If you’re like me, the rampant use of various website trackers can be extremely frustrating when trying to access information on the internet.
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Website trackers combined with hoards of pop-up ads that seem to follow us everywhere we surf on the internet… result in us being constantly bombarded by promotions. Every click we make seems to be tracked and analyzed by someone… somewhere.
My cellphone is pretty old by today’s standards and I’m unable to run many of the more modern apps on it. I’ve pretty much given up doing any searches on my cellphone using Google as the non-stop barrage of pop-ups that result are very distracting.
Unless I’m travelling and need to use Google Maps, most days I don’t even turn my cellphone on. When at home we typically use our landline and regular, computer-based email… with the odd text thrown in. Friends and family are aware of our communication preferences.
Neither my wife or I use any social media like Facebook… and we have no plans to start in the future. Life just seems more real when we actually take time to talk to friends or family on the telephone. Or see them in person… or while chatting via a video conference. I really couldn’t care less what someone I barely know ate for lunch today.
I suppose my preference to hear someone’s voice may be a holdover from my executive coaching days. The vast majority of my coaching was done over the telephone. It was critical to quickly recognize emotions in the human voice on the other end of the call. Sometimes all it took was a few seconds when the call first started. It’s all about paying attention and making a personal connection.
My wife and I recently returned from a couple of weeks on the East Coast of Canada… visiting with family and friends. Being able to spend time face-to-face is an opportunity to make meaningful connections.
During a visit with one of my long-time friends, he asked a couple of questions that I couldn’t answer. The first was, “How is the traffic on your photography website going? The second was, “Which articles get the most readership?”
When I told him I didn’t have a clue he looked stunned. “What do you mean you don’t know?”
I explained that I don’t use any plug-ins on my website that tracks the number of people that visit here. Nor do I have any way of knowing which articles are getting the most readership.
He looked perplexed. “Don’t you want to know those statistics? They seem fundamental for running a successful website.”
I explained that I didn’t want to track statistics, as I felt they would get in the way of the creative process. I’d end up chasing numbers for the sake of the numbers… and I’d risk losing sight of what is truly important.
To me, the most important thing with photography has always been following my instincts and letting my creativity find its own path. Some folks may enjoy what I produce… others may not. I can’t control people’s reactions to what I do.
At the end of the day each of us needs to be true to ourselves. Not chase numbers… and try to be something that we’re not… for the sake of a few clicks or likes.
Unfortunately we are surrounded by websites and social media that want to intrude on our lives. For many of these operators we are the ‘product’ that they sell. They collect mounds of data on us. They analyze it. And, many sell it to all kinds of marketers who try to suck money out of our wallets.
Rest assured that will never happen here. The only thing we do with the information subscribers supply… is use it to notify them when we have produced new articles that they may decide to read.
Our readers are free to come and go as they please. We don’t track traffic to our website. We don’t monitor you or the articles that you read. We’ve never sold your subscriber information to anyone… and we never will. You will never become a product to us.
Our intent has always been to create a supportive community of like-minded people that want to celebrate the joy of photography with us. We’re thrilled to have you here with us today… and we’ll be honoured if you decide to visit again.
Technical Note
Photographs were captured handheld using camera gear as noted in the EXIF data. All images were created from RAW files or out-of-camera jpeg files using my standard process in post. This is the 1527 article published on this website since its original inception in 2015.
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