Thinking about Blogging, Blogs, and the Internet

Thursday, I will give a blogging workshop for university students.  I have worked on my PowerPoint presentation to accompany the online workshop for a couple of weeks, first off and on and then in a concentrated manner on the weekend.  My head is filled with information, and my eyes are dizzy with the array of blogs and bloggers.

In the middle of my research, a friend and I talked about photography and dragonflies and the Web.  He commented that the Internet allowed others to see private pursuits and obsessions in a way never allowed before.  He's right.  Before the popular version of the Internet introduced in the 1990s, only serious birders would meet other birders, for example.  Now anyone can take a peek, and sometime the peek is fascinating.

Here are a few of my favorites:

1. Clouds 365 Project Blog posted by photograph Kelly DeLay
2. I Love Charts curated by Jason and Cody (this blog has become a book)
3. NeverSeconds published by a British schoolgirl
4. Paper and Salt combines author portraits and anecdotes with recipes
5. A Lady in London provides delightful armchair traveling
6. The Everywhereist written by a young traveler who recently had brain surgery

It's a comfort, oddly, to know that thousands of strangers out there are as driven as I by some quirky topic that they write to unknown audiences every day.  Perhaps we aren't so strange, and perhaps we aren't strangers.

Thanks to the Internet.

And now I add my photo of a Great Blue Skimmer to the 133 others published online in the last week, and with it and this photo I join the strange conversation!