Replacing Instagram With Eyeem and a Blog

Replacing Instagram With Eyeem and a Blog

Byrichard

Replacing Instagram with Eyeem and a blog makes sense. When Instagram was new, before it was bought by Facebook it was a network of people who liked to take pictures sharing with friends and family. As it grew and as more people used it people followed less discerningly and so it became more of a popularity contest than a photo-sharing website.


Today Instagram shows an advert every four images and whilst this may not sound like much it is. This means that as you skim through the timeline you see an advert almost all the time. In some cases, you see the same advert a few times in a single session. For now, you can block advertiser accounts not to see their adverts again but this takes time.


Simultaneously you think “If I wanted to see adverts I’d browse a magazine or I’d visit other websites.” You also think “Why am I putting up with these adverts and “Why am I providing Facebook with people’s attention from content that I generated?”


That’s where websites like Eyeem make sense. Such websites allow you to share your pictures to a community of photographers. It also allows you to attempt to monetise your images. For now, 55 of my images have been accepted into the market program and 33 are in the partner program. With persistence and time, people may show interest in these images.


I also have a photo-sharing blog because I want a place to share pictures for which I do not have enough inspiration to write a blog post and they are not good enough to share on Eyeem. I like the idea of having a blog where a picture a day is posted. I’ve posted over four thousand to Instagram and it takes about 3 gigabytes. Wordpress allows us to share content via a decentralised content management system.


With Wordpress or other platforms, we can use their services for free until we establish a big enough audience for it to be worthwhile to monetise our content eventually.

The Noise of Towns

Byrichard

When you live in town you have a lot of noise. You have the noise of cars, of construction, of buses, trucks and road sweeps. You also have the occasional people shouting, beeping and more. Logically this should make sleeping in town harder. It’s so constant that it’s like the sound of the sea or of a river. It becomes invisible because there are no really quiet moments. These noises are okay in town.


Another noise is the sound of people in hallways. You hear keys in doors, doors opening and closing, shopping bags and more.


In the countryside, any form of noise, whether leaf blowers, construction, road sweeping, moving of bins or other noises are disruptive because the base level of noise is so much lower. Although the countryside and town construction levels may be at the same level the difference is noticeable.


That’s why silence is so much more appreciated in the countryside and why people who rent in villages and small settlements should be attentive.


Can you hear cars? No, then avoid driving too much or revving the engine. Turn it off if you’re waiting.


Can you hear music? No, then use headphones or keep it low and close the windows.


Can you hear goats, chickens, cows, cowbells or church bells? Yes, then enjoy it. The sound is centuries old.


I started this feeling inspired, but I ran out of inspiration.

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Keeping Twitter Private

Byrichard

Twitter has three options. You can tweet to the world without barriers and anyone can read and respond. This is great when you want to grow your network and have conversations. The second option is to send DMs to specific individuals or groups (if I remember correctly). The third option is to make your account private. The only people can read your tweets are the people who were following you when you made the account private.


The weakness of a private account is that twitter is a social medium and as such any time we @ or retweet someone they will be unable to see our answers. Any answer we write to those people will be unseen and so we will be tweeting in the wind.


My two reasons for keeping twitter private are:


A) More freedom. If we approve the people who can read what we write we can first warn them that we may be cheeky. We may something that we only think for long enough to write a tweet, and by the time it’s published we have already changed our mind.


B) The people we’re tweeting with are also private. If we answer a private tweet publicly then people may intuit what the conversation is about. We could use another IM platform but WhatsApp is part of Facebook and other IM networks have their own problems. People tend to be spread across platforms.


Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are three different types of social networks. LinkedIn is serious. I keep my profile up to date but not much more. Facebook is the network of former university friends. Due to this, I need to trust those I add. When twitter was a network of friends waiting to meet at tweetups everyone was accountable to the community so everyone had reason to behave a specific way. Now that trolls, hashtags and other issues are present keeping an account private keeps them away.


140+ characters is excellent to tell people how we feel but terrible for context. Blogging, forums and other long-form discussion websites are better suited to being public because you spend half an hour to an hour developing your idea, modifying it, and then sharing. That is long enough for an irrational tweet to become a rational post.


I’d rather have one to three blog posts by the end of a given day, than twenty-five to two hundred tweets. ;-). I haven’t tweeted like that in years for a reason.

The Walk from Paquis to Decathlon/Mediamarkt
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The Walk from Paquis to Decathlon/Mediamarkt

Byrichard

The walk from Paquis to Decathlon can be almost straight if you take the most direct route. You walk from anywhere in Paquis to the train station and from there you head up towards Balexert and from there you head along the cycle and walking paths that veer slightly to the right, take you over the motorway and then to the airport, by the private aviation terminal. From there the rest of the walk takes a few minutes.





This is similar to the walk I used to do from the old town to Meyrin. The walk is not that interesting. It takes you along the same route as the tram takes you, for almost the entire journey. For a brief moment, you see some smaller, more personal buildings along one road.


If I had known that the more interesting bit of the walk would be on the way back I would have tracked that and taken pictures. There are apartment blocks like in other parts of Geneva but they’re separate, with green space. I also saw a row of older houses along the Avenue de Riant Parc.


When you go by car you go along two or three routes. When you’re on foot or on a bike you explore more. You’re going at a speed where you can look around. You’re also going at a rate where traffic lights are less of a concern.


I notice that there are a lot of electric bikes and electric scooters. People are using these two forms of transport. The sun is shining and the temperatures are good. This makes alternative forms of transport more attractive.

Living Or Working By The Lake

Byrichard


When you work or live by the lake you see it change as the wind, temperature and light change. Sometimes it’s beautiful and pleasant as it was before, as you walk and keep warm. Now that I sat down to write this post the clouds have gone in and you can feel the cold.


I like the complexity of the image above. You see the diving boards, you see the winter trees, you see the flag and the people walking. You also see how the strong wind is blowing water over three or four times its own height. If it was blowing the other way it would drench the boats. That’s why they would turn it off.


When the wind is like this you can see two to three windsurfers taking advantage of the wind. I didn’t notice whether anyone was swimming today. The usual running groups and individuals were out.





We’ll see what route I follow tomorrow.

City Cat Sitting.
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City Cat Sitting.

Byrichard

For the first time in my life I am cat sitting. I’m used to village cats and this is a city cat so I don’t know how much time I need to spend with the cat, how much I need to play and more.


When I look after toddlers I know that I have to be attentive to them from the moment they wake up to the moment they nap or sleep. It’s a challenge to have that level of endurance.


I’ve started the first 24hr day of looking after a cat and so far it seems that I’m more attentive than I need to be. I feel like I should keep the window open and keep the cat entertained but this is a cat we’re talking about. They entertain themselves.


If we were in the middle of summer I would go for three to five-hour rides taking advantage of the new starting and endpoint. As we’re in the middle of winter I’m waiting for a film festival to start. As soon as it starts I will have something to do in Geneva. For now, I’ve been walking around and playing Ingress.


It’s nice to be so close to the centre of Geneva. I can walk everywhere within half an hour to an hour. Geneva is a small city when you know it. There is no need for buses, trams, taxis etc. Usually, something like going to the Apple store would be an expedition because it takes a 20-minute walk, a train, and then another 20-minute walk. Today I could do the walk within 20 minutes.


We will see how my impressions change over the coming days.

Filming events in 360
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Filming events in 360

Byrichard

We have all seen events covered by photographers and camera operators but how many events have we seen covered with 360 degree videos?



A few weeks ago I filmed the Escalade, wrestling and other events with 360 cameras and it was fun. In some cases it was the opportunity to play with a new format and in other cases it was the opportunity for proof of concept.


The thing to remember about 360 videos is that you’re placing the camera at a point in space and people can look around as if they were holding the camera. Of course rather than hold the camera with their hands they are holding it with their fingers or even on their heads.


Turn your head instinctively and you see what you’d expect. Look up, look down, look behind you. You are there in full control. You will see a group of runners run towards you and when they pass you can follow them with your gaze.


It’s not just that you follow them with your gaze. In some cases you’re right by the action. When I filmed wrestling I got the camera right by the action rather than on the pilon holding up the ropes. You can look up as one wrestler jumps from the ropes into the opponent below.


Of course I still need to watch this footage and see how effective my experiment was. I suspect it worked well. When I get back to the edit suite I will be able to experiment.