Recent photography endeavors
I have been bored. I've taken quite a few pictures this summer, but not as many as I took last summer when I first got the camera. I've run out of things to blog about, so I'm going to post a bunch of pictures instead.
I'm not sure who I am anymore. I took pictures first, I think. I tried taking pictures, at least, but I bit the dust most of the time. (My fill-in phrase for "sucked.") Then I wound up in journalism, where I found out I could copy edit a story better than anyone else in the class. That was amazing, and so much fun. Of course, there was always writing. I've always enjoyed writing. Then photography suddenly came into the picture. (No pun intended.) I learned a thing or two about photography, and my pictures are turning out better than ever before.
What the heck? Photography/photojournalism? Copy editing? Writing/reporting? Aren't journalists supposed to pick one field and stick to it? This has never made sense to me. How did I go from dreaming of becoming a farmer to being so confused about where I'm supposed to go in the journalism world?
I think I was better off being a freshman in high school who had never thought about farming or journalism. I was just a girl.
This is so uncool. And it's not cool when I'm dreaming about photography, either.
Oh, man. Where did that come from? I'm sorry. I hope you didn't read through the whole thing and bore yourself to sleep. Speaking of sleep, I think I'm going to bed.
Robin
Comments
>>The thing that gets me so much, though, is that I've got nearly 40 views and no one wants to comment.
You're not alone here, either. I've got a couple of examples to prove that. On bakersfield.com, I posted a blog ranting about the lack of recycling options in NW Bako a couple of months ago, and it has only about 52 views and 0 comments. On here last weekend (I think it was), I posted a blog asking what sports the Olympics should add and what ones should be dropped from the Olympics. It has a whole 13 views and 2 comments. I wasn't expecting it to get too many hits given the popularity of this site, but I was expecting it to get more comments. I posted the same question on bakersfield.com and it is doing FAR better (over 125 views and 30 comments).
>>That IS discouraging.
I'll certainly have to agree with you. It's not only discouraging, but borderline upsetting to me.
One thing you might try doing is submitting your blogposts as stories for the print version of The Northwest Voice. My post titled "Northwest Bakersfield needs more bike-friendly roads" is on page 5 of the current (bicycling) issue (thanks to editor Dana Martin for running it!) and I've sent another one of my posts called "Northwest Bakersfield getting too many strip malls/plazas" to the NW Voice staff, so hopefully it will be run soon. The aforementioned bicycling story got 1 new comment just today and hopefully more will come.
Hey Robin, you're not alone when it comes to not getting attention on your blogposts. I have like 4 or 5 blogposts on here that have been up for over 2 months that haven't got 30 hits, including my 3-part series on my vacation to watch the Grand Prix of Long Beach (a former Champ Car World Series race-now IndyCar Series since those two series merged and used the IndyCar name) last April. I have that same series on my blog on www.bakersfield.com and it has more hits (26,14,21) on here than it does on there. I started wondering why that series got so little attention, especially given that Bakersfield is a racing town.
For people to get the most hits on their blog posts, they need to do one or two things. First, you have to write often enough that you develop a following. True, right now, the NWV blog site isn't popular, but most of that is because of our size. And up until last week, I was editing two papers so I had very little time to develop the blogging. Unlike Bakersfield.com,The Northwest Voice doesn't have a full-time moderator.
Second, we have to blog about topics about which people Google. For example, I am willing to bet that if I blog about Buck Owens' Crystal Palace, those four words will bring more people to this blog over the next month than my Volkslauf blog, simply because of how many people search for Buck Owens and his Crystal Palace on a daily basis. We will have to watch and see if that happens. I will also be posting a blog over the weekend that will refer to the restaurant again, so we can also use that one as a test.
And yes, you're right -- your blog post on Lost Ocean definitely brought people to the site because it must be about a topic on which some people search.
At any rate, I wouldn't take it personally... I don't. Bakersfield.com is the Web site of a long-running daily newspaper and will always have more blog views than we have. Northwest Voice is a niche Web site and a niche publication for just a small area of town, and I don't expect that it will ever get as many hits as B.com gets. :)
Now... get to blogging! :))
I know, Dana. I've actually been watching the blog views this whole time. Thirty views is the average on a decent blog here on Northwest Voice. Bakersfield.com gets a lot more views than that. The thing that gets me so much, though, is that I've got nearly 40 views and no one wants to comment. That IS discouraging. It could be hinting something to me. I wish there was a way to bring more traffic here.
I've gotten as much as 600 views on an old Bakersfield.com blog just because it was one of the first ones to be posted. I'm beginning to wonder if I have accidentally drawn some traffic to The Northwest Voice's site, because I wrote a blog about Lost Ocean in early 2007, and for some reason it shows up on the first page when you Google the band. That Northwest Voice blog has 488 views because of it. Isn't that cool? That's not a bad thing, of course.
Anyway, I need to get my butt off the computer. Hopefully I'll get to writing my next blog post soon, but right now I have important things that I was supposed to have done days ago...
Hey! That isn't true. Look how many times your blog post was viewed! :)
Well, I guess the northwest isn't particularly interested in photography. Ha! Perhaps it's a sign for me to stop picking up my camera. Naaah. Yes, I am commenting on my own blog. That's what happens when Robin gets bored. Now, I'm off to write another blog post!