Hello world, I guess? I've waited for a while to even decide what to do with this microblog (much less do it). This was in large part because my life was in a state of upheaval (as were the lives of my family), but there was a benefit to this. Not enough to make me recommend having one's life disrupted as a lifestyle option, but there was a tiny patch of brightness on the edge of that pitch black cloud.
Originally, this was going to be a real-time photoblog, all photos being done in black and white. I still intend to set up one of those. The idea is that I'm going to be doing mobile blogging, and every image you see in that microblog will have been uploaded in the last five minutes. Actually, probably in the last few seconds, but I'm prepared for the possibility that there might be connection problems. What you will be seeing is the world I encounter, as I see it (or really close to that) - not the best photography, but you'll be getting immediacy. Is that a real word? I'll look it up later, as I'm in a rush to get to the market.
There are risks inherent in mobile blogging. It's not as secure. There's an elevated risk that a hacker will be able to intercept one's password and hack one's account, which is why I originally planned to have a mobile Typepad account and a Typepad account I'd only use at home associated with my blog. If I was sitting outside sipping a cold one (iced tea, not beer) and posting comments of no great depth while maybe seeing if I could get a few people I knew to run into me, I'd use the mobile account. For more serious responses, ones that I'd put a real effort into and would upset to lose, I'd use the more secure at home account.
Then Typepad killed that plan. Do I even have to tell you that they claimed to be fighting spammers as they made the policy change that turned out to be a problem? Isn't that the excuse management uses for almost every unpopular change, everywhere? Typepad stopped giving out free microblogs. At first, they stopped giving them out to people who weren't on Facebook, that company that has such a deplorable record of handling personal information that many of us want to come nowhere near it, and then they stopped giving out free microblogs, period. Years passed, and I think they might be open to creating new microblogs, now, but they've changed the system so one no longer has any choices as to background color.
That being the case, I'm not willing to put this microblog at risk. I like the look and feel, and if I lose this, I can't get it back. Ever. So, I'm going to find a new use for this blog (and probably rename it). When I get an Internet connection on my cellphone, I'll probably start doing my real-time photoblogging on Tumblr, where new accounts can be created easily, using an account created specifically for that purpose.
"Where's that bright shining lining, Joseph?", you ask. Well, it's only a speck of brightness, as I said. Over the last few years, the social media hosting sites have become a troll-friendly (if not troll run) headache and nightmare. I'll talk about that more, later, probably on another site, but I still will be taking photos that I want to upload, so how do I share them? Looking at Typepad, they don't seem to have the severe limits on space set on Wordpress and Blogger, which I take to mean that they'll host as much content as we'd like to upload, within reason. If some clod starts uploading terabytes worth of identical photos of the inside of his trashcan just to be a pest, as I'm sure somebody will (because some people are like that), Typepad needs to have enough wiggle room to be able to do what they need to do to protect their server and diskspace, but as I'm never going to be that guy, I don't believe that I have to worry about that.
What Typepad will be getting, then, is most of the relatively (and I hope, increasingly) polished content that I, as a novice photographer, would have been uploading to sites like Flickr before life there became as difficult as it is becoming. I have a lot to learn as a photographer, so I won't promise that this will come close to being the best black and white photography you've ever seen, even if I get access to another darkroom (I currently can't afford that), but I can promise that it will be the best I can do. This microblog will be my gallery, plus some discussion of discussions I've been in on Typepad and content I've seen there. Also, I might talk a bit about the subject matter of my photos, as one would expect on a photoblog. Also, some other material might be present, but this will be most of what my blog will be about.
I already have 13 followers. Nice. I hope they'll feel that the content they'll be seeing will have been worth the wait, but even if it won't be at first, I hope they'll stick around. I am always trying to improve, so better content is ahead. That I can promise.
