Two years at Pixelfed

I’ve been feeling uninspired and moderately guilty about not finding something new to post at Pixelfed. Part of it is me lazing around the apartment because it’s cold outside. I’ve also been using my Brain Power for stuff at work, which doesn’t help with the apartment lazing.

I decided to look at my page to see if that would prompt some ideas or direction. I do have a lot of stuff queued up from my vast archive, but I haven’t had that “oh yeah, I’ll go with that one” movement.

As I scanned the images I noticed “Joined February 2022” on my profile. I thought “Oh wow it’s been a year already”. Ahem. Once I realized it had been two years it felt like a bit of an accomplishment.

It was pretty snoozy at Pixelfed when I joined. It took me a few months before I started posting regularly. It also took me a while to find the kind of follows I was looking for.

As much as Instagram is an algorithmic hellhole, there was, and probably still is, a lot of interesting photography happening there. One of my favorite accounts was this ain’t art school. They curate images tagged with #ThisAintArtSchool, feature people’s work and run regular challenges. For a time it felt similar to art school. It was great to constantly see decent work and be prompted to create work.

I haven’t been able to replicate anything even close to that at Pixelfed, and I wasn’t expecting to. It was a trade-off I was more than willing to make. I approached the new account as smooth space where I could create my own little thing, whatever that is. And if I was able to approximate some of what I enjoyed at Instagram, great.

I follow a mix of types of accounts. Some accounts have great photos thrown in with travel, or family, or pet pics. There are a few accounts I find inspiring, and it seems like the there’s more of the type of I work I like all the time.

Of my follows, the two with consistently impressive work are Shawn Biessel and Kidney Mix Tape. More recent discoveries include Leading Lines and Marcus Merritt. Interesting to note that all but one of those are Mastodon accounts rather than Pixelfed accounts, go federation!

I’d categorize the type of work I like, and the type of work I like to do, as New Topographics with some urban sprawl and street photo mixed in. I like to think of it as place portraiture or documenting space.

I still haven’t found anything to post! No doubt that will eventually change, and in the meantime there are plenty of great things to look at.