I was wasting time on a cold, gray morning last week. I needed to do a few boring and mundane tasks. Things like tallying up expenses to report to my accountant for the upcoming tax return. Or making sure a particular outdoor faucet was dripping so as to prevent pipes from freezing and bursting. Or cleaning up my breakfast dishes.
In the past I would have "more" productively wasted time by going to one of a number of well written blogs to read about cameras, lenses, print making, workshop experiences, photographer profiles, lighting techniques or, most excitedly, to read about actual photography jobs and how one of my peers interpreted the brief and then handled the actual process.
Most of those good, hands-on excerpts from working photographers' lives are long gone. Blogs have ceased to be profitable adventures for most and many photographers ended up being uncomfortable and slow at the process of writing. Youtube seems to have stolen the limelight for the past five or six years and the bloggers that remain seem incompetent or unwilling to make a transition in that direction. And I'm not sure I blame them since many of us, of a certain age, would rather read material at our own pace than be dragged, mercilessly, through a lot of personal sidebars and tangents before getting to the "meat" of a YouTube presentation. A long journey for sometimes sparse rewards.
As I thought about this I wondered what it was about the written blogs that was responsible for their diminishing readership. Their decline. It seems to me that when the content goes far afield from the promised topics (photography, art, more photography, art photography) the interest in a day's blog gets divided. If one writes about sewing quilts instead of lighting models it can only be expected that fewer people will be interested in the subject, fewer comments will be posted and some readers will even wander off. Permanently. Especially after being subjected to a pride of off topic onslaughts.
Even worse, I think, are the posts where the owner writes too personally about life's regrets or life's perceived slights. Anecdotes about the writer's disconnected past induce a soporific unmooring of once allegiant fans. And exposes the weaknesses of the creator in a venue where people are supposedly looking for strength of thought and focused purpose.
It would be nice, I think, if blogs about photography could stay on track. I'm sure I'm guilty of some of these affronts to some degree. Probably far fewer of you wish to read more about swimming. At least far fewer of you than I wish are fans of aquatics.... But I try to provide a lopsided selection if I can. At least 90% related to, directly or indirectly, photography. The use of a cameras. The evolution of styles. The news of an industry in which we share a primary interest.
I ended up reading an old post I'd written over a decade ago. It was, at least, about the business of photography and not about the polished metal knobs on my old gas range. But even those could be rescued if I provided an interesting photograph of the knobs and a quick story about why and how I chose to photograph them. Ah well. We can only hope for better times...
It's sunny today. I can just go outside instead of reading any blogs at all. The tax stuff can wait...for a while.
...and don't forget to order the new Sigma BF.
ReplyDeleteIf you, Kirk Tuck, were to look at the typical 12-minute YouTube video, thought it over, and then wrote down the good stuff, you'd have a paragraph, maybe two. I think most (some?) YouTube photo commentators actually know quite a bit about operating cameras, but video just isn't a good way to present information, because it doesn't allow for contemplation. I have sitting next to my elbow a rockynook [sic] book called "Mastering the Nikon Z6II/Z7II." It's 645 pages long, and that doesn't include the roman numeral introductory pages which go up to XVI. It'd dense with information. It would take ten years of daily videos to get that on YouTube. YouTube is entertainment, not information; and it's mostly bullshit. But addictive bullshit. People who should be out shooting are sitting there with drool running out of one corner of their mouths. Dude.
ReplyDeleteNo drool here John. I just checked in the mirror. I agree with your assessment. Makes it even more tragic to waste time with personal detours on photo blogs...
DeleteSpeaking of ennui, did you ever see the yt series about Henri, the existential cat (https://www.youtube.com/@HenriLeChatNoir)?
ReplyDeleteI think trying to please others is an exercise in frustration. Write about what you enjoy and let the chips fall where they may.
ReplyDeleteI love what you do and how you do it Kirk. Keep on keeping on as they say.
ReplyDeleteEric
Maybe it's true what they used to say in the early days of the internet. The "expert" you are reading might actually be a sad and lonely teenaged boy living in his parent's basement.
ReplyDeleteIf I subscribed to a professional blog / news site about a topic that had several writers I would find it weird and unsatisfactory if half the posts were about entirely unrelated subjects that its writers happened to be interested in.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, when I follow a blog by an individual, that's focused on one topic, I'm only partly following it for that topic. I'm also following it because of the person writing it - their interests, their writing style, their attitude, etc. it might be the main topic that brought me there but if I like the person's writing etc, then I'll stick around for anything else they fancy writing about, whether that's swimming, ergonomic keyboards, or anything else.
I also follow plenty of blogs by individuals that don't even have a specific topic - I read them because of the person writing them, and whatever interests them.
One of the challenges of replying to any blog post by Kirk Tuck is that KT has become so adept at anticipating and responding in advance, particularly in regards to Leica and it's pricing!
ReplyDeleteBut for me, blogs are primarily a form of entertainment rather than a place of learning. And on the increasingly rare occasions when I am shopping for a new piece of gear, I trust science over subjectivity. But would I consider buying Sigma's Beautifully Foolish new camera? You bet, because I have foolish tendencies and am drawn to beauty.
Jeff in Colorado
And now, here on Sunday March 2nd, I rest my case....
ReplyDelete