I blog about my photography. I don't get a lot of hits, but enough to make it worth keeping up. Every once in a while, I get a response to something I post that is really heartwarming and/or inspiring. As an example, when I went to Toronto last year, I took a photo of the public library in the neighborhood where I was staying. Someone from the library found it on Twitter and re-tweeted it, with some very nice words about the image. Another incident was when I posted a photo from my collection of Tony Lowande, who was a circus equestrian in the 1870s. One of his descendants found the image and contacted me about some factual corrections - the card I had was inscribed as "one of Siegrist's Midgets", but in fact the Lowande family were all full-sized, and were never a part of Siegrist's Midgets, but did tour with them for one season in the 1870s.
Well, I just had another one of those moments. This time, the official Twitter account for the Opera Laurenziana (the organization responsible for maintaining the Medici Chapel and the Laurentian Library in Florence) re-tweeted my photo of the Medici Chapel ceiling. I'm chuffed and over the moon about it.
Indeed, in this digital age, getting noticed, by anyone, is a struggle. I think you have to be weird or eccentric to stand out - er, weird-ER than the other guys. Gods know, the internet has no dearth of weird.
Excellent, some positive recognition is always a warm fuzzy! Even more so I think when it comes from out of the blue and via channels outside one's normal circulation. The work you've been posting from Italy has some really great images, and brings back pleasant memories of my own travel there.
It doesn't surprise me a bit that people notice and appreciate your photography!
I think one of the challenges of photography is that there is a temptation to make it a solitary pursuit. It is, however, remarkably satisfying when others engage us with respect to the photographs we make, and the way we conduct our photographic endeavors.
That is one of the strengths of APUG - it permits a community when distances or circumstances make that difficult.
But unsolicited acknowledgement from people who are on the other side of the world, who themselves are surrounded by the beauty and power of the Medici chapel - that is wonderful.
Congratulations, I also am enjoying your posting of interesting views of various landmarks I have previously visited and sometimes photographed. The lesser landmarks like the public phones, are an unexpected bonus.
As Matt says, the solitary pursuit, is how many of us think how our photography just is. To get recognition like that from such an unexpected source out of the blue, certainly must give your personal photography a nice kick along.