blipfoto and me

Apologies to any of my regular viewers who will now see a sign in page if you skip back more than 10 entries. The powers that be have locked down access unless you sign up.

Blipfoto talks a lot of the community spirit of its members. I've never had any negativity on my blips, and over the last four years I've found everyone to be friendly, welcoming, charming. If you have a question, you can ask on the forum and get an answer. From New Zealand to Canada and loads of little places in between, there's someone who shows an interest in what you're doing. Some people join just to join the community. It's a source of inspiration - creatively, technically and personally. Blip has given me opportunity to show off some of my photography, I've been in the papers twice, I've had photos included in national projects. (It's also taught me tonight that the padlock on my suitcase can be torn off with little more than a severe twist of a key that isn't designed for the padlock).

But for me, all of that is secondary to what blipfoto means to me. I've realised that it's my own personal journal. I long since turned off the view counter or star ratings, and I rarely have time to flick through and comment on others' blips. Blipfoto is about recording my life, for me to look back on; to keep in touch with friends and family, and many of them comment regularly in person or on facebook. No matter how boring, mundane and pointless the blip - and believe me, there are many - the record is there for me and others to look back on if they choose. That's something I value enough to pay the annual membership fee, because the original premise of blipfoto worked perfectly for me - a place to tell my story for those who were kind enough to show an interest. If friends and family can't do that without restrictions, then what's the point? Sure, it doesn't take much for them to sign up, but I wouldn't expect them too - I don't consider my story to be worth signing up for!

For me, it started as a challenge - 365 consecutive blips. But it became a habit. 365 became 730, and 730 became 1095... but blips 1351, 1352, and many more to come, could just as easily be Instagram posts or blogs on Tumblr. Free for me, and accessible and unrestricted for everyone else.

I hope that normal service will be resumed in the near future. If not, maybe this story will need to move to another chapter, in another place.


"Blipfoto is a daily online photo journal - it's a place to build a diary of your life in photographs, and share it with the world." ...as long as the world has signed up.