200,000 Times Thank You

 

 

I still recall when my literary, painting/sculpting and photography blogs were read 50,000 times. It felt like what was important for me, to share, was equally attractive to readers from four continents. Over the years, I have received feedback about the ideas I tackled, my style of presenting them, and how much of what was read added dimensions to the curiosity of the readers.

This month, to my delight and continuous surprise, Blogger count showed that we had surpassed 200,000 reads from more than 46 countries. And I wanted to thank all those who stayed with me over the years and those who discovered a series of blogs that fall outside the “ordinary.”

Indeed, my writings, photography and artwork have been qualified on the Net to constitute a continuum within “niche blogs.” That means the older platform I still use, my vintage cameras and strictly only B&W film, and my eclectic paintings inspired from the Southwest, all are for readers and artists who purposefully search for topics or art genres rather than fall upon them through advertisement. And that is because none of my blogs use any commercial means to advertise. And, from the outset, I decided to not use Google Analytics to find more about who was reading.

I keep my blogs within the goal of celebration and sharing. And Unpretentiously, I deliver them to the swirls and winds of the Internet knowing that they will land where they are supposed to find an inviting mind.

And they will continue to remain so, as long as muses allow me to share my musings, and the curiosity of readers provides me the joy of finding common grounds, no matter where on our planet we sit down to write or to read.

About my own “place to write”, after 13 years in Arizona, now my home is Colorado. In the past 3 months I have organized a new studio for my darkroom work and for painting and I will be back to posting new paintings soon. And that will be a new discovery for me since looking at the snow capped Rocky Mountains and green fields is radically different from the Arizona desert where I once found my inspiration. I am eager to see if the transition to a radically new environment will also change my outlook and reflect it in my writing, photography and painting.

I think it will.

Till then, thanks to all of you (mostly anonymous…) readers. Perhaps unknowingly, you continue to provide the most genuine feeling and reward I have ever had as a published author in the sciences and the arts.

 

Vahé                      

October 21, 2026