By the lore of the web I have done everything wrong with this blog. The articles are too long. The articles are too personal and the articles don't have, as their raison d'être, the motive of constantly pushing product and making money. Sure, I put in ads for things at Amazon from time to time but I've long since given up really trying to push sales of my five books. And my attempts at "selling" are abysmal. Besides, the blueprint for financial success from affiliate advertising calls for three "gushy" articles about brand new gear for every one article about the actual art, or existence within the art of photography. It's sad to think that my core readers might not come here if I did follow the formula but they'd be replaced with legions of boring, linear thinkers like those that argue, ad nauseum, about aperture equivalence or shutter shock.
I think photography blogs have more or less run their course. For every blogger who really understands the gear, like Ming Thein or Michael Reichmann, there are legions of hobbyists who take duffle bags full of crappy images, review every camera that comes down the pike and fall madly in love with each of them. Every single one. Ming and Michael are leveraging their experience while almost everyone else is flexing their marketing muscles.
I am also commercially inept (as a blogger) because I have a soft spot for mutts and eccentrics. I love weird cameras like the Pentax K-01 precisely because it is a very functional camera wrapped in weirdness. My friends throng to the Olympus OMD but I am increasingly intrigued by the Panasonic GH3, a truly eccentric entry in the camera race.
What's all this leading to? Just a New Year's resolution. To wit: I'll continue to write about whatever interests me, on my own schedule and people are welcome along for the ride. If I want to show images of dusty road barriers and construction fences I probably have some reason for doing so that my therapists and I haven't quite figured out yet. Maybe we never will.
