Sunday, October 03, 2010

5 Years/7 Months & 200,000 Unique Visitors In the Process Of Sharing A Lifetime!

I was first bit my the shutter bug when I was around 8 years old and my uncle Peter allowed me to use his 35mm SLR and darkroom. The snaggly toothed photo of me to the left was shot on just such a photo mission. He shot backwards through one half of a binocular lens and got the effect of a small fish eye lens. Photography was fun! My first real camera was a hand me down from my mother, a Kodak Hawk Eye Browne camera. Constructed of metal and Brown colored Bakelite (an early form of plastic) the camera shot in 120 mm square format. The camera shot fairly good images considering its fixed lens and many of the childhood images that have appeared in this blog were from that very camera. There was an attachable flash unit that used plugin replaceable single use flash bulbs! I have such fond memories of that camera. The photo below is one my friend Ed has collected and seeing it and touching it after 42 years really took me back!

The second camera I owned was a used Canon Pellix 35 mm Camera.... Its was unique as it wast quite an SLR as the mirror was fixed and semi transparent which allowed for super crisp images due to lack of internal vibration. I used the camera all the way through high school including my stint on the school paper and yearbook staff. The camera died an tragic death in the back seat of a car on a hot summer day as the pellical mirror melted in the heat! I was so devastated.

I picked photography back up after college with a borrowed AE1, another venerable Canon Camera..... and when I got enough money I purchased a Nikon F90x which was top of the line for a film camera in those days.... Turning to digital I started with a Canon Elf, Rebel Digital and currently with my Canon 50D! I've rarely gone any time with out my camera and I have captured and kept thousands of images that make up my life and life's experiences. In March of 2005 I was downsized from my job at Ford Motor Company and had allot of time on my hands. I had read many interesting articles about blogs and blogging as a means to create awareness of an individual or a brand and so I set out to share with the world! Tonight I cross over the 200,000 Unique visitor mark! Im pretty excited about how the adventure has been and places it has taken me. Thanks to Google Analytics I have learned that save for a few countries (marked in red) I have been all over the world with my work and words with almost a million and a half visits. I know that Microsoft IE is still the most popular browser with 52% using it and that the world runs largely on DSL at 40% Stats are interesting but for me it has been my fellow bloggers who have provided links on their sites and the thousands of people who have posted or sent comments over the past 5 + years! I just want to say thanks a million!

I also want to say a word about perseverance when it comes to doing the things that you love.... The blog began in March of 2005 but it wasn't until October of 2007 that it finally took off (which you can see on the graph above) Finding like minded people to link my blog helped immensely. Im sure many people don't know that there is a fantasy BLOG Stock Market and in October 2005 my blog was put on the market and quickly rose to a valuation of $35,000 dollars based on links and advertising potential. Over the years Blogs have lost some of their luster and since I have not amortized my blog with advertising other than my own recommendations the value has fallen to $2695.00.... Basically junk bond status though I am much higher than many of the blogs similar to mine. Still its always fun to see my blog traded here(even if its just for fun)

Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

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