Weird

In which our heroine answers her critics (politely)

In the last few months I’ve come under considerable fire for both my writing style and for the way we view our blog and the photographic bloggie community in general. This isn’t from folks who comment on-blog. No, it’s from people who don’t even know me, and sometimes only throw a cursory glance at the odd post on this blog, yet presume to judge me based on their view of how I should do things.

Now, despite the apparent assumption that I actually have no life outside photographic cyberspace, I must point out that I do actually have friends in the “real world” whom I meet several times a week, have coffee with, chat to, talk to, go out with. But I don’t blog about them. Firstly they have no interest in photography or modelling (although they know what I do), and secondly I don’t feel that talking about them here would be remotely interesting. I suspect that most of you wouldn’t be gripped by the banalities of my day to day existence.

For example, I am a keen cook, I like gardening, sci-fi, reading and researching nutrition and life extension. But if I blogged about that, I’d send you to sleep pretty damn quick. Photography and art are what float your boat, so I try to keep the writing loosely related to these topics.
Mostly.
O.K. maybe not, but I do try.
I could be wrong about this assumption of course. So if anyone is interested in my last night’s reading about catecholamine excess and phaeochromocytomas in the Dutch population, then please do feel free to email me.

Besides my daily life, I must confess I do spend a lot of time online “socialising" with the photographic community. I count the people I “meet” online as my friends. Some of them I’d even call good friends, and I chat to them practically every day via email or MSN. I firmly believe that cyberspace can be as much an online community as a physical one. After all, it’s just another method of communication. Sure it involves a certain level of trust - many of you might indeed be mad axe murderers for all I know, in which case, might I say in all truthfulness, that I like you anyway. But on the whole, I do think people are honest, and why the hell shouldn’t I care about you, value your opinions, and what you think? Via this blog, I’ve learned a heck of a lot about life, photographic art, and most importantly, about PEOPLE.

However, despite the fact that I’m entirely happy having both friends in the “real world” and friends on the other side of the planet in cyberspace, some folks are crtical of this. Let’s take a snapshot of the last month, in which I’ve been called (off blog):

Weird
Unhealthy
Naïve
Screwed up
Desperate
Socially isolated

And that’s only in the last month.

O.K. running a fairly successful photography blog is inevitably going to earn a fair degree of the big greenies, but I’m not overly impressed at being judged by people who think they know me, but clearly don’t.

Yes, I expose my feelings, emotions and innermost thoughts on here. I believe that makes me a better writer, and for each post that exposes “the real me,” I have been rewarded ten-fold by the generosity and openness of complete strangers who have welcomed me as friends.

To those who criticise me for writing this blog the way I do, to those who don’t take risks in cyberspace, and who view exposing their emotions and thoughts online as a personal flaw, I say to you:

Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it. The rewards far outweigh the risks, believe me, and I haven’t exactly been attacked by any mad-axe-murderers yet, although I’ve had my share of emails from perv’s (who tend to be incredibly polite people and immense fun.)

We have a good community here, folks. Which is every bit as valuable and valid as the one in the “real world.”

O.K. So I may be weird. But at least I’m in good company.



A rather old image I dug out of the archives today of Cheeky Lee.