Woohoo, 100 Follower's And My Reflection

Enjoy some Golden Hour Photography, two video's of Timelapse Sunset's and my take from my first 30 days on SteemIt.

(just an Ode to the Sun by me)

Today I hit a milestone on SteemIt acquiring 100 subscribers. I understand this is superficial for a myriad of reasons.

On average I receive around eight votes per post. Of those, about three are from subscribers.

( This is 25 mins. condensed into 3 mins. of The Clouds Dancing in Sunset's Colors. I climbedbup on my roof to capture the footage and it's set to 2Cellos-Hurt)

So, on average only three percent either see my posts or decide they are worth a vote. This at first was a bit disheartening. I think we all go through this.

Part of coming to SteemIt is the ability to earn for your efforts. You believe there are people whom just want to share the wealth and many will take notice.

Then you create your first post. You put a bit of effort into it or post your best photographs first to get your foot in the door. You hit the publish tab with great anticipation. You see your post in the "new" section and navigate back to your blog.

(Driving along I-680, trying to find a good spot at the last minute to get the shot, but all I could find is a parking lot with power lines and lights in the way. This was the clearest shot I could find)

Your page loads and you already have two votes. You get excited and feel sense of accomplishment. The monetary gain at the moment matter's little. You have only earned $.02, but more will see it. You are sure of this.

(Taken from my backyard. We always have flocks of geese flying around, because I have a decent sized lake three blocks from my house.)

Then an hour goes by and no more notice. You open your blog and only five people have seen it. You can't believe this. You know more people have to be browsing the categories. You carefully picked the tags and all were trending categories, how could have only five people seen my post? Why didn't the other three upvote me? You're perplexed, but you assure yourself that it's still early. Give it time...

(Another one from my backyard)

Hours go by and you're checking your channel every 15 minutes. Your heart is starting to sink. What's going on, you ask yourself. You reread your blog and are happy you expressed yourself just as you intended. It turns out, getting noticed is more difficult than you thought.

Then you check it again. You not only have another vote, but a comment as well. The comment is an ego booster. It says how awesome your post is and you gain a follower. You are ecstatic.

( Taken from the I-80/I-680 interchange Omaha, NE)

Over the next day and a half you get a few more upvotes and followers. After two days, you realize your post is so far down the feed, it's lost for good, hoping that a random browser scrolls down far enough, but your views have stopped.

( This one was taken from my front yard. That is a near perfect skull.)

You start to explore a little more and take notice of all the helpful information from other users giving advice, explaining the expectations and traditions, and showing some of the generosity and comradery here. You start to understand that SteemIt is a very large place. The depth is mind boggling.

You realize there is a whole societal structure. There are the good and the bad. The greedy and the charitable. There's culture, individually and collectively with traditions and expectations.

(From Levi Carter Park)

Some of the Steemians, which have been instrumental in my navigation and helping to build my knowledge base of the platform are;
@gmuxx
@humanearl
@sykochica and
@inquiringtimes
I recommend if you haven't already, you give these generous and upstanding Steemians a follow.

I have had the privilege of having one post become quite successful. Once this happened, I thought the gate had broke open, and in my next post I put my all into it and proved that to not be the case.

Steemians are a tough crowd. They expect you to put in the work and create a professional product, right down to the header, which besides building my product, I know this is an area I need work.

Speaking of building a product, that's exactly what you are doing here on SteemIt. Do not expect success to happen overnight. I have seen it happen, but they were already quite successful blogger's and had Human Services experience prior to coming to this platform.

So my advice to myself and you is to be patient. Post as much as possible. Try to get better with each post and make sure it's original. Answer every comment on your posts, where the commenter obviously went out of their way to make. I would ignore insincere comments like, "nice post".

Demand real effort from other's. This helps to build community and enforce good guidelines. Being an Anarcho-Primitivist, I see SteemIt as the perfect opportunity to show the doubters that we can create a beautiful, efficient and mostly peaceful society as free individuals. Laws are not needed to be enforced with physical force when people live by their principles and expect the same from others.

( This photo was taken at Louis and Clark Monument in Council Bluffs, IA)

Every post I created, even the sloppy quick ones I put out at first, gained me subscribers. I appreciate everyone of you. And if my lack of enthusiasm in the beginning caused any of you to lose interest in my channel, I will earn your attention back.

( here is over two hours of footage from the sunset as seen over Omaha, He from Louis and Clark Monument in Council Bluffs, IA.)

Thank you for sharing your time with me and please make sure to get outside, record it for other's to enjoy, #PayItForward because someone has done you right and help keep our area's clean by practicing leave-no-trace principles.