TOP's 10th Anniversary Coming Up

In a bit more than two months, TOP is turning 10. I started it on November 28th, 2005.

Just thought I'd mention that. We'll have to find some way to celebrate.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

TOP's links!

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Rodger Kingston: "Congratulations Mike. I've been on board for most of those years, and I'll bet I haven't missed more than a handful of TOP posts in all that time. It's one of my daily favorites. Perhaps you could commemorate/celebrate by doing a series of 'Best of TOP' posts from over the decade. By the way, you're only one day off both my wife's and my mother's birthdays, Nov 27th."

Anthony Shaughnessy: "Congratulations! I remember when you were the Sunday Morning Photographer at the Luminous-Landscape where I first found your writing. In all the years since, believe it or not, this is still one of only four sites on the whole wide Internet that I visit regularly to see what's new. I've never found anywhere else so interesting."

Mike replies: *blush*

Comments

[Hugh Smith]

I'll drink to that! Congrats, Mike!

[walt]

Maybe you could..... get a new...... .... headquarters! Yeah that's it, a new place! Oooops. Running for the hills!!!! Congrats on the 10th!!!!!

[James Sinks]

Happy soon-to-be-tenth, Mike. This is quite a website you've built and I hope it has at least another decade in it.

Do you regularly mark TOP's birthday in some way?

For many years, the only anniversaries I remembered and celebrated were the anniversary of my first major website and my best friend's birthday.

[Steve P.]

Everyone back to yours, then?

[Marcus]

Happy Birthday

The only way is a picture competition of some kind with the winner having a limited Ctein print run sold through TOP. Proceeds split between TOP, Ctein and the photographer

[Michael Martin-Morgan]

I'll think of you on my son's birthday ... ;-)

[Keith]

How about another low cost print sale like the one Ctein did a few years ago. Could be a Ctein, one of yours, or maybe a reader. I recall a night snow scene you made with a Minolta 7D, not sure if you ever offered prints of that image.

[Stephen Gilbert]

I know: we can send you money.

[Christopher Lane]

Absolutely!!!!! I've been wanting to meet you for years.

[Kefyn Moss]

TOP seems so much more mature than ten years old ;-)

[ctein]

Dear Mike,

I want cake.

Ice cream would be nice, too.

pax / Ctein

[Bob Rosinsky]

I began reading The Online Photographer in 2006. I'm looking forward to visiting the blog for at least another 3,667 days. Congratulations, Mike!

[Bob Rosinsky]

Oops, meant to write 3,652 day; those darn leap years screwed up my arithmetic.

[Gordon Lewis]

Congratulations! I remember it like it was yesterday (which is to say, not very well.) What I do remember is that the photography world was a lot different then than it is today. It would have been almost impossible to predict where you are now (literally) from where you were then. That raises the question: Who knows what the next ten years may bring? My wish for you is a pleasant and ever-changing blend of excitement, insight, and contentment.

[Roger Bradbury]

Will there be cake? : ]

[David Lee]

I'll bring some wine Mike...

[David Paterson]

I think it would be very appropriate - and extremely popular - if you were to give each of your regular readers a small gratuity, say 50 or 100 dollars.

I'm pretty sure this would meet with universal approval.

[Santasimage]

Mike ... nearing your 10th ... WOW ... is web years not more than dog years? ... & yes, you wrote about your policy years ago ... but ... yours is still one of the quietest, peaceful, most relaxing web site out there ... nothing is flashing, bouncing, attention demanding ... keep it going for a second ten

www.santas image.com

[Sergio Bartelsman]

I remember the days of The Sunday Photographer. I switched over here when you did. One of the best quality blogging and writing about photography as an art and craft on the web is found here.
Congratulations and thank you!

[ctein]

Dear Marcus and Keith,

Since two of you have brought this up, I guess I'd better address it.

In a word, no. Not involving me.

It is very difficult to make money on such a sale. I managed to eke out a living wage on mine, but not much better, and I was working hard to do that. Why would I want to do that again? I can earn lots better money for less work.

Why did I do it the first (and very likely only) time? As an educational effort:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2012/04/something-different.html

It let me teach a whole lot of people something about digital camera and print image quality that I couldn't do any other way, and it let me dispel a huge amount of false information.

It is not at all likely that such a situation would arise again. Without that motivation, there's no reason for me to even consider doing this.

To forestall any discussion along those lines, I am not interested in people suggesting the things that they would like me to teach them. For that, you can hire me at my normal rates. Those definitely preclude any cheap print sales.

pax \ Ctein
[ Please excuse any word-salad. MacSpeech in training! ]
======================================
-- Ctein's Online Gallery http://ctein.com
-- Digital Restorations http://photo-repair.com
======================================

[Darlene Almeda]

Congratulations and well deserved. A lot of stuff on the net, but this is the only place I visit daily besides a for sale forum section. I have even placed your front page articles up on the big screen for students to read in the classroom when I feel it is important enough to share. So, how do we celebrate such a friend and companion? I will pass on the cake, and make a donation. Happy 10th Mike!

[Nigel]

TOP seems so much more mature than ten years old...

Exactly the same thought occurred to me.

Some things feel like they've been around forever...
... in a good way, I mean.

:-)

And, of course:
http://www.xkcd.com/1581/

[Dave]

Congrats Mike. Hope I don't confuse your page view stats with the my obsessive checking for updates. I love your insights on photography, your guest posts, and I also enjoy following your life. This site is the perfect blend of photo discussion and and personal blog. However, what I most admire is your readership. The comments here are outstanding. Over the years you've done a fantastic job leading this discussion of photography and in the process you've grown a diverse, educated, and endlessly fascinating readership. The deep running civil discourse on TOP is the opposite of what I see pretty much everywhere else on the net. TOP should be held up as an example of how to do the Internet right.

My only suggestion(s) is please find a way to do threaded comments. Maybe you don't want to mess with TOP's secret sauce, but I'm often frustrated that I can't respond to individual's comments directly instead of commenting far down the thread.

Also, I wish there was a way to make TOP more social. Something like a friend's of TOP Facebook page, a Google+ group, or a forum similar to Luminous Landscape would be welcome. I'm guessing you don't want to lose control of the conversation and have TOP devolve into a sniping gallery like pretty much everywhere else, but it's a shame that you can't further tap the power of your readership. I'd love it if you found a way for your readers to share their work with one another and conduct local meet ups.

[Chris]

Congratulations. In the morass of the internet, it is nice to find a photo site for adults ("adult" could sound suspect, but you know what I mean).

[Simon Naisbitt]

I second what Anthony Shaughnessy said having been reading your writing since the Luminous Landscape days. Thank you for providing us with such a thought provoking stream of interesting articles from a variety of authors. I enjoy the variety provided by your occasional satirical and off-topic posts as well. The coffee and tea posts (Ctein) in particular provoked some interesting experimentation for me.

[Stephen S.]

This is a remarkable occasion. I used to read the Sunday Morning Photographer columns every Monday morning when I was working at a camera store. I remember those columns ending, and The Online Photographer starting up. It's hard to believe that was a decade ago. Well done, Mike - many people start blogs, but very few keep them going for very long, let alone a decade.

[Tom Swoboda]

A lot has changed since I first started reading articles in Camera and Darkroom magazine by one Mike Johnston and also his postings on Compuserve's Photo Forum. Hope I get to read more here by him for many years to come.

[Joel Becker]

Congrats from another SMP reader, though I started over on photo.net :-) May we continue to benefit from your wit and wisdom for another decade!

[David Parsons]

That's really interesting. I didn't realize that you started in 2005; I thought it had been up for much longer.