Standing out in the big WWW. world is pretty terrifying. You’re up against SO many other websites, platforms, domains, the list goes on. Believe me when I say that I have had my FAIR SHARE of online fails.

When I think back  almost eight  years ago to my very first website, I can’t even tell you how lost I was. I don’t even remember what platform I was using, and I was in a rush to become “legit” by broadening my horizons outside of a Facebook business page. I had recently booked my very first wedding, and I thought to myself, “well, I guess it’s time to really make this photo thing, a thing” and I was desperate to make my stamp out there in the world wide web.

I first dabbled in the early 2000’s when MySpace was the place to be. I would download “themes” and I quickly became comfortable with changing the HTML to modify my page. I thought I was some top secret agent, navigating all the numbers, letters and symbols that made up my baller MySpace page.

LOL if only it were that simple.

I’ve progressed a little since my MySpace days. Since then, I have completely re-built my website nine, yes, NINE, times since then. Each time, a little better, more advanced, and professional than the last. But one thing I’ve always fallen short on is a consistent blog. To actually document my progress in business, photography, life, etc. I have always fallen off the wagon. I religiously follow a handful of photographers who are just out there killing it with their online presence. I follow their blogs, and look to them for inspiration. A common thread I’ve found is that they hold blogging as high on their priority list as they do their actual photo work. Me on the other hand, once I finally pull myself out of the bottomless Photoshop-Lightroom hole, the last thing I want to do is hop onto WordPress and talk about it.

Let’s jump to today. I’m sitting here at my desk with a half-melted iced coffee and I’ve hit the backspace button more times than the space button on my keyboard. I’m not all about blogging. I’ve wrestled with blogging consistently more times than I can count, and reading back what I’ve typed makes me cringe.

It’s like running, I’m sure. The more you do it, the easier and less painful it becomes. After a while, it just becomes a part of your routine. If you decide you’re going to start each day with a short run, that first week is probably going to be miserable. You’ll dread getting out of bed, and look forward to the end. Similar to how I feel when I log onto the backend of my blog platform. Looking forward to hitting that “publish” button, and crossing another thing off my list.

But, I’m giving it another try, and my goals are as follows:

• Just do the damn thing
• Slowly move my “oldie-but-goodie” blog posts here
• Keep current/consistant with blogging for at least the weddings
• Get another iced coffee

till next time (hopefully sooner rather than later)

– Cristina