there is a question i would like to ask my loyal blogger friends…..i am totally a "print guy"…i love powerful books and well done magazines….i like to hold them in my hand….feel the paper, smell the pictures… and never in my mind did i ever imagine myself "taking to the web"….my friends would not have figured it either…and i only see the web as a way to get to print…..a facilitator and friend…
i have found something really interesting and special here on the web…what i am doing on this "blog magazine" is what i would be doing anyway…i did not "invent" the concept for this …it already existed in my life …..i just "organized" it a bit differently…get stuff down before i forget it!!!
i have zero computer skills and know very little about blog world…..so, when i designed the format for this blog i was thinking i wanted it to look something like a print magazine…….you know, cover, then go inside, and look around….thus, i have four blogs all dealing with something different….chapters or sections…i wanted to make people feel like hanging out for awhile…just like i would really do at home…..thus , fitting with the "at home with dah" title, which was the name of my first workshop here in the "kibbutz"….
but my question is , should i consider going to just one blog?? do you enjoy going from one blog to another or would you prefer to go to just one with a variety of subject matter on it??…obviously, it is four times harder for me to handle four blogs!!! but , no matter, i just want to present my online workshop, or whatever it is , in the most attractive , yet positively challenging way for you to view…
i do now plan on adding two non-blog web pages….one gallery, one audio/video page for films, videos and music slide shows…
any thoughts you may have would be welcomed right now before i do my little additions and slight re-design….i leave for italy on april 2, so i have some time right now to make some changes…
many thanks in advance for giving it a thought….
peace, david
David
Yes. One blog its enough. You have only one life, and its personal blog. I thing that you should build one.
I must Hurry to work, but I hope that you do what you prefer.
Greetings
Martin
thanks martin…you are always here…i appreciate it….david
at first i thought the four blogs was a bit awkward to navigate, but now i’m used to it and i kinda like checking out the different ‘chapters’ and their unique feel. i think the layout of the links in the right column could be more intuitive/streamlined now that this thing is taking shape..
David,
I think you’d make it easier for your readers if you’d consolidate the thing into one blog.
Cheers
Carsten
David,
my choice is for 4 blog. It’s good to see your work from various point of view, and of course I want to know everything about it :-)
(ah! If only you had this blog when I wrote my thesis…..)
Un abbraccio,
Antonio
p.s.: take a look of my website :-) It’s a test, but I like it. New stories are coming soon. http://www.antoniogiordano.com
one blog is preferred. just use categories to mark the different types of posts – friends, road trip, etc.
I’m also an ink-on-paper dinosaur, but I find your blog fantastic and fascinating. I think that for any website or blog to be interesting, and to attract people on a regular basis, it must change constantly. I’m sure updating the blog is very time-consuming, but having new posts, and new comments, is essential to draw people back. It’s just like print – a quality daily newspaper develops a loyal group of readers because it has something new for them each day; it’s much harder for a monthly magazine to build the same type of following – not impossible, but more difficult because it has fresh information less often.
When a lot of new information is added frequently, as you’re doing, some sort of structure for organizing is necessary, or else you’ll have chaos. And, I find the way your doing it, with separate blogs, a solution to that problem. Perhaps it’s not perfect, but I think it’s important to find a way to categorize the posts, and make it more than just a string of unrelated posts in chronological order.
You’ve developed a great online publication, my friend. My hat is off to you – once again.
Cheers,
Kent
I also have gotten used to the 4 categories. It doesn’t present any problems to me as a viewer. As for added work for you, well that’s another story.
Maybe you could add a side bar to indicate where some new comments have been posted since one looked on a previous visit. Does that complicate things too much on your end? Excuse me if that function is already there, and I overlooked it.
Mike
Hi, David,
truly speaking , at first i thought, road trip is the ONLY one u write at. But later on i found other three. So yes, it is little difficult to navigate for the first time, but once i am used to it, i found no problem… i have seen when you update any one of these four , you make the updated one as your main page, that is better, but does it take a little time and patience from you ?… As long as the updated blog become the main page ( http://davidalanharvey.typepad.com/ but not with sub directory structure as http://davidalanharvey.typepad.com/road_trip/ )i find it easy to navigate and keep myself updated… however at this moment i find the latest post is at ‘road trip’ however your main blog url shows ‘work in progress’… it might lead us to miss the new post unless we browse through the other blogs( ppl, who see the blog in a reader won’t find any problem in any kind of layout as,the reader will always update the latest post )…
so i said this from a reader’s point of view, but if you see as a layout, the font, color, links, side menu bar, four blog structure is better as the content of each blog is different…
another thought, just keep one blog as the main url and have links to the others in your side menu bar and make the link bold ( or a tag, say ‘latest post’) which got updated recently…
My vote is for 4 blogs layout as long as you don’t feel it is too complicated for you to manage…it is good to have a different feel while hanging around your blogs :)
Regards, Sandip
http://shadowliner.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandipd/
P.S, I started working out which are the photos to keep in my flickr, as you suggested, hope i can show you some good works only :)
I like your format. I have no difficulty navigating this site at all. I enjoy checking in on all four of them to see what is new. I check it out every day. It is one my favorite site of the moment. I think one big blog would get too clumsy. The side bars with the four links to the different blogs works extremely well.
I want to thank You, Mr. Harvey, for this page! I’m here everyday!
Oh, the answer: I like the way Your blog is looking now.
Bests
B
As it is, I don’t think your site is too difficult to navigate. However, with the addition of the gallery page and audio video page it might work best with just the one “blog” page.
Hey David,
I initially loved that you’ve taken the effort to sub-categorize your posts into different sub-headings. However, I think the idea still works better in published book form where the subject matter has mostly been pre-determined. You never know what you may want to write about a few months from now, depending on your mood and the state of things.
There is already some overlap between the subjects i.e. some of the students work may involve road trips but they are also your friends, etc. Thus over time the sub-categories could become a little arbitrary or worse, limiting and the solution is to either open more sub-blogs or just eventually merge them.
As a former blogger, I know how maintaining a blog over the long term can be exhausting and we all have periods with varying inspiration, so anything that keeps it simpler & free form is always a good long term strategy :)
Must my 2 cents. I read and am inspired by everything you have posted regularly so anyway you do it great in the end.
Cheers,
Praveen
David,
As a veteran newspaper photographer experiencing signs of burnout, this blog has been a source of comfort and inspiration. It’s spurred me to re-evaluate where I want to go as a photojournalist. Your care and generosity of spirit in maintaining this blog’s four parts has been really effective. Considering your insistence on authorship, watching the structure of four chapters, or even individual books, evolving simultaneously has been fascinating.
If I’m short on time, but need a little therapy from “Dr. Harvey,” I can click directly to a chapter I’d like to revisit. Then again, I find whenever I do come to the blog, I suddenly have a lot more time to spare than I initially thought, and end up going through all the sections to make sure I haven’t missed any new content.
I’ve been reading for a couple of weeks now, and have learned so much.
Thank you for establishing this community and sharing your experience.
David, clearly lots of different pov on the blog…Personally, I think the blog is great like it is. I find myself spending quite some time going through the various sections, looking for what is new, the latest exchange you had with your friends or other students. I have to say that I do check it out almost everyday and look forward to navigating through the various topics. You could of course make it more “linear” but sometimes, linear can be more boring…Life is not linear….you have to look for the right stuff!! In any case, keep the blog going…Cheers, Eric
Hey David,
I’m thrilled to come across your blog. I took your Street life of Rome workshop in October 2004. I had the Street Sketch show, from Grand Junction, CO. Your workshop was such a fantastic experience and I learned so much. I don’t think a day goes by that I have not thought of Rome. I’m working on a Flickr page of more street photography, I’ll pass it along when it’s ready. Thanks again for the blog, i check it daily. Oh, I don’t mind the different chapters, keeps things interesting.
Hi David,
Thought I would chip in with my first post on your blog. I really like the set-up you’ve got going with the four chapters. It’s different…who wants to be like everyone else?! I’ll admit it was a little strange at first, but as you come back more, you find your way around. And you’re right, it creates the feeling of a ‘magazine’. It draws you in and forces you to explore!
My two cents would be to suggest making it a little clearer about the chapter set-up, just for the first-time visitor. Other than that, I do think it’s very good. Keeps me coming back anyway.
Hope things are well with you. The week in Lisbon for Pauliana’s workshop seems a long time ago now. Still use it for inspiration though…even all the way out here in China!
Best,
Sean
David,
the ‘stew’ you got cookin’ is great… and whatever you come up with, I’m sure will be just as spicy and varied
thanks for including me in the “kibbutz”
keeping 2 cold ones in the fridge for when you get back.
Since you asked…I love your blog in any form, it has become a daily ritual for me. I would prefer one blog…it would be easier to read and find the latest entries and I think it’s nice to have the various topics mixed together.
Mr. Harvey, you should do whatever you feel the most comfortable with; otherwise, blogging will become a chore and you’ll start wondering why you ever bothered with it in the first place. That being said, your original idea of four blogs linked to the one homepage is a good one; it just seems to me much of what you have posted so far could have gone in any one of the categories you’ve created for yourself. Granted that life doesn’t fit neatly into categories, you’ve basically given yourself four opportunities for a good case of agita (does this go here? Does that go there? Should I put this here or over there? Will people find this here? Or would it be better there?), and why bother with all that when you don’t have to? You would, I think, be better served if you put all of your prose entries into the one blog and either put links to your planned audio and gallery pages in a sidebar on the blog page, or use the scheme you are using now in a blog/audio/gallery arrangement. Dividing what you want to do by genre makes it easier for you to decide where to put something and makes it easier for your readers to find what they are looking for. And the easier it is for people to find and use your site, then the more people you will attract to it. At least that’s the mantra I always hear.
Hello David:
I enjoy very much the present format. It iss like going though a magazine with different sections. Thanks for sharing with us all of this.
Jorge
Hello David:
I enjoy very much the present format. It iss like going though a magazine with different sections. Thanks for sharing with us all of this.
Jorge
Hey David
While it certainly isn’t a huge mental challenge to navigate
through the four different blogs I,personally,prefer a more
unified structure.
A blog is sort of a freeform journal complete with flashbacks
and detours and it’s kinda enjoyable just scrolling along seeing
what the next post brings.
Thanks for the effort.
Mark
letter from david:
many many thanks to all of you for writing such thoughtful letters….and please please anytime you have a suggestion, just let me know….the thing that keeps this blog going for me are all the amazing letters i have received…
after reading all of this and receiving many other letters from people who do not post comments, i have decided to try something that i think will work for all….
i have now made “road trips” my default blog…what i propose is this: “road trips” will be updated daily or twice daily…this will be all the “newsy” stuff…things that happen, books that i find,events, experiences that i have on a daily basis that i think will be educational for emerging photographers…a broader , but totally plausible definition of “road trips”…for those of you who just want to check in quickly and go, i will keep very fresh material on “road trips” all the time…
the other three blogs i will keep intact for those of you who like to “hang” awhile…for example, i like to keep my “student work” in a nice tight package..give them their own “space”….and with “family/friends” if i do not have to update quite as often, i can do more in-depth stories on contemporary working and art photographers…..the only blog that features my own photography “work in progress”, can be updated as i shoot….
on “road trips” i can post little “alerts” to let you know if anything new is up on the other blogs….does this make sense????
also , i am working with a new designer and i can figure out a way to make all of this a little more obvious for newcomers to the site…..
this seems like a good compromise … i keep my “magazine” style intact, but give “one stop shopping” for some….
cheers, david
Holy smokes David! I start reading a page and by the time I’m back to the prior page, you’ve added more content — at sometime south of 1am East coast time. You’re a blogging machine. I’m loving the four blogs and think that your latest proposal makes complete sense. After all, what is life if it isn’t a constant road trip, and it makes sense to keep that content movin’. It took me a while to find my way around at first (I’m soooo easily distracted — especially on the net), but now I’m comfortable with the four sections. While structure is somewhat important, I wouldn’t overthink this aspect of your site; after all, a blog provides the optimal format for divergent thinkers. Linear thinkers can still easily follow along on the sidebar table of contents.
When I rode into town last week, the buildings were burning just like you described, and everyone was putting out fires. I’m finally off the horse and back in warp-speed-world. Thanks for providing this blog. It helps me see things differently.
Have a great trip to Brazil,
Alysia
David
It works just fine!
Don’t when you sleep though?
Clive
http://www.clive-evans.com
David,
I never even knew there were four. I thought they were simply four spots on your blog. What does that say about my computer skills?
I like the different “sections” of the At Home with DAH blog. They each have their own mood and I find myself exploring different ones on different days. If I’m melancholy or contemplative, road trips speaks to me. If I want inspiration from those similarly situated, I go to student work. I like the different feel, different purposes, and, of course, different shots in each of the sections.
If you can keep it up and hopefully feel rewarded as a result, I’d say continue to adapt but feel no need to radically alter what you have up. It really does feel like just hanging out with a bunch of cool photographers. We all need that space in our life. Thanks for taking the time to create it.
Cheers amigo,
JHL
hi David,
i’m probably late to give you comment but since I myself just start blogging, your four blogs has inspired me to create the similar, several blogs with different contens but sometime relates to each other.
btw, i really like your book “Divided Soul”. and i hope this is not one of the book you’re not proud of (as you mention it in ‘how to publish a book’)
cheers/g-
I lke it the way it is right now, but if you make just one or decide to do 25 more, I’ll get there anyway..not many people have done this, what you share with us is priceless.
saludos
Carlos Rubin