(…) the best way to improve your photography is to focus on your ideas, not your technique or gear Source: About — CJ Chilvers

I couldn’t agree more. To everyone who came up to me and asked what camera they should buy to start their photography journey, my answer always has been this one: Don’t focus on the camera model and let’s start discussing possible photo subjects.

The Beginning of My Journey to Midjourney

“A man sitting in front of a retro computer doing some important work”. 👀

This is my first ever prompt sent to Midjourney. I think this image is an excellent representation of my current state. A guy experimenting with Midjourney in front of my computer. I’m blown away. What a great time to be alive! Discord, as a client of this back-end service, is fascinating. 🤯

I subscribed for one month to the basic plan. I’m not sure how I’ll use the service. One example could be to create illustrations for my blog posts on Numeric Citizen Space. Another use case would be for illustration purposes for my work. I’ll see and continue experimenting. I’ll report back here my discoveries and impressions.

Right from Glass’s highlights website:

We’re wrapping up the final touches on our AI-powered Search beta that we’ll be releasing soon to Early Access. Early Access is an included perk for a new level of Glass membership that we’re announcing soon. Once we’ve tested it thoroughly over the coming months, it’ll be released to everyone. Source: New Member Search in Beta — Glass

In other words, Glass will add another subscription level where you’ll get pre-release features for testing. Subscriptions are not enough. Now we must pay to be beta testers. Great. 🤦🏻‍♂️

One of the reasons I’m leaving Smugmug is the fact that most of their improvements in the last year are geared toward selling your images. I’m not into this business. I tried selling some of my images on Stock a few years back and made a few dollars. I do have some images for sale on Adobe Stock. The revenue I get for selling an image is RIDICULOUS! I’ve sold 12 images, generating more than… 17$ in revenue. Who’s buying images these days? There is so much free content available (looking at you, Unsplash! 👀). Why bother?

Poof Vanmoof!

July 17, 2023: “VanMoof was declared bankrupt in the Netherlands on Monday by the Amsterdam District Court, following the company's pandemic-time boom”

Sept 1, 2021: ↓

“VanMoof raises $128m to make its high-tech e-bikes the new standard in cities worldwide” <p>“This is the largest ever Series C investment for a European e-bike brand and brings VanMoof’s total raised to $182 million (£132 million) in less than two years, making it the most funded e-bike company in the world.”" loading=“lazy”></p><p class=Read: mastodon.social

Too bad for them. It was THE electric bike I was looking for since I heard about them. Sadly, they never expanded in North America. They don’t do business with partners. I always regarded Vanmoof as the Apple of the ebike.

I’m excited and upbeat about the upcoming weeks/months. I’ll have a bunch of images to process (from my trips to Morocco & Canary Islands). Plus the migration out of Smugmug to Pixelfed will keep me busy. Finally, the upgrade to the iPhone 15 Pro Max(Ultra?) will be an occasion for a few photowalk sessions. All contribute to a more photography-intensive fall. 🏞️🏙️📷

I wrote that for myself. I always like comments! 😊

I’m a big fan of Inoreader. Make no mistake. But one quick comment. Consider the following screenshot where you can see the article-sharing option. You can see options like Blogger, Evernote, and Twitter. The first two options are dead horses. I mean, Blogger, really? Evernote is the next in line to die. The third is soon to be a dead horse, too. No other options are provided. I’m surprised that we don’t get to send an article by Fax, too.

This is the Discover tab with the focus on “people to discover” on the @pixelfed@mastodon.social official app (still in beta). The problem with this “selection”: how is this list built? The same can be said of Micro.blog discover feature. Why is the criteria never or rarely explained? Why is this list mostly static? The open web should be about absolute transparency too. Cc @manton