Today is the 4000th dailypic. In less than 20 days, it will be 11 years old. I have written about milestones, year ends, numbers with zeros, etc. 4000 deserves acknowledgment since 31 days was the original goal. It is a habit at this point, a rock in the shoe. I know its there, I need to find it, I would miss it when it is gone, but sometimes I really want to take the shoe off and toss the rock away. This year has been one of the hardest to shoot daily. To start, my motivation is not there; then, subjects seem harder to find. Simple things that used to work don’t seem enough anymore. Yet I have no excuse, I have so many tools that I never had, 4000 days ago, I had no means to take a decent photo with my phone, I had never even thought of a drone, long lens, cameras that shoot in the dark, I still dreamed of having a studio, my client list might have been in low double digits, a lot has changed in 4000 days. I am not saying I am quitting, but like many things, 2020 has affected it. Another thing I do have that I didn’t is analytics. I can see if people look at the posts or they don’t. I can tell that toy photos used to be a huge draw, now get no views. But people love people. I put a person in the dailypic and the numbers triple. Sunsets and landscapes do well, insects and spiders do not. It is entertaining to watch, to be honest, it does not drive my subjects as much as you would think. I will still do toy photos, I will always have the bugs, but it is nice to know it is looked at. I thank you if you are reading this, and have read any in the past.

Today’s photo – and the ones accompanying it, come from a sunrise walk on the trails in Medway. I went looking for birds. Only armed with a very long lens, I got distracted by the webs. They were everywhere, this one was the best, but I had to wait about 20 minutes for the sun to get high enough to get the shot. It was a beautiful morning, and I am thankful the light slowed me down to just look around while I waited. I am very thankful for the dailypic that way. It has shown me a lot of things I might not have seen in the last 4000 days. I could have easily rolled over, instead I got out of bed this morning before the sun was up, I wanted a shot. I need that rock in my shoe, or these days I might never put shoes on.

tr/trp