How often do you check your stats in WordPress?

Blogging is a whole thing. There are many good reasons why we blog. I tried one day to list them: Why do you blog?

When you blog, you have something in your brain that clicks when you read or hear things. Like an Instagrammer has an eye for it, your mind picks up ideas everywhere it can. So maybe it’s a way to be more… present, an acuteness.

There’s another thing: you publish, so you have to present it, to shape it, to frame it, whatever. It’ll be read (a little, I hope!), so you have to iron your shirt. And if you don’t, it’s also a style, right?

Then you have to find the balance between staying yourself in what you say and to please your audience. This balances a good structure to watch.

Continue reading

“Untriggered by assessments” : What does the photographer want?

I just had a good conversation with F. L. Larkins, an English photographer, after an article I wrote about her work.

Fiona Louise Larkins, English photographer

I subsequently updated my article, and I realized it was a good way to introduce another text about the photographer’s motivations.

It made me think, watched more pictures. There’s something I know : if I see a silhouette walking in the misty woods, or someone watching absently through a window (when it rains -> droplets on the glass), I don’t fall for it. I never fall for it. I just smile and I click away.

I see “the author wants me to notice it is a melancholic moment“. Like Nathalie Sarraute in literature, I disbelieve, I’m in assessment mode, I’m bored.

If I see lovers under an umbrella I smile “it’s cute, they’re in love and luck, right?”. But… No.

(though I love to be with my lover under an umbrella, listening to the subtle sounds of the rain on it)

So what does the photographer want? To testify of something? To fake happiness (like often on Instagram)? To gently mock the craziness of the world (Martin Parr)? To resolve a picture (Stephen Shore)? To have an audience, interest? To “express” oneself? To denounce?

You can make this exercize : watch your own Instagram, then watch the Instagrammers you follow.

Who do I love?

  • triciaetlea : humanism and sense of the frame.
  • jazzy_jeff57 : modestly shows the world.
  • mariakdolores : adorably sarcastic.
  • mariadelsur : shows Paris.
  • studioriquois : haunting landscapes of the North.
  • ninas982 : splendid atmospheres with no people.
  • natela_grigalashvili : people from Georgia.
  • johngiannatos : sparky human lover.

 

And many others. Diversity of motivations! But none of them give me instructions on how I must feel. Openness, subtleties.

I want to raise an eyebrow, to smile, or to have the desire to know the woman or the man behind the cam. Not to be “guided”. The audience triggers what he wants or needs or dream to see. Every single artist/viewer is a free thinker and a great soul. When sparks sparkle : Thank you!!

 

Thanks for reading!

(sorry for my English)

mban928h sm.jpg

 

Proper Melancholic chart.png