Summer Romance - West Virginia

Good Tuesday Morning!

Winter is hanging on, and is starting to test my patience.  Over the weekend we were visiting southern West Virginia, and the world didn't look like April, it looked like January.  While it did provide some interesting subject matter - spring flowers with snow, greenery in the white background - it was definitely a gloomy and moody stretch of days, with steady fog, overcast, and snow.  We decided to stop by one of the more frequently photographed spots in West Virginia - Sandstone Falls - and were entertained to have the place all to ourselves.

Wandering around the falls, sneaking around the high water and watching the snow starting to accumulate in the woods, I came across this.  

I wonder if whoever was reading this question was impressed.  Or embarrassed.  Or surprised. 
I wonder if who was doing the asking thought this would seal the deal.

But most of all, I wonder if that relationship lasted as long as this carving did.

I kinda hope so. 

Talk to y'all Friday. 

Summer Romance - West Virginia

Spring Returning to North Fork Blackwater - West Virginia

Good Friday Morning!

Today is the last in the "Transition" set of posts and images we're doing relative to our pulling a bit back from Facebook and to my own web hosting. 

My final thoughts today are on the "commodification" of this type of creative work - especially visual work - in the wider world.  It has been an all-too-familiar experience having folks wanting us to give away work for "exposure", or having large, national and regional organizations suggest that they will promote my work - but only if I pay them.  I have often used my work to support small charitable and non-profit activities that I believe in - through donation of service or prints - but otherwise, I have to turn that type of arrangement down.  There are so many photo contests out there offering $500 to a winner, and all it requires is signing away all of the rights you have to your work - and they have people falling over themselves to give it away.  That's funny to think about - large companies paying $500 to have hundreds of people give them their work.  I wouldn't landscape a yard, or paint a house, or repair a car for free for a big business, with 100s of other people, just for exposure, with the hope that maybe I'm the lucky guy to get $500 for years and hours of training and effort.   I see this is as hurting the work in a couple of ways - a person, dedicated to the craft, can no longer make a part living at that rate, and to the industry it signals that the work is literally worthless - why pay a professional to do the work, when the internet will give it to them for free?

In the end, I create for myself, and have been encouraged in the response from folks in that work.  If it means that I can give some back to my community and to causes I believe in, that's all the better. 

This image from more recently than I'd like to admit, and captures the currently on-going battle between winter and spring that West Virginia is experiencing right now. 

Spring Returning to North Fork Blackwater - West Virginia

Late Winter on North Fork Mountain - West Virginia

Good Tuesday Morning!

As I noted the other day, we are making some changes with this operation, and taking some of our commentary and hosting to my own website.  I have a few more thoughts on the change and transition, and on the state of this type of work generally. 

The other major reasons for the change are more "commercial".  When I started on Facebook it felt like "good content wins" - we put a lot of effort to have compelling images with something to say, and let the audience grow organically.  For quite a while, that was a successful plan, but over the last few years, I have been demoralized by two factors that have come to be obvious of late.  First, with the beginning of paid posts, it has been increasingly hard to get our work in front of our audience - even for folks that have been interested and engaged with us along the way.  "The algorithm" has put us in a rock-and-hard place position - pay for folks to see the work, and diminishing returns when we do. Secondly, the nature of the platform wanting conflict, or bombastic statements to drive organic interaction is pretty much the opposite of what we want to do here.  We have prided ourselves on being able to find common ground, regardless of political leanings in our audience, on topics that impact us all living here - but unfortunately, that doesn't get folks riled up enough.  I talked about this in a post in 2017, but the most "successful" post we had last year was where I complained about our experience in Yellowstone park.  A post that was a bridge post between "a really good experience" and "another really good experience", and was framed as the connector, a "conflict point" in our narrative that led to better days was the most viewed, commented, and reacted post of 2017. 

Heck with that.

Today's image from a hike roughly one year ago on North Fork Mountain, which we just didn't have the time to feature last year!  It was a lovely late winter day, and we had aimed for a spot in the middle of the North Fork Mountain trail - because I wanted to find a route to the famous Champe Rocks along the Potomac.  We had hiked out, and West Virginia did what she does - things are close by, but not easy to get to.  Champe Rocks are visible in the mid-right of the frame - and it was obvious we were going to have one heck of an approach to get there.  This has started to become our calling card - finding a hard, or remote objective - and then figuring out what it takes to get there.  It means that we don't always "win" in our adventures - but it does mean that we see a lot of the state that other folks don't.

Late Winter on North Fork Mountain - West Virginia

Summer Evening Swimming Hole - West Virginia

Good Friday Morning!
 

Today is the first chapter in a short series of posts about why I am planning to leave Facebook as the primary outlet for my work.  There are a lot of elements that go into a decision like that, and I do not take them lightly, as I have been inspired and encouraged by all of y'all out there that have had interesting or encouraging things to say over the last 3+ years of this operation.  This does NOT mean that I am quitting this work - just changing the venue.

One of the primary reasons for the change is the issue of image misappropriation or lack of attribution, which has grown remarkably intense over the last year.  I have had to chase folks for attribution that an image is mine, or have had much larger pages or groups share my images with their copy added, with no attribution, no link-back, etc.  I am fortunate that I have the resources to credibly threaten legal action over such things, but at the end of the day that is not why I do this work - to have to track and defend my work and threaten folks out in my audience.  I'll have further thoughts on upcoming posts as well.

Over the next little stretch, I will be crossposting my work to Instagram (@samueltaylorphoto) and to my website (http://www.samueltaylorphoto.com/todays-photo/), with the intent to move to those media more exclusively soon, and this page will feature a limited selection of my work and featuring content from my website, directing folks to those other venues. 

With all that said, I will try to go out proudly, featuring images that I am excited about.
 

Today's image from late last summer, just before our trip out West.  We had driven up to the rail trail at Masontown, and went for a hike in the warm summer evening, aiming for the falls the whole way, hoping to catch them in the evening light.  As we approached, there were several people swimming just below the falls, and we pulled up a rock on the far side of the creek, and ate a snack basking in it all.  As the sun faded, they packed up, pantomimed a "have a nice evening!" to us, and we were able to set up and make this image.  Just another evening in West Virginia. 
 

Summer Evening Swimming Hole - West Virginia