Twenty Years
I'm not particularly interested in anniversaries. I'm happy to celebrate other people's; but in my own life, I prefer to look forward -- rather than back. But on and off I have been thinking a little bit about the fact that I started what originally was called Conscientious in 2002.
It wasn't the first blog about photography. In fact, originally, it wasn't even supposed to become photography centric. But it did within a few short months. There was a small number of other blogs I followed and looked up to. James Luckett wrote Consumptive (which ceased operations years ago). I don't remember who wrote Coincidences; I seem to remember it was anonymous, and it sadly stopped getting updated even before Consumptive did. I did a Google search, you can still access it (last entry: 2005).
(If you've ever wondered why my blog was called the way it was, the above might give you a hint. In retrospect, I'd never start anything else again with a name that was that hard to spell -- for natives and foreigners -- and pronounce -- for foreigners.)
People occasionally ask me about the early days of the blog. To be honest, it's not something I feel inclined talking about. It's not that I have a problem with what I did; it's just that to me, the present always is more interesting than the past.
That said, I've mostly spent my time this year trying to figure out how what I do could be better. By this I not only mean the aspect of what I write about (and how) but also (and crucially) how I can deal with the fact that free doesn't pay the bills. In a nutshell, I will continue what I have been doing for two decades now. But a lot of content will only become fully available to people who are subscribed to my Patreon.
Unfortunately, this poses a problem for one of the main things I do: writing photobook reviews. I feel bad about putting those behind a paywall. After all, if a photographer sends me their book and I decide to write a review, that review should be accessible. However, spending hours at a time writing a review for free -- while everybody else connected to the book is being paid for it -- also doesn't feel right. I don't have a good solution for this problem (yet?).
Regardless, I don't know if you've just started following what I do or whether you've been following along for years. Either way, I want to thank you for paying attention to what I do (write). My hope has always been to produce something that would find an appreciative audience. It makes me happy to realize that I have achieved that goal.
To be honest, my favourite moments are when I receive an email that says something along the lines of "I don't always agree with what you write but...". As social media have weaponized disagreements, leading to an increasing simplification of how we are supposed to view the world (plus a rise of neofascism), I am grateful that that particular sentiment, which has been around for as long as I can tell while blogging, is alive and well.
So thank you for reading, thank you for following along, thank you for spending the time with my thoughts! In my next email, I'll be back with regular programming.
-- Jörg