LJ-versary!!
Jul. 28th, 2013 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
growyourwingsActually I missed the date again. Keep forgetting. It was July 9th, 2006 when I first signed up for an LJ account. So 7 years now! I didn't even know of SPN back then. Came here because of Lost. But found SPN a few months later.
It appears that the last time I made an LJ-versary entry was 3 years ago. Where I wrote: "I've had 21,496 unique visits and 41,155 page views. And while for about a half of that year I was posting a hell of a lot. The last six months have slowed to a crawl as far as posting is concerned. In the past four years, I've made 1,828 posts, received 9,157 comments, and made 6,204 comments. And made great friends!"
That was back in 2010 and I was about to start my 1-1/2 year hiatus from SPN cons. While I had purchased my first DSLR camera for the Chicon 2008 convention, I still had NO idea how to really use it. During the 1-1/2 years I was away from conventions I started teaching myself how to really make use of the camera and to understand the technology behind the lenses. That made all the difference in the world.
And as of today I have 2,960 journal entries, made over 10,000 comments on others' posts, and received over 14,000 comments. And I have over 170,000 page views. And the photos I've posted to Flickr just in the past year have had about 144,000 views.
And to me, the most important and still the best thing is the friendships I've made and experiences I've had. It's been great to meet in RL many of the people I originally met online. And the experiences have also enriched and expanded my understanding of both myself and the business of telling stories. I had never truly recognized how important storytelling to me has always been. I fangirled Shakespeare when I was in 6th grade. I fangirled Clark Gable when I was in 7th grade. I attempted to write my own version of an Edgar Allen Poe story when I was in 7th grade. I stayed up until 1-2am on Saturday nights to watch old time, black and white horror movies with Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, and all the rest. And yet, if someone had asked me about 10ish years ago if I was a fangirl, I would have looked puzzled and would not have even understood what they were talking about. I would have embraced the terms geek and book reader. And even that I knew I loved live theater. But fangirl? Never mind that I own a full-color program for every year I ever attended the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and studied the names of all the actors, their bios, as well as the names of the directors, stage managers, and others. When one of the directors moved to Portland to work in local theater here, I celebrated! That same man just recently retired and I read with fondness a recap of his career. In 7th grade, I bought every book I could find on Clark Gable and memorized all the movies he was in.
Just an hour ago, my husband turned his laptop screen to me to ask me who an actor was on a 1970s TV show. This was a character actor whose face many would recognize, but only some would immediately know the name of. I replied immediately, without missing a beat, "William Windom" And I also immediately remembered the first show I ever saw him in, original Star Trek's The Doomsday Machine, Season 2, when I was about 8 years of age. It all came to me in flash. Along with mental images from that episode. Internally, I couldn't help but realize that while I still struggle to remember the names of people I meet in real life, work or otherwise, when I learn the name of an actor, a director, or any crew member, it STICKS. Almost immediately. Along with whatever snippets of biography I hear about them. Without even trying to remember. It all just stuck. But I still struggle to remember the names of our neighbors that I've met many times.
So yeah, involvement with the SPN community made me realize a key passion of mine that I had never fully recognized. And it made it okay to celebrate it as well.
And it gave me back photography. I will *always* be grateful for that. When I was 19 and in my first year of college, I called my mother up to tell her I wanted to change my major to photography. Her reaction was less than enthusiastic (photography was not very practical). And that combined with the math needed back in those days to understand correct exposure, plus the sheer maddening slowness of darkroom work, discouraged me enough to turn my back on it. I still remember my first ever camera that was given to me when I was about 8 years of age. A Brownie camera. Which, even though it was the better camera, I switched with my younger brother's camera, which looked to me more like a "real photographer's" camera; despite actually being cheaper and of lower quality. But I was 8; what did I know? Then when our first child, Emily, was born, we invested in Canon's first EOS film camera and a few lenses. And I took hundreds and hundreds of photos. And I labeled the back of each print with the date and the negative number. And I filed the negatives in a special folder which was cross referenced with the prints so I could find the negative should I ever want to reproduce the print. I had a *system*. Back then, Bob was always exclaiming to me, "You're wasting film!" as I snapped, snapped, snapped away.
Heh.
Then I learned about a program called Photoshop. I was already a computer programmer by trade. Fell in love with computers back with my family's first Apple II back in, oh 1987-ish. Which solidified when I found myself randomly in a Fortran programming class in college at 8am on a Monday morning (ugh!) With which I fell in love. When I went to buy my first own computer back in the 1990s, I so wanted to buy an Apple. But back then I spent all my work time on IBM-clones; Windows machines. And back then intercompability between Windows and Macs was almost non-existent. All I knew was that *artists* used Macs. And *business people* used Windows. I had to *face reality* that I was not an artist and was a business person, so I turned my back on those Macs and dutifully purchased a Windows machine.
Years later, when I learned there was a computer program that allowed you to manipulate art and photographs, I *had* to have it. This was back in about 2005; and I bought the first version of Photoshop CS. It was expensive as hell. But I did not care. I bought it.
And I spent HOURS and hours and HOURS teaching it to myself. This was before a lot of online availability of videos or tutorials. So I just hunted and pecked and tried things. I tried to buy a book, but the book wasn't much help. So I just played. Pretty soon, Photoshop when moved on my inventory of personal software out of the "secondary" category to the "primary" category (yes, I kept inventory lists of software.) It was a bit painful for my pocketbook when I converted from Windows to Macs (finally) in 2006 because I had to purchase a new Photoshop license. But I didn't care. I winced a little, but I didn't care. I could not live without it.
Back then I had stopped taken photos. So I was using photoshop to restore hundreds of old family photos. I was no longer taking photos.
Until going to SPN cons and my obsession with figuring out how to get decent photos in those awful convention halls. Between my new (to me, it was used) DSLR and Photoshop, I was in heaven. Not to mention getting to stare at the boys faces for hours on end. (Hard, yes, right?)
So if I hadn't have found LJ, I never would have found SPN. If I hadn't found SPN, I might never have gotten back into photography. I would have been playing around with Photoshop, but with very little source material. Because taking photos of flowers and landscapes just wasn't my thing. I enjoy it on occasion. But my true passion is taking photos of people. And in real life, everyday world, most people don't enjoy having cameras in their faces. And without the experience of taking thousands of photos of people (the Js and others), I never would have gotten to the place where I felt I could offer something to people in return for them letting me take their photos. Namely, decent photos that hopefully captured who they were while also making them look good.
So thank you LJ. Happy anniversary to us!
:)
It appears that the last time I made an LJ-versary entry was 3 years ago. Where I wrote: "I've had 21,496 unique visits and 41,155 page views. And while for about a half of that year I was posting a hell of a lot. The last six months have slowed to a crawl as far as posting is concerned. In the past four years, I've made 1,828 posts, received 9,157 comments, and made 6,204 comments. And made great friends!"
That was back in 2010 and I was about to start my 1-1/2 year hiatus from SPN cons. While I had purchased my first DSLR camera for the Chicon 2008 convention, I still had NO idea how to really use it. During the 1-1/2 years I was away from conventions I started teaching myself how to really make use of the camera and to understand the technology behind the lenses. That made all the difference in the world.
And as of today I have 2,960 journal entries, made over 10,000 comments on others' posts, and received over 14,000 comments. And I have over 170,000 page views. And the photos I've posted to Flickr just in the past year have had about 144,000 views.
And to me, the most important and still the best thing is the friendships I've made and experiences I've had. It's been great to meet in RL many of the people I originally met online. And the experiences have also enriched and expanded my understanding of both myself and the business of telling stories. I had never truly recognized how important storytelling to me has always been. I fangirled Shakespeare when I was in 6th grade. I fangirled Clark Gable when I was in 7th grade. I attempted to write my own version of an Edgar Allen Poe story when I was in 7th grade. I stayed up until 1-2am on Saturday nights to watch old time, black and white horror movies with Vincent Price, Bela Lugosi, and all the rest. And yet, if someone had asked me about 10ish years ago if I was a fangirl, I would have looked puzzled and would not have even understood what they were talking about. I would have embraced the terms geek and book reader. And even that I knew I loved live theater. But fangirl? Never mind that I own a full-color program for every year I ever attended the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and studied the names of all the actors, their bios, as well as the names of the directors, stage managers, and others. When one of the directors moved to Portland to work in local theater here, I celebrated! That same man just recently retired and I read with fondness a recap of his career. In 7th grade, I bought every book I could find on Clark Gable and memorized all the movies he was in.
Just an hour ago, my husband turned his laptop screen to me to ask me who an actor was on a 1970s TV show. This was a character actor whose face many would recognize, but only some would immediately know the name of. I replied immediately, without missing a beat, "William Windom" And I also immediately remembered the first show I ever saw him in, original Star Trek's The Doomsday Machine, Season 2, when I was about 8 years of age. It all came to me in flash. Along with mental images from that episode. Internally, I couldn't help but realize that while I still struggle to remember the names of people I meet in real life, work or otherwise, when I learn the name of an actor, a director, or any crew member, it STICKS. Almost immediately. Along with whatever snippets of biography I hear about them. Without even trying to remember. It all just stuck. But I still struggle to remember the names of our neighbors that I've met many times.
So yeah, involvement with the SPN community made me realize a key passion of mine that I had never fully recognized. And it made it okay to celebrate it as well.
And it gave me back photography. I will *always* be grateful for that. When I was 19 and in my first year of college, I called my mother up to tell her I wanted to change my major to photography. Her reaction was less than enthusiastic (photography was not very practical). And that combined with the math needed back in those days to understand correct exposure, plus the sheer maddening slowness of darkroom work, discouraged me enough to turn my back on it. I still remember my first ever camera that was given to me when I was about 8 years of age. A Brownie camera. Which, even though it was the better camera, I switched with my younger brother's camera, which looked to me more like a "real photographer's" camera; despite actually being cheaper and of lower quality. But I was 8; what did I know? Then when our first child, Emily, was born, we invested in Canon's first EOS film camera and a few lenses. And I took hundreds and hundreds of photos. And I labeled the back of each print with the date and the negative number. And I filed the negatives in a special folder which was cross referenced with the prints so I could find the negative should I ever want to reproduce the print. I had a *system*. Back then, Bob was always exclaiming to me, "You're wasting film!" as I snapped, snapped, snapped away.
Heh.
Then I learned about a program called Photoshop. I was already a computer programmer by trade. Fell in love with computers back with my family's first Apple II back in, oh 1987-ish. Which solidified when I found myself randomly in a Fortran programming class in college at 8am on a Monday morning (ugh!) With which I fell in love. When I went to buy my first own computer back in the 1990s, I so wanted to buy an Apple. But back then I spent all my work time on IBM-clones; Windows machines. And back then intercompability between Windows and Macs was almost non-existent. All I knew was that *artists* used Macs. And *business people* used Windows. I had to *face reality* that I was not an artist and was a business person, so I turned my back on those Macs and dutifully purchased a Windows machine.
Years later, when I learned there was a computer program that allowed you to manipulate art and photographs, I *had* to have it. This was back in about 2005; and I bought the first version of Photoshop CS. It was expensive as hell. But I did not care. I bought it.
.♢.
And I spent HOURS and hours and HOURS teaching it to myself. This was before a lot of online availability of videos or tutorials. So I just hunted and pecked and tried things. I tried to buy a book, but the book wasn't much help. So I just played. Pretty soon, Photoshop when moved on my inventory of personal software out of the "secondary" category to the "primary" category (yes, I kept inventory lists of software.) It was a bit painful for my pocketbook when I converted from Windows to Macs (finally) in 2006 because I had to purchase a new Photoshop license. But I didn't care. I winced a little, but I didn't care. I could not live without it.
Back then I had stopped taken photos. So I was using photoshop to restore hundreds of old family photos. I was no longer taking photos.
Until going to SPN cons and my obsession with figuring out how to get decent photos in those awful convention halls. Between my new (to me, it was used) DSLR and Photoshop, I was in heaven. Not to mention getting to stare at the boys faces for hours on end. (Hard, yes, right?)
So if I hadn't have found LJ, I never would have found SPN. If I hadn't found SPN, I might never have gotten back into photography. I would have been playing around with Photoshop, but with very little source material. Because taking photos of flowers and landscapes just wasn't my thing. I enjoy it on occasion. But my true passion is taking photos of people. And in real life, everyday world, most people don't enjoy having cameras in their faces. And without the experience of taking thousands of photos of people (the Js and others), I never would have gotten to the place where I felt I could offer something to people in return for them letting me take their photos. Namely, decent photos that hopefully captured who they were while also making them look good.
So thank you LJ. Happy anniversary to us!
:)
╚══════.♢.═╝
