Photo Blog: Day 2922

#2922 – This Is The End

Chatham, January 2020.

So, no story this time, but a small celebration to mark the end. The end of eight years. The end of nearly 3000 posts. The end of CKPonderings.

What started off as a challenge to myself – to use what was an empty blog as a test, to build my photography into a daily post. To use my camera, ultimately, more regularly than I had been, to photograph and blog daily. The challenge built into something so much bigger.

A Photo Per Day for February became A Photo Per Day for March, April, May, June, July, 2012 and eventually a 366-Day Project. (500) Days of Photographs followed, before the daily Photo Blog just took over in the summer of 2014.

Over that time, I have met fellow bloggers in person, including Koos, Mike and Stevie, and have built up important online connections too. I have pushed my comfort zone in so many ways I don’t know if I am coming or going! While i have enjoyed the candid street photography I have taken, I am grateful to those members of the public who allowed me to take their portraits over the years.

Your support has been vital over the last eight years too and your enthusiasm for my photography has at the same time surprised and gratified me. As a sample of the last eight years, these are the most visited pages for each year:

• 2012 – Fifty Shades of Grey: A Collaboration between Richards Guest and Cooper-Knight
• 2013 – Still Life: A Collaboration between Richards Guest and Cooper-Knight
• 2014 – Light: A Collaboration Between Richards Guest and Cooper-Knight
• 2015 – Photo Blog: Day 1288
• 2016 – Day 1721 – Selfie Sunday
• 2017 – Photo Blog: Day 2133
• 2018 – Photo Blog: Day 2162
• 2019 – Photo Blog: Day 2655

Balancing work, life and a daily blog has lost its sparkle over the last six months or so, and I have decided, after much thought, to retire CKPonderings. This isn’t something I am doing lightly or easily, but it’s just that, at the moment, I do not have the time, energy or enthusiasm for posting something new on a daily basis.

As you can see from the above, most of the highest viewed posts are collaborations, either with the superb artists Richard Guest, or the 45 post hosted and run by the awesome Mr Cafe. My intention for the future is to focus less on the daily postings and on something more collaborative.

A few weeks ago I publicised a new Mass Observation Project, and this is what will launch my new site – CKPonderingsToo – tomorrow. Exciting things, I hope, will follow, so please stay tuned and feel free to suggest and collaborate moving forward.

This is not Goodbye, merely Farewell, and I hope to see you soon!!

Thanks

Richard