Back to the Blogging, Again
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Well, after a semester’s worth of blogging on a self-hosted domain to no avail, I am back to the grind of WordPress. Pumping out pictures, commenting, responding -the usual. There’s something to be said about getting into that rhythm. You either love it or hate it. I fall into the former category, obviously.
Anyways, here’s one shot of many shots from my Thanksgiving break in Maine. This church is actually a basilica, the only one in the far North (I think after New York?) It’s on the National Register of Historic Places.
I shot this with a Canon 18-55mm kit lens because I wanted the 18mm to do its job. I did some basic adjustments to highlights and shadows, but I was quite surprised that I got away with shooting this mid-afternoon. I mean, Maine really is far up north. It was getting dark earlier than down here in Philadelphia by a good 20-30 minutes. So I think that allowed for me to get a quasi-softer, evening light at an earlier hour.
I keep struggling with getting the angles straight. I think this is because I chose not to use Lightroom’s lens correction. Therefore, it was difficult choosing the correct plain that I wanted the image to be straightened in relationship to…so now that the image is on here, I admit it’s not straight…
Unas Picturas 
11/12/2013 at 12:05 pm
great to have you back. I am interested why you came back to wordpress.com. I have been weighing the pros and cons of going with a self hosted domain.
11/12/2013 at 12:16 pm
To explain why I left: I’m a communications major and for a class, we had to have a self-hosted domain and use WordPress as our template to blog. It was a bit annoying to use the same sort of interface with limited to no background knowledge on HTML5 or any of that “stuff” that WordPress-hosted blogs take care of. If you check out the domain now ( jvierephoto.com ) you’ll see that it’s more or less a portfolio of sorts. And to be honest, that’s what those self-hosted domains are best for. But in terms of blogging, it was difficult to 1) get the followers from WordPress to interact to the same degree and 2) have any interactions with follows. To fix that, people were advising to get the Jetpack plugin-well if you do that, you realize it ends up being just like WordPress-hosted blogs. So it was kind of silly to move away from a great format for photoblogging. Admittedly, my reason was for a class, so it was obviously for a grade. But depending on what domain-hosting site you use, you are limited with space, which is incredibly problematic for a photoblogger. I was limited to a gigabyte’s worth, that’s dwarfed by WordPress’ 3gb.
So depending on your use of a self-hosted domain, I’d say it’s not worth it unless you are willing to do the extra work that WordPress-hosted blogs do for you.
Just to be clear, with a self-hosted domain, you would 1) pay for the domain, 2) pay most likely for a theme you like and 3) use WordPress plug-ins to communicate. In my opinion, it was just three too many steps for simple photoblogging.
Sorry to be wordy, hope it helps! Let me know what you end up doing.
11/12/2013 at 12:34 pm
thanks that was very helpful, I have been leaning towards staying here at wordpress.com sounds like a self hosted blog has certain benefits but it seem like it would be more high maintenance and more of a pain in the ass. thanks robert
11/12/2013 at 1:09 pm
Unless those pain in the ass moments are enjoyable, for web designers and programmers it may be, I’d say good choice.
13/12/2013 at 4:10 pm
Stunning. It actually looks very cool as one scrolls down into the picture. I know that s not the point of it – it was just an added bonus. Just had fun scrolling up and down over it. 😉
13/12/2013 at 4:11 pm
Haha! I wouldn’t have thought of doing that!
13/12/2013 at 4:15 pm
Quite incidental I can assure you 😉 Though once it happened – one must make sure we have seen what our eyes were telling us we saw 😛
Such fun coming across unexpected amusement.
13/12/2013 at 4:16 pm
It’s great to know that photography can still be the cause of amusement in this day and age of videos and constant entertainment!
13/12/2013 at 4:18 pm
pfft – videos? who needs vids when you got a up down scroll thingy and a cool perspective shot ;)…
But yeah – gotcha one that one – sad really –
13/12/2013 at 4:20 pm
Says the photographer to the author…haha
13/12/2013 at 4:22 pm
Oh the joys of modern life – tv and gifs – how to kill off talent!
19/12/2013 at 9:20 am
I love this photo for several reasons … it captures the intimidating quality of these structures it what seems like effortless and uncontrived fashion. On my first look, it spooked me a little … like a freaky castle I visited once in Hungary. The monolithic appearance is deceiving, though, because the more I looked, the more I saw … it’s just so intriguing. Of course, as you know, I’m no photographer … though I did post a photo on my blog for you. Anyway … thanks for this. I loved it !