A year on blip

I had intended to do this for my 365-day, but the way yesterday worked out I had to blip via Androblip on the fly, or otherwise I wouldn't have done the 365 on the day. Don't want to back blip your 365, do you? As it turned out, we didn't get back from the splendid wedding until gone midnight, so I think I did the right thing, even though it meant using an inferior smaller quality image (my smartphone doesn't like uploading the full quality images via Androblip on a 3g connection).

Anyway, I was really overwhelmed by the response to yesterday's blip, and I will try to visit each and every one of the commentators over the next few days to thank them individually for their input. It was very exciting hitting the spotlight page for the first time. It certainly makes a difference to your visitor numbers.

Today's picture is nothing special. It results from a quick trip to Ocean Terminal this morning for some domestic items from Debenhams. Other than that, we are unlikely to venture out. This not because of the weather - which is actually holding up so far although it is blustery and there were lots of white horses on the Firth of Forth - but rather because we are pretty damn exhausted after yesterday and also from having a busy week with friends staying as well.

I thought I would therefore use the time on my hands this afternoon to do "a year in blip", drawing attention to some of my favourite photos, which aren't necessarily the ones that have been most viewed or highly rated. It is a mixture of photos that were taken here in Edinburgh or on my many travels, reflecting the "journal" nature of blip as a record of where we go, what we see, and a little bit of how we think. What I have tried also to do is to pick out some of the photos that I don't think I would have taken if it weren't for blip - in the sense that they reflect a different way of seeing things.

So, here goes:

This is probably my favourite photo on blip. It was taken in a modernist "sky scraper" (i.e. slightly taller than average) building in Ljubljana and was pointed out to me as a "blip opportunity" by my perspicacious travelling companion. It's also been used on another website.

Going back to the early days, when I was still blipping with the Streak (RIP), this picture taken at the Islay Jazz Festival last year epitomises the sorts of things I would always choose to blip at the beginning. I think my eye has changed, allowing me to start some interesting series, especially #leithwalkshops, which reflect a closer look at the city in which I live. Although it is true that I still have a strong inclination towards light over the sea. Returning to the Islay Jazz Festival, which happens next weekend, it will be interesting to reflect through blip on how my preference for taking photographs has evolved in that time. We're off there to celebrate a significant "statement" birthday.

And then there is blipping and travelling. As I say in my bio, "in real life I travel a lot". Indeed, I do, and I have been to some really interesting places this year and they have produced some fascinating images. After several years of working on the region, I finally travelled in the last 12 months to Bosnia, and specifically to Sarajevo. I wouldn't choose one of my photos of Sarajevo to include in this "hit parade", but rather the one of the graveyard at Srebrenica. That was an extraordinarily moving experience. Later on in the "year in blip" (back in June), we went to Istanbul, and I'm quite proud of this shot of the historic tram on Istikal Caddesi. I don't think I could have taken something like that before I had been practicing my photography every day for several months. But not all of our travelling has been so exotic. This boat picture taken on Dungeness beach in April in very strange light is nothing special, but it is one for which I have considerable fondness. Last but not least, I'm also very fond of my picture of the large and possibly romantic picture in St Pancras Station.

I am, as I said yesterday, very much looking forward to the next 365. This is a great way of recording where you are and what you do, whilst presenting at least something of me. I'm really glad I used tags from the beginning because they make it much easier to manage what is going to become an increasingly large corpus of photos and information. I don't have too many regrets except that I didn't realise early enough just how many 'photographable' bits and pieces in our daily lives. Yes, blipping every day is addictive and a bit obsessive, but my goodness it changes your view of the closer and wider world.

Edit
The very last thing I should have remembered, in doing this post about favourites, was the pleasure we have had out of blip as a community. Hence my final "favourite" is the only picture I have taken of other blippers at a recent blipmeet in Spoon Cafe in Edinburgh. But although Edinburgh is the headquarters of blipland, we've also met blippers as far away as Barcelona. So I hope we'll carry on meeting other blippers, both online and in real life.