365 in print

So, I had wondered what I would do for my 365th Blip. Would I mark it by capturing some appropriate numbers out there? After all I hadn't gone down the numbers route for 100, 200 or 300.

There was a bit of me that thought I should treat it just like any other day and leave it to chance to see what came up. But 365 is a bit different, isn't it? So I was beginning to mull it over at the start of the week when I got an email from BlipCentral noting that as my 365 was due would I mind sending an email back with some answers to a few questions about my blipping that they might use in a press release to the local paper. I'd seen that Daily Wild down in Devon had received a similar email, so I knew I wasn't the only one to get such a request, but still 'nothing ventured. nothing gained', so I wrote up my replies, and added a few thoughts about my blip experience. Ryan licked my words into shape for the press release and he fired it off to the Edinburgh Evening News. Ever the pessimist, even when the reporter from the News phoned me up yesterday afternoon to have a bit of a chat I still wasn't convinced it would make the paper. 'They might find a better story', I told myself.

It was therefore a pleasant surprise to see an article in the features section of the online version of the paper this afternoon.. Even better was seeing the print version. I'd thought it might just be a small single-column piece in the actual paper, with one or two images, but I was delighted to see it as a double page spread. Having dropped off the CD with the pictures from yesterday's shoot, I headed for the esplanade to get a good backdrop for the 365 image I had decided on. Of course, it's tattoo time, so the temporary stands are up and no view from the esplanade itself but heading round the back of the stands I found this vantage point for a picture of newspaper and the city that has provided many of the images over the last year. More than a year in fact, as it was only at the end of October that I started the 'true' blipping of an image a day, every day, so it took a little longer than twelve months to get to my BlipDay.

I'm probably something of a 'blip bore' for my non-blipping friends, spreading the word with the evangelical fervour of a recent convert. It is such a wonderfully simple idea that creates such a brilliant community. Something I said in my responses that they didn't use but I feel sums it up is that blip helps you see the world differently, both through the blips of other people, and in the way you use your own camera to capture your personal surroundings.
And now, onto the next year's worth!

If you are interested, and they are a bit too small to see properly above, the images they chose to feature in the article were

Quartermile flats look out onto the Meadows
Pope's visit
Crowd at Easter Road
Rainbow
Last sunshine of the year
Friday is Bin Day
Poor Things in The Caves
Crocuses in Princes Street Gardens
Modern building
Election posters (something we won't see again as the council has since banned them)
Hanging the SCE degree show
Open door at Donaldson's
Grads rehearsal

And now my day is complete - after 365 Blips I have made it onto the Spotlight page, and broke the 100 views/blip average. Thanks for all your nice comments.