A quick Blog update

So, with last week's more-or-less successful re-launch of the site, I thought I would say a few words.

Firstly, because of the time overhead required for writing the blurbs for each post, I'm going to be defaulting to 3 photos a day, although where possible this will be boosted to 5, or possibly even more.

I'm trying to balance the time constraints work and family commitments put on me, not to mention the other projects I am working on, with my desire to inflict my alleged "photography" on the world.

Second, I'm still working on exactly how I want the site to look and feel - layouts are going to be pretty fluid for the next week or so as I experiment with various things.

It is now possible to subscribe to the site - email "newsletters" are not yet available, and won't be switched on until a) I figure out how to integrate it with a mail provider, and b) subscribers reach double digits.

Paid tiers may be added at some future time, I just need to figure out how to make it worthwhile for readers.

I'm looking at adding a wiki-ish section for Spotting guides for various airports soon, and possibly a news section, although that could well be too much effort to keep up.

Social Media is entirely, exclusively, handled through the #Fediverse, an Open Source, distributed, de-centralised social network, primarily using Mastodon, although you can follow me through any other Fediverse service (Pleroma, Pixelfed, Misskey, Lemmy, GoToSocial, Friendica,  and many others.)

The developers of the blog software I use are planning on having full ActivityPub services built in by the end of the year, meaning readers will be able to follow this blog directly from the Fediverse.

Other social media, especially the big commercial silos, are not on my agenda - Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are not services I intend using ever again, and BlueSky and Threads, while both are technically capable of interacting with the Fediverse, are blocked at the server level on my mastodon instance, meaning I can't see you, and you can't see me.

I'm looking at adding video at some point this year, likely via PeerTube (another Fediverse service) rather than YouTube, and I might be going to play with Loopz, a Fediverse alternative to TikTok as well.

Several people have pointed out to me that if I don't use the big silos, I'm never going to be rich and famous - and I'm perfectly happy with that.

Aviation photography is a passion of mine - being able to cover my server costs would be nice, and having the cash to update my camera would make me ecstatic, but otherwise, I'm happy as I am.

And that's the plan for this year, apart from getting out spotting more often, preferably getting a bit further afield as well.

 Manc AvGeek