Holiday season has sure kicked in and I must confess that I am not ready for 2023 just yet.
This week’s #WordPrompt is “ lost” and I wanted to play before my brief exit.
It’s been a very difficult year for me. And after all that happened, I lost my mojo and I feel lost. I am taking the rest of December off from blogging to wrap up a few things before the new year. I hope to see you all again in 2023. I plan to resume posting on January 10, 2023.
If you want a summary of my blogging statistics this year, keep reading below. If not, skip to the end for a very special holiday message to you.
A 2022 BLOG SUMMARY
In 2022, I wrote 64 posts, totaling 25K words, which resulted in 7500 views and 1K comments. I have short of 200 followers, counting e-mail followers. I suppose half of the comments are my own replies, so my posts received approximately 500 comments.
My most important referrer is WordPress.com feed, followed by Facebook (I publish my posts there), and google search. Apparently, trying to announce blog posts on Instagram is not worth my time, since only 50 views, out of 7,500, came from there.
My most popular posts, in this order, were as follows:
• Fun with pepper photography in black and white;
• Photography opportunities at the Lagoon Valley Park in Vacaville (California, USA);
• Working in projects and series- winter tulips, part one;
• Inspiring botanical photographer – Kazumasa Ogawa;
• Photographers who have inspired me- Charles Jones;
Among my posts with the fewer numbers of views, I must highlight those tagged #wordlesswednsday (no words), and various other posts with few words accompanying a picture.
Surprisingly unpopular in number of views were also my series of more philosophical posts, for instance the ones about photography critique, or questioning why take photographs for the sake of shooting. However, the quality of the replies on those posts, and the conversations that arose among my followers, make me consider writing a few more of them next year.
Undeniably, in the short-term (4-6 months), the date of the post does influence the number of views to date: more recent posts tend to have fewer views for obvious reasons. In the long-term (6+ months), however, few posts continue to receive views and engagements, except for those mentioned below.
Posts highlighting local places with photography opportunities and those mentioning books and the work of other photographers seem to maintain a small but steady frequency of views after six months. They are picked up by search engines. Conversely, “oh look at my clever botanical photo” types of posts are ignored by the same search engines and steadily lose audience after a week or two.
Very rarely did people click on links provided in my posts. This includes links with supporting information, for example to Wikipedia or other informative sites, or links to YouTube videos and to my previous posts. This makes me wonder about the usefulness of providing links, but I am not going to necessarily stop including them when they contain information I am not willing to repeat. They certainly do not hurt.
Although I realize that my statistics are not impressive, and do not indicate success, I am a happy blogger. And I owe all my blogging happiness to my loyal followers. Thanks so much for following me through 2022, and for the kind support and feedback you have given me. More importantly, I am grateful that I have found several interesting blogs to follow on a variety of subjects, and for the chance to participate in discussions on various issues that include, but are not limited to, photography.
THE LEAD PHOTOGRAPH
The lead photograph is from a mural in Sacramento’s open walls. It is called SLEEPING GIRL WITH ADORABLE PANDAS, and is located at the Burgers and Brew Parking lot (1616) J street Sacramento, California.
A HOLIDAY MESSAGE TO YOU
In this holiday season, don’t forget to hug those you love and to tell them how important they are to you. It could be your last Festivus, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, or whatever you celebrate, together. Resolve issues, forgive, make peace. Life is short, it goes fast, and tomorrow is not guaranteed.
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Wall Art landscapes and miscellaneous
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It is all about the light 
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