3 years of maipenquynh

Mai Quynh on 14. October 2023

So my blog has reached kindergarten age – it’s turning 3!

3 years. Somehow not much, but somehow also something. By the way, I missed the 2nd birthday 😀

In the last two years I have published 38 posts, 16 of them in the second year and 22 in the third year. In comparison: In the first year alone there were 33 posts.

My topics

Not quite half of the posts in year 3 went for the monthly reviews. I have changed the structure of this category back and forth more than once. Sometimes including a review of my topics (photography, handcraft), sometimes excluding them.

On the one hand, these monthly reviews were a very good anchor for me to write, especially to write on a regular base. Besides, it’s a lot of fun to review the month at the end of the month. On the other hand, I miss writing stand-alone posts that revolve around a specific topic.

If it’s not a monthly review, then it’s usually about something related to photography or my photos that I want to present. Is the focus of the blog going towards photography slowly? I don’t know. I don’t plan to but if it’s the topic I want to write about the most, then that would be it. But honestly, I’m still hoping that other topics will also (re)emerge ^^

Time will tell.

My life as a blogger

I still don’t have a flow/routine in my daily life to create blogposts. Do I need one? No. But it would make things easier. There are steps I like and others I do not. And then I move the those I don’t like to a later timepoint but this also means that the go-live of the post has to wait until then. And then I huddle. Coordinating the different steps in a sensible way certainly makes it easier to create, that’s my opinion at least.

But I have a little bit of flow – I have a digital tool that helps me collecting notes and thoughts. In the meantime, I have changed my tool. It was Evernote before and currently I work mainly in OneNote. OneNote feels more intuitive and I really like working with it for the blog. In between, Notion was also a topic but I didn’t pursue that any further.

And every now and then the question arises again …

Why and for what purpose do I have a blog?

It still is a mix of self-expression, thinking out loud and being proud in public, and the desire for sharing is caring. A blog post helps me work things out. It helps me to take time to think about things in peace and quiet or to deal with the subject matter or to prepare things. Writing a blog also means creating at leisure.

Getting around in the blogosphere

This year I asked myself how I can network with others. How do I get to know other blogging people? How do I find them? The problem I have is actually time. The lack of time to browse and click through. And then to become active.

Vice versa, I also don’t know how many people read my blog. I do have a statistics plugin but it is very rudimentary (I can read the number of clicks and the pages clicked on, there is no info on the visitor). I’ve recently been thinking about lookng for a low-threshold „like“ tool because I know that writing comments is exhausting and sometimes you don’t have anything to say.

We’ll see what the new year has in store for me and for us!

At the end of this post, there is one small, fine and also very important thing I have to say: I am very happy that you are here and that you visit and read me. So a big and heartfelt thank you to you! 🙂

Here’s to another year of blogging!

Little life things. September 2023

Mai Quynh on 8. October 2023

September was golden. For the 5 km run which I had been preparing myself for, I had the best weather I could wish for. It was pleasantly warm, not too hot. I am very happy with the result: I was faster than my last 5 km run a few years ago. So the training paid off!

I also remember many other warm and sunny days. We went for walks in the vineyards with friends and enjoyed wine and white grape juice with the best view. Nevertheless, I notice that winter is coming. Even though the temperatures were pleasant, the sun sets earlier every day, announcing winter. Once I decided against the planned run because the route was too long for the late hour and I wouldn’t have made it back home before dark. But since I didn’t go running at all, one might think I was a bit lazy that day 😛

In September, I took part in a tea ceremony – or rather enjoyed it. The tea master prepared the matcha tea and we just watched and drank very consciously. In everyday life, tea unfortunately remains a quick hot drink but I like to be reminded that tea is much more than that.

Otherwise, September also comprised: a whiteboard finally hanging on the wall, writing a letter to a friend about favourite places in Dresden, getting to know mushrooms. September was full of big and small memories. September was good to me. Nevertheless, now I’m glad that the quieter October has arrived and I have a bit more time. And can do some preparations for the big holiday.

Since I’m posting my monthly review a bit late again, I had the opportunity to read from others‘ monthly review that their autumn was also very golden. Maybe October will just continue where September left off for another while? I hope so!

Harz on rainy and sunny days

Mai Quynh on 5. October 2023

Aurelie. Meant Harz in summer. And yet, it rained for a whole day. We walked with umbrellas to the viewpoint of Wernigerode Castle, only to not be allowed to see the castle because of the fog. But Harz in summer meant also a day of hiking full of sun with little shade. Field after field littered with purple foxgloves, surrounded by fine silver hairgrass. I haven’t had enough of them.

~

The purple colour got lost through the black white film, named Aurelie, and I was also unable to capture the foxgloves and silver hairgrass (determined by an app). The more I like the images from the rainy day. In fact, they are my favourite images in the whole film.

Flashback to my mini-teaser in the last logbook post. The note from the photo lab scared me; it read „Unfortunately, your film was not complete and predominantly strongly underexposed. The underexposure makes a dust-free scanning of the film quite difficult“.

It wasn’t until I was writing about the film and this post that I realised I hadn’t continued reading from „strongly underexposed“ onwards and was instead dramatic and disappointed. Indeed, a few motifs/pictures are missing and haven’t made it to anything after development, that’s the „not complete“ part then. A lot of pictures were strongly underexposed (not shown), round about the half of the film, nevertheless they weren’t just black spots. That’s what I assumed when I read the note and had quite much black-and-white-thinking – literally speaking. Instead, the pictures were rather a mix of dark grey hues with few contrast.

The fact that I worked with ISO 50 film for the first time most probably plays a role as well. First conclusion: tendency to underexposure. Thus, for the next time I will use an ISO 50 film, I should provide my film a little more light.

Camera + lens: Minolta Dynax 7000i + Minolta AF 50 mm
Film: ILFORD PAN F+ 50
Development + scan: Urbanfilmlab