Sharing Stories Online

     Years ago, whenever I would go on a trip somewhere, I would usually send friends and family an email updating my adventures with photos to go along with it.  It was my electronic postcard to the people in my life, showing my trip through my eyes while saving on postage.  However, a couple of years ago, I stopped adding photos to emails, favoring to put them on Facebook instead.  Doing it this way let me put all of my photos from a trip in one place, so I only needed to send out a link and let folks pick and choose which ones they wanted.  Also if my computer were to die, I knew I could retrieve them on Facebook if I didn't back them up on my external hard drive first.  After a while though, the emails slowed down and eventually stopped.  My rationale was that most of the people on the email list for travel stories were on Facebook, so I need not bother them with news that I went on an adventure, relying on the microblog nature of the Facebook wall.  After a while, it made me feel...complacent about sharing, almost lazy.  I could easily say that I was busy with school and having less adventures, but a peek in my albums to two Spring Break trips to National Parks in Utah AND an internship to Bahia de Caraquez in Ecuador calls bullcrap on the notion.

South of the equator, man!

     All the same, Facebook was convenient and my go-to for sharing photos with a LOT of people in my life versus a select few...until recently.  Last week, my girlfriend and I went on a trip down to San Francisco and heading back up to Oregon via the US-101.  We had quite an adventure (sketchy hotels, curvy coastal roads, and grocery store jojos) and I got some pretty good photos.  When it came time to share said experience with folks, something hit me.  I didn't feel comfortable with posting my recent adventure with Facebook.  I'd done it before, many times (nevermind Facebook's right to use anything you post online.  ...  That goes for Google as well...you too Twitter (Scroll to part 5)), but it didn't feel right this time.  Rather, I wanted to share my experience with people I knew would appreciate what I had to say.  I opened my laptop, opened my Gmail, and wrote my retrospect to my Travel Group...and it felt amazing.  Being able to connect with a few people felt more rewarding than trying to connect with a larger group of people.  I even learned there were friends who abandoned the Facebook Empire over privacy concerns.  Not saying connecting with a larger audience is a bad thing (as an artist, one prefers to reach as many people as possible), but the email felt more intimate and I could share more with the reader.  Also, I could pick and choose a few really good photos instead of folks wading through hundreds of photos for the good ones.

     So there you have it.  I think I'll do my travel emails again instead of relying on Facebook.  Mind you: I'm not anti-Facebook.  I love that I can reconnect with friends (for free, no less) from high school that I haven't seen in years (further validating my hypothesis that high school reunions are a general waste of time for mine and future generations...but I digress).  I just think sending this last email hit all the right buttons for me.  A friend told me in her reply that she tells people she goes on a virtual trip.  To which, I say "welcome aboard."  :)

My photo policy has generally been, so long as it's not-for-profit, you're free to download and do what you will with my photos (ala Creative Commons).