I started this blog in 2011, but didn’t continuously update it until after my retirement in April, 2012. This is the blog’s 2,000th post. Back in February 2015, I wrote a post entitled “Why do I blog?“. On the occasion of this 2000th post I thought I’d revisit it to see if it still holds true. I’m also illustrating it with a few favorite pictures (not necessarily the best, just some that I particularly like) added since I started the blog.

First – I originally started to blog to force me to get out and take pictures. All of my reading and advice from other photographers suggested that you have to do this in order to improve. I’m fundamentally quite lazy and tend to find excuses not to go and shoot. I thought that starting a blog would give me a reason to go and take pictures. So far it’s worked. I now take many more pictures than I did before and I can see a slight improvement over time.

I’ve done quite well on this. I take many more pictures than I did before. Sometimes I think I take too many and that “feeding the blog” takes precedence over taking better pictures. To partially offset this I’ve recently added some portfolios. Where the main part of the blog presents a wide selection of my photographs, the intent of the portfolios is to showcase the better pictures, no more than 20 in each portfolio.

Second – it provides me with a record of what I’m doing. It’s a bit like having a diary. I can look back and see where I was and what I was doing two years ago, for example. I’m a fan of mysteries and inevitably a police officer asks the suspect what he/she was doing on the night of such and such. I’ve often wondered how I would answer such a question since I can’t generally remember what I’ve being doing. With the blog I can just check the appropriate date and there’s a good chance that this will point me in the right direction.

This still holds. I like being able to look back on what I was doing (as documented by the photographs) at a particular time.

Third – Very few of my posts are thoughtful. They’re mostly just a picture and some text. Sometimes, however, I’m prompted to put some ideas forward and the blog is a useful vehicle for capturing them.

Still true. From time to time I have some thoughts I want to record, and the blog is a useful vehicle for doing so.

Fourth – The blog is a useful place to record links to things I’ve found on the internet that I found particularly interesting.

The blog continues to be a repository such items. It’s useful for me to have a single place where I can find them.

Fifth – The blog gives me the opportunity to combine two of my favorite pastimes: photography and history. I like nothing more that finding an old, interesting building; taking some pictures of it; then doing some research into its origins and history and combining the lot into a blog post.

I think this is what gives me the most pleasure. Perhaps I’m more interested in history illustrated with decent pictures than I am in taking great photographs?

In the introductory paragraph to the original post I noted: “The first point to be made is that I do it for myself. I imagine that I could get usage statistics, but I don’t bother to look…”. This continues to be true. I’m not interested in “likes” or “comments”. I someone bumps into the blog and finds something of interest then I’m happy, but I still do it for myself.