve never tried to write a blog! I do recall that I used to subscribe to Modern Photography or Popular Photography or some such decades ago and finally dropped them when the ‘10 tips of the month’ degraded to such things as ‘if you accidentally drop your camera you should stick your foot out to try and break the fall’, or some other lame common sense idea. It got worse each month.
ReplyDeleteI’d like to see you continue (easy for me to say) provided you can stay relevant and not resort to publication just for the sake of getting something out there. I suspect your work is appreciated by many even though you don’t get the feedback you would hope for. On the other hand if you’ve reached the point where you feel like you have ‘jumped the shark’ then maybe you should save yourself some angst and pull back and enjoy life out of the public eye. We’d miss you for sure.
Just my two cents, John Edinburgh.
John, thank you for your comments. Your words are more than kind. I appreciate you taking time to write. For now, I plan on continuing. Thought on subjects of potential interest still seem to come to me regularly. As long as they do, I plan on continuing. I may reduce my postings to once per week but I’m not yet sure when.
DeleteAgain, thank you for your kind words.
Been reading your blog since last summer and enjoy very much. Previously sent you a couple of emails last year and you replied promptly (both replies are still in my email inbox) and with very informative info. I may not write in but still read your blog each week and I continually search the blog for answers to my many photography questions. Agree with all said about the value of your insight and rewriting or just re posting previous blogs would be very useful.
ReplyDeleteBlaine
Thank you Blaine. As I mentioned above, I plan on continuing but probably at a reduced prate of posting. If you ever have a question, p,ease email me and I’ll be happy to try to answer your question or clarify what I may have written. My email address can be found on my website.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePart 2 - (see Part 1 in the previous comment)
ReplyDeleteEvent photography, however, is an entirely different kettle of fish. Here we have little or no control over the light, apart from adding some flash, and have little or no control over the location. The priority in this type of shooting is to get the image. Over the years I've shot thousands of event images and have found that trying to do it with prime lenses is nothing but an exercise in frustration and I've long since given up.
I'm a Fuji owner and my go to lens for this type of shooting is the 18-135. No, it's not the best zoom that Fuji makes but it's certainly the most versatile and I rarely miss getting the shot with this lens. I can be shooting a wide angle team shot one moment and seconds later be shooting a zoomed in shot of a runner approaching the finish line. Here the subject is the important element and background image quality is of little relevance. For this type of shooting, using a zoom lens is a no brainer....but it needs to be the right lens. I have tried doing this using a short zoom and a long zoom but that's nearly as frustrating as trying to use primes. I've even tried using two cameras with different lenses but for me this just doesn't work.
I feel there's enough potential here to provide material for several articles, which I have no doubt will bring forth many comments. I can see articles exploring the differences not only between zooms and primes but also between lenses of different focal lengths, different speeds, and between zooms of different prices. One comparison I would be particularly interested is between the 16-55 2.8 and the 18-55 kit lens when shooting hand held in low light. Does the stabiliser in the kit lens compensate enough for the faster aperture in the 16-55 at low shutter speeds.
Anyway, this is turning into a rather long winded comment but I think you can see where I'm going with it. I won't take up any more of your time but I do enjoy your blog and hope you keep on posting.
Stan Carter.