I never did like just posting images. I like to ramble about what my day is like, or write about something that seemingly has nothing to do with the photograph.
For example. Today, I had plans to finish matting prints for the China order, but when I went to the closet to find the 20 x 24 backing, I discovered that I was out of it. But I had ordered 20 x 32 matboard for backing, but when I searched for that – you guessed it – I couldn’t find it either.
And there’s the ladder with me near the top, with the ceiling fan brushing by my hair, and tubes and cartons and the ladder is tipping, and the cat wants to climb the ladder and scratch my bare feet, and I’m starting to wonder what would happen if I fell and broke something, specifically what would happen to the business? And just a little bit of reach was a box that said 16 x 32 in my handwriting on it. Crescent 16 x 32, that didn’t make any sense.
But I couldn’t reach the package in the loft, without a dangerous mountain climbing type move, so I came back down and looked up what I had ordered from DickBlick.com – and sure enough it was Crescent 20 x 32. So I could cut that to 20 x 24, and have nice 4 ply backing for the China prints.
It was tricky to get to it, and I dropped a package of flat cartons that just missed the cat. He definitely got the idea that standing near the bottom of the ladder was not a good idea and went to hang out in the now empty big box that the tubes had come in yesterday. And somehow, although I scraped my knees, I managed to get the package of backing down, and started cutting it.
But now I really didn’t feel like going back to the matting process. I hadn’t had a thing to eat all day and it was nearing 4 pm. I had done pretty good cigar-wise, only smoking two small cigars; but the fridge was empty except for hot sauce; and I had worked on this shot – with tonemapping which I wanted to post, but I had nothing new to say about it other than that it was done with the infrared camera and the 300mm lens from the Top of the Rock. I thought it looked very much like a well-known shot by Kertesz, so that in itself is a fine reason to post it. And so it goes up, and now I’d better continue matting so this order can go out tomorrow because it’s already four days or so late. And that’s how it all goes together – sort of. Plus I want to tweet this one since I am getting a whole new bunch of tweet followers that never did read the blog before.
Which brings me to something else I wanted to write: the difference between Tweeting and Blogging. This may be sexist, but Tweeting is a masculine sort of activity where you go out chasing your audience / customer; and blogging is more feminine, where you are discovered, noticed by the customer / audience.
Does that make any sense to you? Of course not. If it made perfect sense, if it was obvious, there’d be no point in writing it. But if there’s just a smidgen of truth in it – then it becomes interesting.
Tweeting v. Blogging. Part II (when I get done with what I’m supposed to be doing).
Yes it makes sense Dave, but maybe I’m a big girl; I’ve never got into the whole tweeting vibe. I joined up and have an account somewhere but found it very inane and pointless. Maybe it’s evolved a bit, it’s certainly used extensively by pollies and journos here in Aus.
It was almost 12 months ago that I first signed up and although I’ve never posted a thing, I still get e-mails saying XX is following me on Twitter. I must seem very dull to my followers…
.-= Phill´s last blog ..Bedknobs and Broomsticks and Larry Fink =-.
Uhm… pointless… maybe… actually there are just too many points… inane… yes, but I have found a completely new “audience” in Twitter; almost all this extra stuff that I do has one purpose – exposure for my work. True, I will often go for days without talking about my “work” in the blog, but again, the purpose from day one was exposure, and to give a feeling of the person behind the photography. The whole idea was that I could never produce enough photographs to keep anyone’s interest, so I would have to write about other stuff, which is how the blog came into being.
And Twitter is simply (in my case) a link to the blog and now the photo store. If I weren’t selling photographs on the web, the blog, twitter, flickr, all that stuff would have absolutely no point for me and I’d just be stacking the prints up in black boxes and not even showing them to anyone, which is how I lived and worked for years.
Having the Tweet thingy in the store, making it very prominent as it is now (go ahead y’all, look at any image) gives you, my dear reader, a chance to spread the word, and spread your own interest to others. It used to be called word-of-mouth.
At one time, this would have been done with a guy wearing a sandwich sign in Times Square. Or a small ad in local newspapers. So there are many reasons for getting into Twitter. One is that you enjoy finding interesting bits of information that you can’t find in the mainstream media, and passing it on to others; another reason is to get as many followers that you become famous for something or other; and then there is advertising. Hey you – come over here and look in the window. I have great new fashions, that just came from Paris and other stuff like playing cards with pretty women on the back – all from Paris. Come to my General Store and ask for the Gay Paree section.
Interesting, your male/female analysis of twitter.
I see it as the opposite.
While I do see many ‘masculine’ tweeters [including women] who ‘go out chasing’, I believe that the best ‘tweeps’ are usually women.
IMHO, twitter is about sharing, not chasing.
Those who are chasing become tiresome fast, and have no store of ‘social capital’ [another word for 'friends'].
.-= Ray Beckerman´s last blog ..RayBeckerman- Thank YOU Jeanne @littlepig1- THX Ray! RT @RayBeckerman- This little light of mine St Pauls UCC featuring Muzette Morgan =-.
BTW neither the sandwich board, nor advertising, nor even blogging, give people what twitter gives — the opportunity to get to know that strange dude who makes these nice pictures.
.-= Ray Beckerman´s last blog ..RayBeckerman- Thank YOU Jeanne @littlepig1- THX Ray! RT @RayBeckerman- This little light of mine St Pauls UCC featuring Muzette Morgan =-.
Ray, and the ability for me to write things that are wrong more often than right
Blogging does seem passive to me, in the sense that you aren’t “sending” anything. You are just putting a message in a bottle, hoping that it will be carried to the right person. You don’t have a sense of “writing to a particular person” or a particular set of people. At least I don’t.
Twitter, on the other hand, means that you are more involved in personal relationships, or relationships… in that way it is less like the more passive nature of blogs. To tell the truth – I like Twitter – but as a starting tweeter; after years of blogging; I’m giving my own first impressions of how different tweeting feels to me.