Conducting a blog such as this can be immensely fulfilling, but it can also become a treadmill, constantly creating the need to pull tomorrow’s story out of a hat like some conjuror’s rabbit. Common wisdom is that if a blog is to be successful posting must be regular, ideally once a day. Just enough, but not too much. This can be a burden. It’s something I feel from time to time but, as I explain later, the discipline of creating a new story every day is important to me.
As Macfilos approaches its ninth birthday on August 1, I’ve been reflecting with some astonishment on the sheer willpower I have mustered over the years. By and large I have stuck to the principle of one article a day, just to keep things ticking over.
This was brought to mind a couple of days ago when I read that Tim at Leicaphilia is taking a summer break. Leicaphilia is one of my regular haunts and, often, it has some unique insights into the world of Leica. Tim is off to Italy to put in some serious cycling and casting blogging aside for the summer. I don’t know Tim personally, although we have corresponded and I have linked to quite a few of his interesting posts, but I understand that he does have a real job — something I don’t have any more. He thus has every excuse for a break. I’m different. I took early retirement and have been footloose and fancy-free for the past fifteen years. And in many ways, I admit, it is Macfilos that has kept me sane.
Adventure
After retirement I set forth on adventures, lots of travelling was involved and, as a result, I wasn’t keen to be tied down to another job. I was done with the concept of just a few precious weeks of vacation every year. In some respects, though, I would have been better served by taking a job to keep me occupied; perhaps, even, some voluntary work.
After a very busy working life, responsible for a large staff and enjoying the social intercourse that naturally follows, I felt rather abandoned and certainly lacking in purpose. I came to realise that retirement is one of the great milestones in life and not one to be approached without a great deal of planning. Unlike the other big milestone, starting work, retirement is somehow final and has a strange effect on the psyche. If your first job is the end of the beginning, to paraphrase Churchill, retirement is often seen as the beginning of the end. The challenge is to make something of retirement.
It was Macfilos that ultimately came to the rescue. Although I earn nothing from it (on the contrary, it costs me about £1,000 a year to keep the site running), I do get a lot of satisfaction. It imposes the discipline of having to write something every day and also prompts my photography which adds interest to the waffling. It is also something I can do from anywhere in the world, given an iPhone or Mac and an internet connection.
Yet sometimes, I do admit to knitting wind, a favourite expression of a former editor when faced with the need to fill up a substantial magazine every Thursday. It isn’t easy.
Social circle
Macfilos has also been a great way of making friends and acquaintances from both the technology and photographic worlds. I now have friends all over the world thanks to the blog. Most of them I haven’t met but we correspond from time to time — and I see their names cropping up as comments to remind me that there is someone out there reading my stuff. Some I have met, particularly many in the UK, and I have made many firm friends. I’ve also gathered a solid band of contributors whose writings complement mine and offer an alternative perspective — people like Bill ‘Fuji’ Palmer, William Fagan in Dublin and John Shingleton in Australia.
In short, Macfilos is a sort of virtual social circle for me and this is perhaps the most powerful incentive to keep things going.
As with Tim at Leicaphilia and most other bloggers, though, there are times when I sit here in front of the computer with not a constructive thought in my head. That’s when I get down to writing reflective pieces such as this. Sometimes I have a week’s worth of articles in the pipeline other times, such as this morning, I have none. I was tempted to take a summer vacation myself: Back on September 1, folks.
As it happens, this summer has been a particularly challenging one. First I fell and damaged my left knee which made walking difficult for six weeks and, as a direct result, I neglected my photography. This, in turn, led to a lack of subject matter. Then I embarked on extensive home improvements which have dragged on for two months — with me valiantly trying to produce blog posts amid all the chaos and dust. I wasn’t able to get out much because of the constant presence of workmen and, again, my photography has suffered. I am looking forward to recovering my mojo once the last worker has left the premises.
Plodding on
Many times I was tempted to skip a day. But I know that if I do it will turn into two, three days and then a week or so. It’s very difficult to start up again after a fallow period, as I am sure Tim will find with his Leicaphilia blog.
The answer, then, is to keep plodding on. Sometimes I wish someone would rid me of this meddlesome blog. But in the end I know that I benefit from the discipline of writing something every day, five days a week. Weekends are a respite but I always have Monday’s article at the back of my mind. I have reached the stage where I wouldn’t have it any other way.
So I wish Tim well on the roads of Italy. I won’t be joining him for various reasons, and I will be endeavouring to keep up the work on Macfilos.
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Excellent musings, Mike.
And may i say, the revelation in the comments that you are a former Motorcycle journo/writer comes (retrospectively, of course) as no surprise to me. In my opinion, there is a style of prose and method of expressing that is rather unique to Motorcycle mag writers. Particularly from the 1990’s and prior.
It may well be why I instinctively liked this blog the moment I found it. And I suspect that your ponderings on reducing modern camera’s to the essential functions will ring a loud bell with those of us still riding older motorcycles, or at least hankering for the "modern classics" that are now so popular.
Indeed, I feel that lusting after both an M10 and a Triumph Thruxton are very likely complimenting symptoms of nostalgia for many individual minds. Including mine, lol.
Fantastic blog and I wish you many fertile story idea’s.
Jason.
Dear Jason,
Thanks for the compliment. I must say that I hadn’t thought that there was a writing style peculiar to motorcycling publications of a certain age. I’ll have to watch that one! I can, however, see the analogy between classic or modern classic motorcycles as offering the more simple, direct control approach. Modern cars and motorcycles are like modern digital cameras, over complicated and ultimately less satisfying to own.
As I wrote on Leicaphilia sometime ago in regard to this blog:
Stephen
January 28, 2017 at 10:17 am
I rather like Macfilos which you don’t list…
Lot of gear talk but also some good photography content, and a good few guest writers to add to the mix…
In essence, a wonderful melange.
As I discovered when I started a blog, it is not easy, mine lasted about three months and I had one reader…. Once.
Add to that that Mike has to put up with Alpine Joe with his off piste comments and the monumental nature of "one man and his blog" begins to hit home.
But as I said to Mike when we last met, it is yours and you will do with it what you will.
Just don’t stop.
Well OK, if you need a holiday, maybe a short break then.
There are different ways of looking at publishing rate though.
In this case, you sat at your desk and twiddled the thumbs, because you thought you had nothing to write, and then you came up with one of your most thoughtful entries, so it could be that the occasional fallow period is sent to help us.
Alpine Joe.
I was wondering who Alpine Joe was. It’s a full time job keeping up with your names. If it sounds unlikely, it is Stephen.
But thanks for your comments and faithful support over the past few years. When I first started there were no comments to be us and at one stage wondered if I had any readers at all. Then they started coming in, possibly prompted by your efforts. Now we have reached a sane level of sane contributions. I have a policy of trying to be non-controversial — no religion, no sex and, above all, no politics.
I also don’t like to be unnecessarily critical just to play to the gallery. I leave that to other sites. We have a nice little forum of commentators and I seldom need to curate. There is the odd spam comment, but very few. Another blogger says he gets 500 spam comments a week and has to run software to eliminate them. I have to say that Squarespace, our hosts, must do a good job of cutting down the bad stuff.
I promise to keep writing as long as I have inspiration!
I wish I had your energy, Mike. Only two years into my weekly blog, I sometimes struggle for ideas. I hope the building workers will leave you in peace soon.
Thanks Richard. This morning was the first weekday or Saturday in two months without the ritual knock on the door at 8 am to reveal the happy band of very competent Polish craftsmen. They became almost part of the family but I can’t say I’m not glad to see the back of them. Today I woke feeling that a great weight had been removed from my shoulders. Ready for action again and I am off for a long walk, camera in hand.
What ! Take a Break! Would Shakespeare pause? Would Churchill quit cigars, I think not ! Those dedicated to a higher purpose like you, as they say will never retire from what you love! Please
Mike, very generous of you to share these musings. I’ve been doing the early retirement thing for nearly 19 years now, and kept up a successive and parallel range of commitments. I just want to say, there is a difference between sliding into inactivity and consciously planning to have a fallow period with a beginning and an end. This should start with two or three days of the tidying and filing one never gets done along the way, then three weeks completely fallow (jottings allowed as a way of getting them off your mind, but nos shaping and polishing) then two or three days at the end mulling a few ideas before doing the first article again. That way there’s a shape and not just drift. So I’ll be entirely happy if you now anounce your month off – and I’ll just have to deal myself with my withdrawal symptoms! This comment comes with much appreciation.
Of course, there is one upside to a Summer break – I will have a few weeks respite from temptations to grab the latest Leica and Apple offerings that you describe so well! You have created one of the best weblogs on these themes and surely deserve some rest and recouperation leave … but I will look forward to your return.
Regards,
Philip
Dear Philip
Decided not to take a break from Macfilos. Perhaps on the tenth anniversary I could indulge myself. I’m not so sure that the TLS Magazine isn’t a more demanding task than polishing off a blog post a day. And I have the advantage of being able to change things once they are published. I don’t think I could cope with the finality of putting a magazine to bed. Thanks for your kind words and I look forward to making more contributions to the magazine.
Mike:
Who’s that handsome young man with the bike?
I admire your consistency. As you’ve mentioned, maintaining a site like you have – nine years! – takes a lot of time and attention. You continue to do a fine job and I always enjoy visiting Macfilos.
Feel free to take a break. You’ve earned it.
Regards, Tim V.
Hi Tim, that was quick! And thanks for your kind comments. I hope you enjoy the cycling trip and I look forward to seeing some photographs and more blog posts in future. Mike
Thanks Mike for your kind words. As a fairly regular contributor I fully appreciate the mountain of work that goes into preparing an article, starting with the photos and putting them in order and then inserting the text to go around them. I have my own particular way of preparing the photos and text to go together and I always find working with you to be very easy as you just take what I present and next thing I have a draft article. You obviously have great experience, as Dunk says, but I don’t know where you find the time to do all of this. The greatest ‘expense’ for you must be your own time.
The articles I have put on your site have travelled far and wide and have been published in magazines on both sides of the Atlantic. I have had some wonderful feedback such as the Leica dealer in Canada who grew up in Aleppo and really appreciated the photos and text of the article on Syria, originally published on your site. I am presenting two of my photo articles (Syria and Greece) from your site at the LHSA AGM in Chicago next October. I am somewhat in trepidation at this as the Magnum photographer Constantine Manos, who has some wonderful photos from Greece, is also presenting his photos at the same event. All of this shows the power of the internet and sites such as yours. Without publication on your site I never would have had the opportunity to do this. I might also add that the material on your website is beautifully presented to a standard that one rarely sees on other sites. It really does set a standard which all other similar sites should attempt to reach.
Thanks also for the photo above. I had just completed negotiations with Peter Loy for a camera which, according to a world renowned collector of the make, is a particularly fine example of its kind.
William
Thank you, William, your words are much appreciated. I sometimes wonder what I would do with the time if I didn’t have the blog to consider. I would probably fritter away the time saved but, more to the point, I would feel like I had lost a dear friend. Apart from just keeping it going, it fuels my photographic efforts and, above all, it gives me an opportunity to write and this is something I have enjoyed all my life.
Mike
Mike, Your dedication to Macfilos is exemplary and readers/followers would be much poorer knowledge-wise without your articles etc. Your other writing commitments, photographic obligations and event travels likely make you one of the busiest photojournalists … and all achieved so well and with few rewards other than than e.g. the personal satisfaction of maintaining a benchmark blog you can be so proud of. There is always something happening in the ultra-competitive photographic industry – particularly regarding new product launches. We value your opinions, articles and advice about same especially as there are few (if any) other active journalists with your wealth of experience to draw on. I can recall in the early 1960s cycling miles around Gt Yarmouth and Gorleston visiting every newsagent to try and find a copy of Motor Cycle magazine when a particular edition had ’sold out’. Nowadays, over 50 years later, your blog is just as addictive … so long may it continue in your own inimitable style. I wish you a swift recovery from your knee injury and many more scoops 🙂
With best wishes
dunk
Dunk,
Thank you also for your support. I enjoy turning out the articles but I am the first to admit that I can sometimes be a bit slapdash. So many times I read and reread a post and yet it is only when I press the publish button that I see the glaring error. You, on the other hand, are clearly a perfectionist and I greatly admire the efforts you put into getting your photographs just right — as with the window cleaner statue (which will be the subject of a future post) you return to the scene of your crimes time after time until you get it right. I wish I had that sort of dedication. Good of you to mention Motor Cycle, too. Those were my formative years in journalism and, of course, I was deeply involved in the motorcycle industry for the last thirty years of the century. I sometimes regret not keeping my hand in with the bikes but I decided about ten years ago to concentrate more on photography and changed my direction. Again, thanks, Dunk.
Mike