Fours years (of blogging) without counting

Four years! This month marks four years of blogging for me and it's time for a self-assessment.

First of all, my posting frequency during the first few years has been sporadic. The key to a blog's popularity is frequency of posting. Wazopia has a general theme and that makes it hard to be as prolific a poster as other bloggers.

I enjoy the brave, new world of blogs. They provide unique and specialized sources of information that the traditional media could not effective provide. The "gatekeepers", as we learned in journalism school, could select (based on their biases) the information to be presented to the mass markets. Not so with the Internet, which is the most incredible distribution system ever built, and free, online blogging software. Now, everyone with access to the Web can become a citizen publisher.

(The one major problem with the corporate media giants is they could never admit they had a bias. It is very important that readers seriously consider the source of the blog. How accurate is the information? Who are the authors? What is their bias? The recent media takedown of Don Imus for his callus statement about the Rutgers woman hoopsters is important to examine especially for its speed and fury. The whole rush to oust Imus began as buzz from a blogger who monitors "politically incorrect" infractions of politicians officials and media stars. It took months to oust Dan Rather but simply days to whack Imus.)

So why blog? We all have our own personal political, religious, and civic views but most have no wish to express them on such a powerful and unpredictable channel as the Web. I enjoy keeping things on the lighter side. My colleagues at Brewed Fresh Daily, Working with Words and others do a fantastic job analyzing issues and providing an outlet to many new and important voices. Another local gem is Have Coffee Will Write which provides interesting, imaginative and somewhat quirky content that all will enjoy. (Jeff, thanks for posting the Jefferson Airplane and James Gang videos!) You can understand that Jeff, George, John and other bloggers simply want to let out their creative streams. Blogs, with all its flexibility (CSS) and contact-ability (RSS), is the most expressive and freeing medium in the universe!

The last few weeks I have challenged myself to go back to the original concept of the We(b log) from which the term blog is derived. Blogs began as logs of the changes, edits, updates, etc. that Webmasters made to their Web sites. Occasionally, the author would add interesting information and anecdotes to their blogs. The concept grew and expanded into the powerful information and marketing blogs we see today.

Today I am taking a fascinating journey through the world of digital photography. It's a journey of discovery because the digital camera and software opens up new worlds of possibilities. This ain't about Photoshop, which is a sophisticated and tortuous software that intertwines the tools a photographer needs with those of graphic artist. One is a realist and the other is a surrealist. With the introduction of Apple's Aperture and Adobe's Lightroom, the photographer can now explore the possibilities of his work without the hours of training and practice required by Photoshop. Now we can easily explore light and color options from the photographers seat. So this is the reason for the new volume of postings on Wazopia.

Wazopia was always about images. It's my photo-journalism nature. Tell stories along with pictures but not just with pictures. "Every picture tells a story, don't it?"

Digital photography is about looking at color in new ways, making a bright boat sail on an emerald sea, or softening the sunset colors over a frozen lake. It means taking the ordinary picture and bringing to it new life, adding zing, zest, zeal, etc. and just because you want too.

This blog will monitor those experiments, concepts and revelations. If it sounds a bit tedious to you, then just come and enjoy the images! That's what it's all about anyway.

Copyright 2007 James D. Fisher
All Rights Reserved.