As you may or may not know, I’m currently in Shanghai. Partly why I haven’t been updating this blog is that I’m enjoying my time away from the computer. Another reason is I can’t concentrate. I’m staying with my woman and I’m sorry but when I’m writing, I need my surrounding to be quiet! Or at least void of words. Or, at the very least, void of words directed at me.
But the main reason is I’m not sure why I should update it. It’s not that there’s nothing to write about. I’m on the other side of the world, and there’s a lot I can share, but why? What exactly does keeping this blog updated do for me aside from chew up time? When Lisa asked me why I update it, the best answer I could come up with was that I’ve been doing this for about 10 years.
Well, 10 years on and off, actually. I made my first website in 1995 or 96 to have an online gallery for my illustrations. It was called Danzeth’s Domain and was hosted on GeoCities. Web hosting was totally different back then. One or two megabytes of space was the norm (at least for free web hosting), so you really had to think about optimizing your files to conserve space.
Anyway, then in Thanksgiving of 1997 I launched a new website for my illustrations and called it Danzeth Studio. The website was hosted on a couple different people’s servers, both run by people I met on IRC. This was well before MySpace, and around the time AOL Instant Messenger was get getting popular. Eventually I registered danzeth.com and moved to a fee-based host.
For the most part, running and maintaining Danzeth Studio was a very satisfying experience for me. I updated it with new artworks regularly and had a rudimentary commenting system (scripted with Perl) that people who kept up-to-date with my work actually used. The few “fans” that I had were enough motivation to keep drawing and updating the site.
And then I’m not sure why I but stopped updating the site. Probably got a girlfriend or something. I do remember the updates becoming less regular before halting altogether. Then around 2002 or so, I changed Danzeth Studio into a website for my photography.
Anyway my point is I started blogging on a regular basis around 1997, except back then it wasn’t called blogging. It was just called updating your website with new content. And back then, it was a fulfilling experience because I had an audience - a small audience, but an audience nonetheless. I didn’t have the same fulfilling experience in doing a photography website. I can think of many reasons but they’re too sad to write about. I mean I’m probably sounding too emo already.
It’s just not the same now, so the question is: should I keep doing it? Or, does it matter? What’s the point?
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Tags: photography, Shanghai, work
I find your blog entertaining.
Thanks me too.