Last month, I posted about Jaxson, who ended up being my third photo at Flickr to make In Explore. As of this writing, he has over 1,000 views on Flickr and 33 faves. Not bad numbers in reality, that is until today.
I came home from work and started processing photos for my next two shots on Dogz on Walkz. Once I was done, I uploaded them to Flickr and discovered that my photo of Colt, the Belgian Malinois that I posted to Flickr last night had in invitation to join In Explore. Not only that, he has over 3,000 views and 69 faves as of this writing. Not bad for an iPhone shot I took as I was leaving a burger place down in Irvine.
I'm still not sure why some of my shots seem to do so well and others don't. If push came to shove, I'd say I have at least half a dozen shots that I think are technically better than this one. Still, I could get used to it. It's fun seeing your photo in that "best liked" gallery.
Every now and then, I'll post an image and not really think anything of it, that is until I get home the next day and I've seen all the faves the photo generates. I regularly post to Flickr and they have a category called Explore. Basically, it's the best photos that people post over there and it's by invitation only.
The invitations are sent out to photographers after a photograph has reached either a certain threshold of faves, or comments or some such, as there seems to be no way of really knowing how many you really need, as I suspect they probably think that you might "stuff" the ballot boxes if you knew. They also block you from getting back into Explore for a certain period of time afterward so that others can be seen without you becoming a dominant factor.
Up until today, I've two other photos in Explore. My Death Valley photo, that I took in the spring of 2015 was the first. I even blogged about that experience here. That photo has almost 8000 views and 98 faves. Interestingly, it used to have 99, but I guess someone decided they didn't like it quite as much as they previously thought. The second photo that made it to Explore was a photo I took this summer in Yellowstone National Park of the Grand Prismatic Spring.
And now I have a third. Jaxson, the Weimaraner is now in Explore. If you click this link and hurry, you might see Jaxson near the top, but as new photos get added, he'll move further down and out of site, but even if you don't find him, check out some of the spectacular photos there. You won't be disappointed.
And here we arrive at the end. Through the encouragement of several different people, I was able to carry through on my end and meet the different prompts each and every day. But this is the end.
I'm not saying I won't write again, but I know my history. I've been very good in the past, when challenged to keep on a writing schedule and keep this blog fresh. But the stats speak for themselves.
2012 - 28 total posts, 6 in January, none after August
2013 - 75 total posts, 12 in January, 10 in February
2014 - 25 total posts, evenly distributed throughout the year
2015 - 34 total posts, 23 in January, none after July
2016 - This is the 20th post
Are you seeing a trend here? I am and I keep telling people and keep saying to myself that it's going to change, but it probably won't. I get busy with other things in my life and this falls by the wayside.
But look at the sign above. We are so used to driving on pavement and our roads take us everywhere. What do we do when the pavement ends? Well, for me, I'll keep going. I have to think that way. If I become pessimistic about this blog, I know it will never happen. I posted that sign, because it represents an entire new world out there. And as Calvin said to Hobbes in their very last Sunday strip, "Let's go exploring."
