As of yesterday, October 13th, it’s been six months since I started Butte Daily Photo. Wow. Time flies. I will hopefully continue to do this until April 13th when it will have been a year.
Sometimes I think about how funny downright insane I must look to other people when I’m taking these photos.
A blonde girl creeping around the Butte alleys and streets at night. My arms and shoulders exploding with my camera, flash, camera bag, flash chord, filters, tripod, remote, light stand, gells, lenses, power pack and flash head. Fumbling in my hooded sweatshirt for my car keys and cell phone.
Butte Daily Photo started, for me, as a daily struggle of motivation. Motivation to get off the couch, pick up my dusty camera, get in my car…and the hardest of them all, get OUT of the car and wander around until I found a “postable” photo. A photo I wasn’t embarrassed to post and call my own…And a few times I didn’t succeed in that, but posted anyway. And now, after 6 months and more than 180 photo posts, it’s part of my daily routine. Like brushing my teeth or going to work. But it’s better than a routine. It’s different every day, and it’s what I love to do.
I’m a person who needs to be motivated by others. The only reason this blog didn’t go under five months ago was because I knew people were checking the sight often, some people daily. And I thank everyone for that. That’s why I have felt an obligation to continue this project. The kind e-mails have kept me motivated, and have made me felt this project is worth doing. The Butte community, including those from Butte living in different areas, are an extremely supportive group of people.
A few statistics about the site from my hit counter:
Of the past 500 visitors, 82% have been from the US. 12% have been from Canada. The other 6% have been from Germany, the UK, Romania, Australia, France, Sweden, Ireland, Thailand, Netherlands, Turkey, South Africa, Taiwan and Iceland.
And also people from 37 different states have been among the past 500 visitors.
Today there have been 49 page loads and 20 visitors. Of those 20 visitors, 13 have been to the site before.
I’m glad you haven’t stopped the site. Even if you can’t add a new photo every day, it’s still such a cool thing that you do. I left Butte 21 years ago and miss it more than I ever thought I would. Your pics remind me of great times and great friends in my life and have shown me things I failed to notice while growing up there. One question – do you take requests for things to photograph? I’d love to see a cool shot (or several) of Kennedy Elementary. I’ve never seen a school that looks anything like that and I remember what it was like going there.
Keep up the great work!!