# David's Photo November

Published: 2016-12-04
Tags: photography, hobby, thingsdavidlikes, DavidsPhotoNovember

I've said this before, [photography has a big appeal to me](/blog/2016/01/09/on-photography) and it's my main hobby outside of my career.

I take it seriously too, as in, I throw quite a bit of work and some money - amateur graded money, still it's something - into it. The biggest outcomes I've had from it have been long lasting memories, a nasty habit of looking at details, people's expressions, patches of light and weird angles to everyday places and strangers on the street and a deep desire for the day I can buy an augmentation that allows me to take pictures straight from my optical nerves.

I bought my [first digital camera](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EOS_300D) 13 years ago, but an old [Minolta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minolta_XE) that my uncle gave me was really what got me hooked - it's called Stockholm Syndrome, or how waiting days/weeks to see the results of the shots you took and realize you messed things ups gets you hooked. It's probably my longest running relationship!

There are a number of online platforms to "expose your work" and I - as per character - am a user in a few of them, although I use them in slightly different ways, I don't have a service that uploads one picture to all places at the same time, I don't approach the communities in the same way in any of them. I think they are unique in their approaches and I try to respect that - or at least what I perceive of them.

The one I have the biggest social engagement with, although it's probably ironic given the features were never explicitly geared towards building communities - despite the recent changes to group messaging, stories and such - has been [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/dramalho). In the past couple of years, I've been meeting regularly with people and visiting certain places all thanks to the people and community accounts I've met through Instagram - again, this is circumstantial I'm sure, [Flickr](https://www.flickr.com/photos/songo/) has explicit tools geared towards Communities, it just happens that I never engaged it in the right way.

So with that in mind, I themed November 2016 around photography and worked on three projects:

## [Things David Likes](http://thingsdavidlikes.com)

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  <img src="/content/posts/2016/12-04-37-210-davids-photo-november/images/thingsdavidlikes.png" alt="">
</section>

Where I showcase other people's work. This isn't exactly new - [not by a long shot](/blog/2016/01/09/on-photography) - but I opened it up to a [few](https://www.twitter.com/things_d_likes) [more](https://www.facebook.com/thingsdavidlikes/) [fronts](https://www.instagram.com/thingsdavidlikes/) [here and there](https://www.pinterest.com/dramalho/things-david-likes/) and I wanted to make a point of announcing it to more people.

Just on the stats side, I'm now publishing 5 posts a day, I've posted around 10.000 photographs and I've got a combined number of around 1200 followers.

## [My own site](/photography).

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  <img src="/content/posts/2016/12-04-37-210-davids-photo-november/images/site.png" alt="">
</section>

This is a cliché I know, but I think it's an important marker for me. I'me spread around a few platforms like I said, but this is my anchor, my official home and I can give it the individual attention and respect it needs - never-mind what my Web Design skills actually produced , it's the though that counts. I launched this over November and I'm happy.

No stats worth mentioning on this one. From the technical side it's all Jekyll with a couple of plugins that I wrote to expose the Exif data and such.

## Postcards

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  <img src="/content/posts/2016/12-04-37-210-davids-photo-november/images/postcards.jpg" alt="">
</section>

Finally, the one project that excited me the most. The internet is a Fine Place, but we're tactile beings for now and I like to take things into the physical world, and Photography is perfect for that. So with that in mind I printed a few postcards with my own shots and over the course of November I offered them to people.

This project was also the perfect opportunity to use the voucher for [Reads](https://reads.ie) I [won a while ago](https://www.instagram.com/p/BCgdrzYo_Zu/). The guys were amazingly patient with all my newbie questions and I was super happy with the result, so this was a win-win and it makes me happy that some parties of my hobby can actually be self-sustaining.

November finished with 17 people asking for postcards, from the United States to Russia, about half the people I never met in person and half of those are completely new. I was hoping for more people, but I'm very happy anyway.

## From here?

Now we're back to non-business as usual, I'm pretty happy that I accomplished all that I wanted from this November project, I know the numbers are very very poor, but this is a hobby and let's say that engaging with people is my biggest challenge, I'm happy with what I got :) . I still have a few postcards lying around so I'll definitely do something with them, if anything, I might re-re-kindle my eternal [Postcrossing](http://postcrossing.com) love with my own postcards.

I'll also keep pursuing whatever opportunities I have to photograph new places and meet new people, whatever makes me a more sociable Human is worth it. And I may also give in to my urges and give in to the amazing new [Canon EOS M5](http://www.canon.ie/cameras/eos-m5/) to replace my original EOS M. If I do, you'll all know about it of course :)