Newsletter #1!
Mercredi, 28 Octobre 2015
Dear friends,
Thanks for agreeing to give me your email addresses. I’ve been polluting the internet with my varied writings, photographs, and videos for a decade now, but surprisingly have never sent out e-mail blasts: equating email with spam, bills, work, and heartbreak.
When I started following blogs online, we used Google Reader, or the non-algorithmically censored “feed” of Livejournal, or “blogrolls” in Blogger’s sidebar. I remember if you used Typepad you were considered intellectual, or cutting edge if Movable Type. And you used Feedburner to make your post look neat in RSS readers.
Now people post stuff on social media, most of which disappear into the ether when Facebook’s omniscient algorithm decides not to display your post onto some people’s feeds. Or it gets lost in the deluge of Twitter updates. And these ephemeral modern services don’t even have proper archive searching or indexing for older posts! You snooze, you lose.. because you won’t be able to find that Instagram picture you know you saw a few months ago..
I started this newsletter because unbeknownst to me, e-mail newsletters have been making a comeback. Apparently the modern way of blogging isn’t just “blogging” on your website, even Tumblr isn’t “new” no more. The kids now be sending out email dispatches. Like it was 1896 and you’re sitting pining for your betrothed to send you a letter from the trenches of the Philippine-American War.
I also want to have a reason for constantly creating new work, even if it’s just superficial short term weekly/ monthly projects. The premise of these monthly (or bi-monthly if I’m feeling up to it) dispatches is that I will send out one fresh art work each newsletter. Not just recycle a photo from 2009.
And if it’s a new photo that is part of an existing long term series I’m shooting, it won’t count. I will mention that I’ve made new additions to my existing long term series, but that will not exempt that month’s dispatch from having a fresh new piece (whether video/ photo).
I may still change this, but for now, I plan to have four permanent sections in every newsletter:
- Always Fresh – whatever new thing I made for that month/ fortnight
- From the web – an interesting link I found online and would like to share
- Past work feature – I will either post something I’ve done in the past, or new additions to my long term series (currently, Philippine Stores with Coca Cola Logos, Street Side Grottoes in the Phils., No Parking in the Philippines, and other nonspecific themes like neon, payphones, barbershops)
- Stamp of the day: I will feature a stamp from my Stamp Library
P.S. I know the first iterations of everything, like iPhone 1 , or the first genetically cloned sheep, are usually nothing to write home about. But if you find my succeeding newsletters improved and enjoy it, I’d be very grateful if you would forward them to your friends and encourage them to subscribe too. Or click “like” on my Facebook page.So without further ado, here it is!
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