It's my BIRTHDAY....Hive birthday that is.

I've officially been on the blockchain for 4 years now. Wow has time flown by.

Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we? cue nostalgic music and wavy transition

I vividly remember how I heard about Hive Steemit, I was scrolling Facebook over my Christmas break, or maybe @jarvie sent me a link, can't remember that vividly 🤣 anywho, I read a post from @vonwong talking about a new social media platform where you can earn crypto when you post. I was quite intrigued by the concept and the idea but didn't really pursue it.
Then Jarvie was like, "hey, let's all sign up and help each other make money."
I think 5 of us in the group signed up (back in those days it took days or even a week to get a confirmation email).

So after getting signed up I made my first post, the "Introduce Yourself" post, except I screwed and didn't put the #introduceyourself tag first, I put it second. It kinda tanked. I had lots of comments but only made $0.17.
OK, no problem, it's a new platform, it'll take a while to build a following, I got this. I'm in it for the long run.

Photo from my first post

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Second post I thought I'd share a portrait video that I was pretty excited about. I had just got my new Sony A7RIII and using it for portraits for the first time, the Sony A7RIII was new and a hot topic in the photography realm that's good content, right?

WRONG! It tanked even harder. $0.00

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Ok, so Steemit users don't like video content.
Note to self, don't do that again, but wait, maybe it's because I didn't include some photos. Ya, that's probably it.
Third post I'll include a video (because I was really enjoying making BTS videos) along with some photos from the shoot. That'll surely hit with the users of Steemit.

WRONG AGAIN!! $0.00

Photo from third post

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OK, OK, what am I doing wrong? Gotta type out some more words. Gotta pull out my most popular and my favorite photo I've ever taken. This. Can't. Fail.
2017 Solar Eclipse

WOMP, WOMP $0.36

Eclipse photo from fourth post

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OK, OK, OK. Gonna pull out the big guns now. Gonna share my Dancing with the Stars series, this will knock the Steemians socks off cause they've never seen anything like it. I've got milky, I've got dancers, I've got a good, long write up. This. is. it.

WOMP, WOMP, WOMP, WOMP $0.00

one womp for each person that upvoted...4

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Alright, you know what, I'm just gonna keep posting and sharing photos because I enjoy the writing process, well maybe not "enjoy" but I need to get better at it, so just keep posting. Posts 6-11, starting to feel things turn, got a couple posts that hit pretty good. Made it over $1.00 on post, there we go.

Total post earnings so far $5.94. No problem. Still more than I ever got paid on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter.

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It was during this first couple weeks that @jarvie, @derekkind, and I got together to brainstorm on how we can create more interaction within the photography realm that would also draw more photographers on to the platform, and that's when Photogames was born, and it was (and is) fun to create games and participate in games. During these #Photogames, we started reaching more and more photographers in the world of Steemit, and I feel like we have a pretty good community of Photogamers.
(Is a new season coming soon? I dunno, guess you'll have to wait and see)

I'd like to say the rest was history, but it wasn't. Life is busy. Kids, work, photography, work, kids. They sometimes take precedence so I've been active intermittently on here over the last 4 years. I'll get a bit of energy and time and make a handful of posts, make some comments here and there on some OG friends' posts, then disappear for weeks or months.

This platform takes a bit more work than others but the reward is more than a dopamine hit of likes, it's actual MONEY!!!, but also meeting and getting to know some cool people around the world. Before Hive/Steemit, I couldn't say that I really knew anyone in Australia, Romania, Italy, England, Poland, Venezuela, and several other countries.

cue nostalgic music and wavy transition back to present day

Present Day

With all the hype lately about NFT's and photo Twitter taking off, I started noticing that several photographers I knew were not happy with Instagram, and while they enjoyed the change in Twitter and the possibility of making it big selling NFT's, let's face it, ETH is not an efficient crypto. More and more, I see complaints about gas fees this and mint fees that. I even paid them minting my own NFT's (shameless plug for my NFT's. Passé and Waters of Glacier). There was also much talk about gatekeeping and cliques in the Twitter/NFT space, and from my perspective, it's very real.

If only there was a social media that we could get rewarded for posting our photos, sharing our stories, and making friends and building our community up.

Oh but there is, and I got the courage to pitch this platform to a group of photographers in a group message. Some sounded interested, but the conversation quickly changed subjects, which happens with a group of 30+ photographers. A few weeks went by, and I pitched it again at an opportune time, more intrigue, even a few asked more questions.
A few more weeks go by, brought it up again, got a few people to onboard. (@lukelens, @thebaldedphoto1, @tristan.todd)
Cool, I'll take this group and bring up them in the ways of the Hive.
A month goes by, a couple have made posts but no real excitement or buzz (pun intended) about Hive.
Then Tristan drops his "Intro post" and it hits, hard. Drops a couple more, BAM! BAM!
Getting some good rewards. That's great, it got him excited. He's on a roll.
He started sharing Hive with some friends, inside and outside of our group chat. Tristan's early success has brought in nearly 20 new Hivers, who are all amazing photographers and you should follow each and every one of them. Find them at our cool badge here: https://peakd.com/b/badge-888999/recipients

Why am I telling you all this? I don't know. Because, it's awesome to finally have people see the potential that I see on this platform. It's so awesome to me that we can build a community and lift each other up, more than just financially, and hear the stories behind the photographs that we make. More than an Instagram post, meant only for satisfying the algorithm. More than a GM on Twitter (not knocking it, sometimes it's nice to just say Good Morning).

And this has been my experience thus far on Hive. I still have a lot to learn (and a lot to earn, amiright?) and I look forward to helping more and more people navigate this newish platform.

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I'll end with a photo. My first favorite photo.

Mesa Arch Sunrise

p.s. this is the longest post I've ever written, I hope it makes sense cause I don't want to re-write it. Also excuse any spelling or grammar errors