Happy New Year!!
It is that time when I contemplate where I am heading or what I want to achieve personally and for the blog. Last year’s post at this time had a few plans and another detailed a few posts coming up. Well, I posted what I said I would and I didn’t buy any cameras for a while, but by the end of the year, I had started again. I certainly didn’t get the print page up and running.
2023 was good and bad as most years are. Personally, all I remember is being sick a lot and not being able to do what I wanted due to that and the weather. Oh the weather, it really has sucked. Every time I tried to go camping or out and about, I was either sick or it was raining. 2024 has to be better in those respects.
You might be able to tell, I am writing this ad-hoc, no planning, just what comes into my head as I type. I want this post to be spontaneous. Maybe that way I will get some true and honest plans and thoughts.
So let’s start with the blog…
Camera Go Camera
In terms of views, this year has been amazing for my little blog. It has been by far my best year and I am in total awe at the statistics for this year. I honestly think there must be a glitch somewhere.
Look at those views!! 600 thousand!! Pick me off the floor, that is almost doubled from last year.
Unfortunately, as this blog has now been going for 7 years and it is photo-heavy, it has now run out of space for media. I therefore had to make a decision, stop the blog and move on to something else or move up a tier on the WordPress plans. After one particularly generous donation, I decided to move up a tier. Usually, my fees and expenses are not covered by donations or even close. Ultimately this is a personal blog, a diary of the cameras I have tried and my other photographic experiments so I don’t expect everything to be covered by donation. It is my hobby, my happy place, so I expect to cover a lot of the cost. But this new tier is more expensive and I need to generate some funds to help. That means introducing advertising if I can. I don’t really want to, I especially don’t want any ads to become obtrusive or inappropriate. But needs must.
So that is plan number one. The second is actually sorting out the print and zine page. I have been working on a project involving my dad, following him around and taking photos, so another plan is to turn that into a zine and maybe an exhibition…much to his chagrin. I have also made a cyanotype lightbox over the Christmas holiday, so I hope to start selling some of my photos as original prints or cards.
The next thing is not to buy any cameras this year. I did very well last year until the end when I went a bit nuts. I was also given a few cameras as gifts which has left me with a pile of untested or broken cameras under my bed. So I really have no need to buy any for ages.
This collection includes 4 Hawkeyes which I want to refurbish and paint in some way. I know this is not the best way to store cameras, but I don’t have any space in my room anywhere else. So the next plan is to reduce the number of cameras I have. I often see projects online that I would like to join, such as one camera, one film a month for the year, but I don’t feel I can join due to the number of cameras I have on the go for this blog. So once this box is empty, I want to pick my favourites and stick to those. This year there will be fewer reviews and more projects. There are hundreds of camera reviews or experiences on my Camera Posts list, I think I have done my duty in that respect 🙂 I want to spend my money on film and processing rather than junk cameras.
Coming up on Camera Go Camera
Here are a few of the items I will be posting about in 2024
- The cyanotype project that I have been dabbling in this school break
- I swapped my Mamiyaflex C2 for a Mamiya RB67 for a while so this is definitely a camera review/experience I will be writing about
- I have a couple of stereo cameras in my box to try out
- I want to build a multiformat pinhole camera, I have the wood, I have made some plans, I just need warmer weather to work in the cold garage
Personal Plans for 2024
My personal plans for the year are quite traditional:
- Lose weight – I have put on quite a bit of weight since coming back from Japan, for various reasons, mainly I eat too much unhealthy food. I think it is a reason I have struggled this year with physical and mental health.
- Travel – I go out for jaunts in the car, but I want to get out even more, go abroad again, another reason not to buy cameras or to sell the ones I have – invest in experiences not things, of course use film to document my travels.
- Skye – I have wanted to visit this island for a very long time
- Ireland – Northern and Eire, I haven’t visited either
- City breaks in Europe – Barcelona, Prague, there are so many places to see
- Read more – I actually forgot this one and came back to edit it. I have started a list of books I have read on Good Reads and have already logged a few so that is going well.
Oh and finally, I want a new computer, I have been using a second-hand Macbook since 2015. It is a late 2013 so it was a good buy when I got it, but of course, it is now 10 years old and no longer accepts updates. Seeing as I use it for all my photography work and blogging, it is pretty important that at some point this year I get a new one. That is another reason for not buying any more cameras, computer over cameras.
Well, that turned into a longer post than I expected. I will have to print it out to remind myself what I am aiming for.
So, once again, Happy New Year wherever you are.
and another oh, the 2024 image at the top was created by dashu83 on Freepik.
Interesting that you should mention the mental-emotional struggles of the often-horrendous 2023. For soothing of all that spirit-sapping, enervating, disheartening litany of human calamity, why, Camera Go Camera has been the perfect anodyne: zany experiments, roadside repairs, kitchen-table re-engineering, and of course unrestrained camera decorating and embellshment, done always with brio and flair. Got us through many a dark day and night, right? Always something of interest; never a dull post. Keeps ’em coming back for more, and never any telling what will show up next – all of which accounts no doubt for the soaring stats – C-G-C gives more than it gets, fer sher. Long may she wave.
Thank you for your kind words once again. The mental health side is something I have always struggled with on and off, so this year is nothing new. I feel age helps, as I get older I become less bothered by things that use to drive me crazy. Learning to let things go.
I do enjoy your blog, and I admire you for taking the time to think through your plans like this. Although I’m much more about the images than the gear, I was in a rather similar position to yourself a year or so ago, with a 2014 15″ MBP with a very nasty screen. I finally decided to buy myself a new M1 16″ MBP for an astounding, appalling amount of money. I bought the 16″ as I thought, this is mostly about photos so more screen space would be good. But I realised first time we went away that I would have been just as happy with the 14″, which would have been smaller, lighter and much cheaper! I think the M1 chip is worth it over Intel, but I’ve not heard anyone say that the later “M” chips are really worth it except for power users, so a second hand one should do you fine. Oh, and despite the nasty screen, I still managed to sell mine on fleabay (with a £1 selling fee offer) for £240 and the buyer was very happy (also got offers for £100 and £150, so the choice was easy).
Thanks, my screen is 13″ at the moment, so I would be happy with 14″. I am looking for refurbished or secondhand 2020ish. I hope to get one by summer. Fingers crossed.
You’ve laid out a good plan for 2024. If you take on adverts, may I suggest you accept only photo/art-related sponsors? Doing that might mean not signing up with an ad broker – they guarantee you’ll get plenty of sponsors, but your readership may end up seeing CGC content surrounded by ads for totally unrelated (and annoying) products.
One likely reason CGC grew so dramatically last year is that, compared to many photo blogs, your content blends equipment reviews with travels and photos made with that equipment. If we want to read straight-up camera reviews, we can go visit Mike Eckman or Kosmofoto or 35MMC, just to name three of the best of that genre.
PS: Your intrepid camera repair stories, always well-illustrated, are another reason this reader follows your blog!
And thanks, I don’t really go for the technical side of cameras as the blog is a diary of sorts. I tend to write about it if I can’t find it anywhere else or it might be useful to me.
I had to think what CGC was for a minute, I never refer to it like that. Now you are the second. Might be a t-shirt idea 🙂
I have signed up for Google adsense, but I have tried to reduce the number of places they are permitted to place them. Honestly, their suggestions were after every block, so up to 20 a page. I deleted most of them, though that will definitely affect revenue, if there is any.
Sorry to hear you’ve struged with your mental health, know everyone’s experience is different but I can relate also.
You mention reading more, have you considered audiobooks? I had a similar desire the year just gone and discovered that audiobooks were a great way of kinda killing two birds with one stone. Have a book on in the background while doing other thing, like developing film for instance or fixing a camera. I discovered site called libravox. Hundreds of books read by ordinary folk, only thing is there’s nothing new cos they have to be out of copyright.
Plus one or two others I could put you onto
To be absolutely honest, I think the mental health side was linked to the menopause. Weird things happen at this age.
I do listen to audio books when I drive and sometimes borrow them from the library. Mainly I use an old kindle which has a text to voice feature. Thanks for the information though, as I do like classic books.