Years ago I would take a picture and run to my computer excited to share it with my readers and on flickr. I take many photos that never make it to the blog and I always forget to upload my photos to flickr now. When I do post it is not usually my favorite or what I might consider the best shot of the batch, sometimes I even put up some losers and photos that really do not excite me but are OK. I started a little album where I print out and hoard my favorites photos without sharing them and I am not really sure why I started doing it? Umm?
I spend a lot of time just sitting and waiting. I always have a goal in my mind. Sometimes it is to catch a little bird (LB -for you Donna) that is hopping around in the weeds. Seriously, some of those LB are a pain in arse to capture. Other times I have no goal in mind I just walk about photographing what catches my attention. I am always ever so hopeful to get the National Geographic Cover shot as my friend Chuck calls it – the one of a life time – hope I recognize if/when one of those photos happens 🙂 .
I think I have started doing something very similar with the blogging. I do not share much anymore and I can not say that I get excited about posting much anymore. Quite honestly the stuff I really want to discus would probably come off wrong, be misunderstood or my opinion more than likely would be considered unkind to some. So I tuck my thoughts away and stifle the urge. Not sure where I was heading with this one so I will end it here.
A few from yesterdays trip to the refuge (and yeah I know I can take photos without having to go somewhere – snark).
This next bunch of photos from last night are not photographically great but I cropped them so you can see the carnage. Do not look at them if the feeding habits in nature gross you out or if you really have a great love for bull frogs.
Share what you want, when you want, Jan. That’s the cool thing about blogging. You get to decide what you share and what you don’t. At least one of your readers will read it anyway : )
The egret in flight is very elegant, but doesn’t look very aerodynamic. Not that I should tell a bird how to fly.
well I always read your blog too. hey the egret was turning so maybe the angle of the shot? They can be very graceful and yet well sometimes I wonder how any bird can fly – that would be cool to fly I think.
I take hundreds of photos and share a couple a week on my photo blog. I take photos for myself, but it is nice to get some opinions. And if I am particularly excited about one, I like to share. I really enjoy other photo blogs, I get ideas and tips, and am awed a lot of the time by people’s talent.
Blogging has it’s uses. Maybe yours has outgrown it’s use, although I read and enjoy what you post. I notice a lot of (MS)bloggers that were very proliferate last year at this time, are posting less and less…myself included. I am running out of things to say that I think people will be interested in. LOL I too have strong opinions and weird thoughts that I don’t think people would be interested in, and might be offended by.
You may not HAVE to go somewhere to get photos, but where you DO go results in some great shots, love the tree and reflection!
A few years ago I could not wait to share some shot I was excited about now and I really don’t know why the urge to share has lessened and I am not sure why.
As for out growing it’s purpose it may not serve me now but since the blog really has no purpose other than I guess whatever I was getting from it you might be correct. Partly I think because I can not decide what my goal in blogging is anymore.
I wonder what would happen if I actually said what I was thinking – oh heck no LOL like you I think my opinions might offend.
Oh come on….I DARE ya!
Ok, umm ha trying to egg me into it eh? 🙂
i double dog dare you! i think blogging would be so much more fun and serve more purpose if we all wrote what we truly thought… we are a bunch of pansy asses who worry too much about offending others…
and karen – that goes for you too!
i figure if i should ever say anything too off the way or offensive, i’ll lose followers, but i bet i’d gain others that like that kind of stuff too
Sometimes just throwing topics out is fun also. The art of debate – I wonder if they still teach it in school. Take the topic and support the side the teacher decides.
Public discussion is great as long as it stays civil – respectful. Seems that does not happen sometimes when blogging.
I used to want to get a camera, but then we did and I never used it. Too difficult to hold it still and focus, too difficult to get the right angle because of balance problems, etc. etc. It;s a good thing that Photography isn’t really my thing. Now, if you gave up blogging altogether. it would piss me off, but how much you decide to write, well, that’s up to you. Blogging Without Obligations and all that, you know. So take a respite if you want to, but please check in once in awhile, okay?
BTW, I liked last post’s picture of the road. Reminded me of the Talking Heads song .. Road to Nowhere.
I can relate to the shaky issue and off balance. I am using only my vibration reduction lenses – once that have a system built in to take out the shake if it is not to bad and my prime lens that is fast – in other words one that can use a faster shutter speed and still get the shot.
So I have to shoot with more available light and I sit down a lot to get the shot so I don’t fall over. I think the regulars at the refuge think I must drink a lot 🙂 and I am wearing holes in the arses of my jeans. I have up close and personal relationships with many trees and fences.
I am not calling respite time but just rethinking goals and subject matter. I love sitting in the middle of the road LOL
If I get what you’re saying here and from some conversations, it’s that you want to share certain things on the blog yet it doesn’t feel like the right outlet anymore? Maybe I’m projecting as that’s where I’m at. I feel as though I’m getting blander and blander as I steer towards caution.
About the photos, the second one brought on a gasp — striking.
Well, in some ways that is correct. I know what I do not wish to do – drone on and on with the woe is me stuff. Sometimes the temptation to get real snarky in response to other bloggers rubbish is strong. I like when folks say what is one their mind, what is going on in their lives but it can get real tiring after about four years or so if someone writes like a broken record.
i don’t think that some of us (you included) are getting bland but perhaps more guarded in the modern social digital platform age? One good thing about self hosted blogging it is the opposite of the opening to the old Outer Limits show. If some of the new bills pass even that will be a thing of the past. Good thing I know how to write and post a snail mail letter!
I hear ya, or feel ya, anyway—I am not sure why I am not as excited about blogging anymore. It used to be pure fun! Then it became a goal with purpose of hekping others, that became a job, now I just bore myself. If it bores ME…
Used to carry a camera EVERYWHERE, since I was a kid. Now…MS issues but my ‘money shot’ never gonna happen and don’t care anymore. I have so many negs and slides and old crap…I am too old. I get excited when I get closer to finishing part of my book. My new life in the assisted living home, so many stories I want to write—feels like bricks on me. I can’t look at all my pix, why bother taking them? I SAW. If no one else sees…
Seems many of us are in sort of eh deal with blogging . …
I used to take my camera everywhere. Now most of the public places like school etc I go to really do not have anywhere safe to place it. The truck is not an option cause to many windows get bashed.
Not sure about money shot but the one wow shot would be nice ;).
Are you meaning that all the stories feel like bricks or all the slides etc.?
I still consider myself new to this, but I don’t think you’ve broken any rules.
I hope you find away to release the load you are carrying.
Rules? dang I did not know there were any – good thing I have not broken them :).
Load umm in respects to what I blog about – makes me think of rules of engagement – like the fighter planes from the movie top gun – see if I let my fingers actually type what I am thinking . … makes no sense really LOL
Rules of engagement….Top gun…WHAT????
So email then, tell me what you really want to blog about
🙂 Subjects I try to avoid nowdays include politics, religion, and any other topic where the rules are complex and my brain fog hinders my ability to engage.
1) Did our President really say that the purpose of NASA should be to support Muslims?
2) why do estimted .003 % of our population think they are the 99%?
3) CERN scientists claim tyo have recorded subatomic particles traveling faster than the speed of light. was Einstien wrong or are the CERN scientists?
4) Is deja vu time travel or brain misfire?
Jan – I know what you mean about sharing/not sharing on your blog. It was one of the things that stopped me from posting. I found I wanted to really get “down and dirty” talking about some of the not-so-pretty facts of our life together as well as my crankiness and how it affected our relationship and my life. But, there’s neither the pure anonymity nor the true intimacy needed for those kind of stories in a blog (at least not mine, since friends and family read it). Still haven’t found the right outlet for the down and dirty side of life.
Yeah the family reading does not promote a tell it like it is atmoshere. Good old fashioned letter writting– pen, paper, envelope . …. definitely requires more thought before putting to pen and answers tend to be more thought out – a lost art.
Whatever happened to pen pals? Oh yeah, email.
I have so few close friends but the ones I have are awesome. Yet having been in a relationship almost 30 years,MS,and passage of time i really don’t have a confidant that is just mine– not
ours as couple other than internet friendsand heck I pretty much tell everything I do on here anyways.
Jan – I know what you mean about having just a few good friends but, after 30 years with Skippy, they’re all shared here as well. Fortunately, being in a support group of other MS caregivers is a help for me. We have a somewhat common experience and I haven’t said anything yet that’s shocked them (at least, not outwardly). So, I guess I do have an outlet for some of the down and dirty side of life, although only monthly and each of us in the group needs to get some airtime so I can’t dominate the whole thing.
Support group dynamics are interesting . … my luck has been a hot cold thing with them. Our little MS support group has a few folks that demand a lot of attention and the group “leader” thinks they are all that so? Good that your group is at least managed to allow everyone to talk.
I have a few people that I met there that I do communicate with and sometimes go out to lunch with. It is hard to know from a group meet who I might connect with. I got out of my shyness (yeah seriously I really am) and asked if a few would like to go to lunch. After a couple of small group lunches I knew who I connected with.
Now just two or three of us go out and have a little bitch session LOL.
Down and dirty conversations to require a certain mind set!
Jan – that sounds like it was a great way to figure out who you clicked with.
Our group is managed by a professional counselor who is paid by the MS Society so yeah, he
does try to keep some of the more talkative of us from completely dominating the meeting.
Oh, btw, I’ve decided to start blogging in the cranky caregiver again. We’ll see how that goes again. 🙂
Ok I put you back on the blog roll as Cranky Caregiver LOL – now I have to remember to add back to the reader.
Our little group is overseen by a gal with MS and well never mind it can get out of hand. I do not go much anymore. But I still communicate with my pals I met there.