1,000 Posts and…

With yesterday’s post “End of Season” I had posted 1,000 image posts on “Today” since June 2009. The only surprise to me is that it’s been only 1,000 because every day there are multiple images to share from inside my own home to the backyard, the neighborhood, town and city. I don’t travel much but in part that’s my point—we can find inspiration right around us, it just depends how we look at it, and what we do with our ideas. I’ve repeated a few now that I can feature all images at 1000 pixels and an update to editing software to correct color, it actually evens out with the posts that had more than one image, including multi-image slideshows. I’ve been keeping count to have the 1,000 posts/images come together on the same day.

Above is the very first image I posted on “Today”, taken while on the Panhandle Trail, ostensibly riding my bike but that was just a vehicle to get me from one photo opportunity to another that much more quickly along the trail and to carry a portion of my equipment. When I looked at this photo in my viewfinder I couldn’t wait to share it, and resolved, as I continued down the trail taking yet more photos, that I would give into my initiative and set up a photo blog called “Today”. I’d actually been holding off for months, occasionally posting a photo to the home page of my photography site under the title of “Today”.

As many of us photobloggers found this is a perfect medium to be able to share images quickly and easily, give each other feedback and encouragement and even inspire others to other work.

The idea for this blog grew from the fact that I really do photograph things all the time, sometimes intentionally, sometimes for documentation and sometimes just because; you can read more in“about”. Nearly every photo that doesn’t have a previous year in its title was indeed from that day, and I usually explain this in the text underneath. But it’s a rare day when I only have one image I want to share so that results in posting images from previous days that are somehow related to or inspired by the day. Just yesterday I was stuck in traffic in Pittsburgh and took whole gigabytes of photos, many of them just out of frustration, others dazzling in the brilliant sun of a late autumn afternoon on the bridges and streets and rivers of Pittsburgh. By the time I got home I didn’t even have a chance to download them. You’ll be seeing some of those soon. I also want to continue adding artwork and poetry and essays.

I have also used this site as an online portfolio of my work and for customers to choose photos to purchase for print or web use. Although I regularly find them in Google Images and Yahoo Free Images sites—thanks to both of them for making money on my back and the backs of many other creative people—my images are not open for use or derivative use, and I appreciate when people do actually ask my permission to use my work, and recently I had two such requests.

A few months ago a painter asked if I ever allow people to paint from my photos. She liked one of my photos from late August, “At Sunset In the Woods“, and asked if I’d mind if she created a painting from it. “I respect your photo as art with a capital “A” and would not try to incorporate it into my own art world without your permission,” she said, the same way I feel about creating derivatives from others’ photos and images.

I was thrilled and couldn’t wait to see what she came up with from this photo that would be a challenge but rewarding if painted. You see it at left—I think Colleen should be very pleased.

And another blogger used my copyright page to send a message asking if he could use one of my images in his post, since I made it so easy to ask. I said I was complimented and just asked for a link back to my site, which he did and sent me a link.

I’m looking forward to another 1,000 images and posts.