I’m very happy with Craft Docs for saving photography inspiration, raw ideas, notes and writing my blog. It free with some limitations but for me it works very well. I left Meta this year and now after many years, I use an RSS reader again. @RonaldSmeets recently wrote a interesting post on Substack for reading and saving Substack newsletters with an RSS reader. I really should try this…
Interesting post Marcel. I am not as organised as you, but do put newsletters and other resources into email folders!
I am rather ‘old school’ and sometimes even print off particularly useful articles and put them in a file! I return to this often for inspiration. I prefer reading in this way.
I have cancelled all my (other) social media. The spaces degraded over time as many have been observing here and elsewhere.
I publish ( https://www.marcellomancuso.ca )on Ghost ( https://ghost.org ) (not a business like the Metas and Substacks, but a foundation). The reach is smaller, but the process is sane. I don't miss social media's built in attention capture dynamics, or it's vacuous scrolling. I do post on Frames ( https://readframes.com ), where I have found an intelligent and supportive "community".
I gather my thoughts, clips and other content in Obsidian (free! and amazingly clear markdown note taking) (https://obsidian.md ). Its linking capabilities are amazing. Completely private. A really powerful way to crossbreed my thoughts.
I stay away from any AI "support" mostly to avoid its planet destroying consumption of water and energy.
A loss of convenience, for sure, and of reach, but it aligns with my values and it slows me down: not bad for an amateur photographer.
In short, here is the workflow: into Obsidian, out with Ghost, some minimal publicity here or in Mastodon.
There a times when I feel even my minimal lurking presence here is too much, but I would miss you, Mark Foard, Susanne Helmert.....
Interesting comment Marcello. I have really been enjoying Substack and didn’t know anything about the article you mention, so was sadly surprised. However, it won’t stop me reading or contributing to the many interesting and thoughtful posts/newsletters on here. I have massively reduced my Facebook interaction (except for some groups I run and follow), but this is because of the adverts.
I’m still on Instagram (at the moment!).
I engage with some photographic collectives too (several on Discord).
I am an older person and sometimes find it all overwhelming, so I try and restrict myself, like you, to what suits me and ignore the rest.
I have been keeping a journal for many years which includes links and content that inspires me. I use DEVONthink, but there are lots of other similar apps these days. Even Apple's own journal or notes would suffice.
Even though I add things and save them for later, I find that I don't often take the time to go revisit so often with one exception.
Something that I find extremely valuable, and somewhat mind blowing at times, is using my own photography to guide my attention back to past things. The way I do it is by selecting a random photo that I posted to my Aminus3 photos, which works well because every post is a single image mapped to a single day (for me that spans over 20 years, but I think it works just as well in much shorter time spans)
From there I might think about the image that comes to me in terms of the photo itself, what was I doing when I took that photo? Where was I? What did I feel that day? But also, with the journal aspect, I can go back and see for that day or around that day what other stuff I was doing at the time. What sites, or images, or things did I bookmark? What music was I listening to? What movies did I watch etc.
I've found this kind of random serendipity, bordering on synchronicity, almost always provides me some kind of insight or inspiration that I had not considered.
I use Notion, free for home use, with AI available for a subscription. Call it my second brain, all of the things I wish I could remember. I like that it syncs across all devices. Any file type or source, web page, etc can be added to a page. All pages can be published live on the web if that is of utility. I have set up a broad category for Photography and under that have sub categories such as Equipment, and under that my gear inventory, gear that interests me, etc, Another often used category is Favorite Photographers, and I tend to use Web Bookmarks on this page. You enter a website address and hit enter and it creates a rectangle with the SEO thumbnail and description that I can go back to any time by clicking on it. Inspiration can include art, museums, places, artists, and links or imbedded pages can be added so they are all in one place by however you want to organize them. I also link all of my courses and videos and YouTube videos I find useful under a Learning sub category. I separate for type of content such as Editing, Techniques (long exposures, Macro, etc), Printing, Alternate processes etc, It's totally customizable and there are really no major limitations for the free version, which can't be beat. It has a ton of integrations and tools as well. For organizations, any page can be shared for collaborative workflows. Works a treat for me!
An interesting post Marcel – I have to admit I don’t keep emails to refer back to but I do prefer the newsletter format and very rarely use the mobile app to read posts. I also only engage with notes to publicise other peoples posts through restacks. I do find the volume a bit overwhelming at times and am still working on ways to manage it all so I’m not spending so much time online.
I deleted Facebook as well and my relationship with Instagram is very irregular and therefore not very fruitful. I stay on it because I feel like I have to, but, who knows, maybe I will find the courage to get rid of it.
I also like the newsletter format and that, once you receive the letter, it isn’t going anywhere unless you delete it yourself. You can read it when you can.
I certainly hope that ads will be kept out from this platform, but have similar concerns considering how our world works…
I’m very happy with Craft Docs for saving photography inspiration, raw ideas, notes and writing my blog. It free with some limitations but for me it works very well. I left Meta this year and now after many years, I use an RSS reader again. @RonaldSmeets recently wrote a interesting post on Substack for reading and saving Substack newsletters with an RSS reader. I really should try this…
I don‘t really have a system, so this is interesting to read more about. Thank you!
Interesting post Marcel. I am not as organised as you, but do put newsletters and other resources into email folders!
I am rather ‘old school’ and sometimes even print off particularly useful articles and put them in a file! I return to this often for inspiration. I prefer reading in this way.
I too went to Substack as a social media refugee. I stopped publishing here during the "Substack supports Nazis" episode ( https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/substack-extremism-nazi-white-supremacy-newsletters/676156/ ). I stick around as a reader and occasional commenter to access interesting and knowledgeable people (like you, Marcel).
I have cancelled all my (other) social media. The spaces degraded over time as many have been observing here and elsewhere.
I publish ( https://www.marcellomancuso.ca )on Ghost ( https://ghost.org ) (not a business like the Metas and Substacks, but a foundation). The reach is smaller, but the process is sane. I don't miss social media's built in attention capture dynamics, or it's vacuous scrolling. I do post on Frames ( https://readframes.com ), where I have found an intelligent and supportive "community".
I gather my thoughts, clips and other content in Obsidian (free! and amazingly clear markdown note taking) (https://obsidian.md ). Its linking capabilities are amazing. Completely private. A really powerful way to crossbreed my thoughts.
I stay away from any AI "support" mostly to avoid its planet destroying consumption of water and energy.
A loss of convenience, for sure, and of reach, but it aligns with my values and it slows me down: not bad for an amateur photographer.
In short, here is the workflow: into Obsidian, out with Ghost, some minimal publicity here or in Mastodon.
There a times when I feel even my minimal lurking presence here is too much, but I would miss you, Mark Foard, Susanne Helmert.....
Thank you for the mention, Marcello! And for the links to ghost, obsidian and frames. I will look into them.
Thanks for the mention, Marcello 🙏
Interesting comment Marcello. I have really been enjoying Substack and didn’t know anything about the article you mention, so was sadly surprised. However, it won’t stop me reading or contributing to the many interesting and thoughtful posts/newsletters on here. I have massively reduced my Facebook interaction (except for some groups I run and follow), but this is because of the adverts.
I’m still on Instagram (at the moment!).
I engage with some photographic collectives too (several on Discord).
I am an older person and sometimes find it all overwhelming, so I try and restrict myself, like you, to what suits me and ignore the rest.
I’m much the same, in terms of sticking around to read and comment, as well as being superannuated. 😉
Although some are more annuated than others, most folks here are pretty super.
I have been keeping a journal for many years which includes links and content that inspires me. I use DEVONthink, but there are lots of other similar apps these days. Even Apple's own journal or notes would suffice.
Even though I add things and save them for later, I find that I don't often take the time to go revisit so often with one exception.
Something that I find extremely valuable, and somewhat mind blowing at times, is using my own photography to guide my attention back to past things. The way I do it is by selecting a random photo that I posted to my Aminus3 photos, which works well because every post is a single image mapped to a single day (for me that spans over 20 years, but I think it works just as well in much shorter time spans)
From there I might think about the image that comes to me in terms of the photo itself, what was I doing when I took that photo? Where was I? What did I feel that day? But also, with the journal aspect, I can go back and see for that day or around that day what other stuff I was doing at the time. What sites, or images, or things did I bookmark? What music was I listening to? What movies did I watch etc.
I've found this kind of random serendipity, bordering on synchronicity, almost always provides me some kind of insight or inspiration that I had not considered.
That’s interesting — one photo for each day. Like stepping stones. Beats scratching a mark on a prison wall every morning.
Everything’s connected to everything else, so it’s hard to know where to go from here — especially when we don’t know where “here” is.
amazingly after a month or a year or a decade, it becomes quite the record of time and photographic progress
'Here' is surely a shifting and changing concept.
I use Notion, free for home use, with AI available for a subscription. Call it my second brain, all of the things I wish I could remember. I like that it syncs across all devices. Any file type or source, web page, etc can be added to a page. All pages can be published live on the web if that is of utility. I have set up a broad category for Photography and under that have sub categories such as Equipment, and under that my gear inventory, gear that interests me, etc, Another often used category is Favorite Photographers, and I tend to use Web Bookmarks on this page. You enter a website address and hit enter and it creates a rectangle with the SEO thumbnail and description that I can go back to any time by clicking on it. Inspiration can include art, museums, places, artists, and links or imbedded pages can be added so they are all in one place by however you want to organize them. I also link all of my courses and videos and YouTube videos I find useful under a Learning sub category. I separate for type of content such as Editing, Techniques (long exposures, Macro, etc), Printing, Alternate processes etc, It's totally customizable and there are really no major limitations for the free version, which can't be beat. It has a ton of integrations and tools as well. For organizations, any page can be shared for collaborative workflows. Works a treat for me!
Amazing article 👏🏽
Interesting... I hadn't thought about this before but I may have to implement your system! Thanks Marcel.
An interesting post Marcel – I have to admit I don’t keep emails to refer back to but I do prefer the newsletter format and very rarely use the mobile app to read posts. I also only engage with notes to publicise other peoples posts through restacks. I do find the volume a bit overwhelming at times and am still working on ways to manage it all so I’m not spending so much time online.
Thank you so much for sharing this!
I deleted Facebook as well and my relationship with Instagram is very irregular and therefore not very fruitful. I stay on it because I feel like I have to, but, who knows, maybe I will find the courage to get rid of it.
I also like the newsletter format and that, once you receive the letter, it isn’t going anywhere unless you delete it yourself. You can read it when you can.
I certainly hope that ads will be kept out from this platform, but have similar concerns considering how our world works…
Thanks Manuela