My Blog Has Finally Made The "Big Time!"

"Just for the Color"  Does anyone recognize what these are?  Scroll down to the bottom of this 
post for another image that puts these in context. (click to enlarge)

In the Spring of 2013 I started writing this blog as a way of documenting a friend's and my Route 66 trip from Chicago to Los Angeles.  After reaching the Pacific ocean, we then made a big loop around the country.  The entire trip was about three weeks or so.  This blog was meant only to be a way for the daily sharing of our trip with family members and a couple of other close friends—a short narrative and a few photos posted each evening.  After returning from the trip, for whatever reason, I decided to keep writing and sharing my thoughts, photographic knowledge as well as post some photographs on it.  Nine years and 1400 posts later, I'm still writing and—three of my lifelong friends and I are planning another cross country Route 66 trip later this spring!  What goes around comes around, as the old saying goes. 

I've built a very good readership on the blog.  I'm getting close to 3,000,000 total views.  My blog is not one of the large, popular ones that everyone reads, but you—my readers—have proven to be intelligent, inciteful and passionate about photography.  I think one of the reasons I continue is that I find writing and sharing my photographs therapeutic.  Another reason is that I enjoy sharing everything I know and have learned about photography over the past 51 years, hoping that sharing it will help others enjoy the craft as much as have I.  Unlike some others, I also share my mistakes as we learn much from mistakes.  Failures allow us to enjoy our successes even more.

The readership has gone down a bit since the pandemic, but still is respectable.  For those of you who still are my faithful readers and feel I provide at least a little bit of interesting content now and then, thank you.  That said, I think this blog now has hit the "Big Time!"  Why do I say that?

I'm now getting almost daily spam comments.  This just started a couple of months ago.  Before this year, I would get, maybe, 10 or fewer spam comments a year.  Now, almost daily.  So far, most center around the gambling industry.

I'm kind of proud that the spammers have finally recognized the blog.  I'll wear this as a badge of, well, something or other.  Not sure what.  Also, the spam has not really negatively affected me.  However, if one day the volume becomes problematic, I may have to shut off the comments. Until then, feel privileged that you are reading a blog that gets regularly spammed!  LOL

Join me over at my website, https://www.dennismook.com.  

Thanks for looking. Enjoy!  

Dennis A. Mook  

All content on this blog is © 2013-2022 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.

Here is the context for the image above.  These are new crab pots in the making.  The top image
reminds me of how important 'context' is, whether a photo, the news, something someone said
or anything else.  Without 'context' anything can be interpreted in a myriad of ways.