There are many things one can do to improve ones photography skills. One can read books, watch tutorials, get new equipment and much more. But the thing that helps the most, is taking and editing photos. The much the better. The more you do something, the better you get.
Now the question is, how to get oneself to shoot and edit as much as possible, when it isn’t ones main job. A lot of people try so called 365 projects, also called a photo a day project. The goal there is to take a photo every day. But I thing, having a daily blog is a more crazier version of this.
This blog passed it’s 4th year of existence some time ago, and it hasn’t been always easy to keep up with it. As every photographer knows, there are days when one really is not in the mood to touch the camera, or when every result just looks ugly. Of course there are also days when one is busy, one is traveling and there is absolutely not time.
It actually happened a lot of times, that I just arrived late at night home from a trip, and first thing was to copy the photos to the PC and edit one, so I can update the blog :)
To every photographer, I would suggest to try it out for a while. Not many can stick with it, as it just takes too much time and commitment. I have thought many times to switching to a less regular posting, but as I’m a very stubborn person, I never did it :)
But do I think that it’s crazy to do a daily photo blog? Yes I do. It helps one get better, helps one to try to do more with photography. But it also makes one more nervous. Once you get used to a daily post, and one is late, it aggravating. Or when one had no time to shoot for a while, or no good photo opportunities, and one want something new for the blog.
As everything, it’s usually goes up and down. It’s great after a trip, when one has a huge amount of new photos, and it’s horrible after a month without a new one :)
It’s also a great pleasure to look through ones old posts, and see how the skill evolved (of course when one gets over how horrible the old photos are :)). I started posting to Flickr right when I started with photography, and to the blog soon after that, so I have a history of all my photos.
I seen photographers who started with blogging and ended quite quickly, because the haven’t seen the response/ visits/ comments/ fame there were hoping for. But in all cases, one has to do this for oneself. Actually blogging is the only platform, where you can do what you want. On social networks it is easier to get followers and views, but there one is always at the mercy of Google/ Facebook/ whoever, who can change anything from day to day. On ones own blog, one is the own master. Also blog posts don’t get lost in time so easily :)
So if you are a photographer, I really suggest you start a blog. I just would not do a daily one :)