Thought I would share some city lights today. These are from riding around in downtown Guilin, China. It was a great place to visit at night. Even though I did explore some of the more touristy areas, driving around at night and being able to take pictures like these really make it kind of magical. I love doing these sort of paint with light images at night. Driving around the city, with the lights moving around you, it’s kind of a different feeling. In the daytime, the light comes from above and everything is illuminated, it’s bright. At night, it’s almost like you are on some kind of a movie set. The light is very different, very pointed, very focused. It’s mostly dark with shafts of light, which makes for such an interesting contrast. At least I have always found it to be interesting. I’m sure if you ask around, you’ll find somebody who claims there are all a great mistake. OK, so maybe they are mistakes, but they are my mistakes and I like them, so there’s that. Let’s just agree to call them beautiful mistakes, made by the hands of time itself, and leave it at that, shall we? (You with me on this one?)
In other news, got word that Carol’s Little World clocked in at #111 on the Feedspot’s list of top photography blogs. They based the ranking on a few different things: traffic rank, social media followers, domain authority, and freshness. I have yet to break the top 100 but I’m getting pretty close, so there’s that. I know it’s kind of wrong but I also love looking at who ranks beneath me, just to see who I outrank, and then also check out the top ones to see where I can go next. I was surprised to see some of the blogs that I outrank, as there are a few names you might recognize in that batch. Like, wow, I really rank higher than….I won’t name drop but you get the idea.
As far as the top spots, 500px tops the list (no surprise there) with Fstoppers coming in pretty high up. David duChemin is ranked at number 50, he probably should be higher up the food chain, but good to see him get recognized nevertheless. A few other surprises but it’s a list, somebody had to pick the winners and then there’s the rest of it, right?
One trend I did spot, it’s getting harder and harder for a single shooter to crack the top echelon. If you look at the rankings this year, it’s mostly collectives at the top, with some of the “big” shooters coming in a bit lower in the rankings. Even folks like Joe McNally, who used to be among the highest rankings, is sinking a bit. It’s not that he isn’t as good, mind you, he’s shooting better than he ever has before, it’s just that it’s become harder and harder for an individual to complete with a collective. An outfit like 500px or Digital Photo Magazine, Outdoor Photography, or even FStoppers has an edge just based upon the number of participants. Sure, there were a few single shooters cracking the top slots, but it’s getting harder and harder for a single shooter to make the top of the list.
You can view the list here if you are curious. You just might not want to do this while driving in the dark (my suggestion there. I’m sure the good folks over at Feedspot won’t care either way but, you know, watch out for that tree!)
Until next time…
