I don’t mean to brag (ok, maybe a little), but my teachers (both in high school and in college) recognized that I did pretty well in most of my writing assignments. The thing is, I hardly wrote anything outside of those assignments.

If I didn’t particularly enjoy writing, what then could explain my knack for it?

I devour books.

When I was younger, I read the encyclopedia (World Book, 1981 edition), Childcraft, Reader’s Digest, Time Magazine, Disney classics, and pretty everything except the collection of Hardy Boys books that my mom wanted me to read.

When I got tired of the books from the family library, I started with my siblings’ collections. I discovered Douglas Coupland, Michael Crichton, Alex Garland, John Grisham, Jessica Hagedorn, Stephen King, Haruki Murakami, Jose Saramago, Jessica Zafra, and a whole bunch of other authors.

Basically, like I mentioned earlier, I devour books.

At this point, let me digress a little and give you a little background information about me.

I don’t remember speaking English a whole lot when I was younger.

At school, my friends and I spoke in Filipino most of the time. Yes, we spoke English in class, but outside the classroom, we spoke in Filipino, or switched back and forth between the two.

The story wasn’t really very different at home - in fact, I think we spoke in the vernacular most of the time.

Basically, I didn’t really speak English except in class.

This begs the question then - if I didn’t practice the language, how did I become fluent in it?

This is when we get back to our original topic - reading.

I didn’t speak English very often, and I only wrote when required. In other words, I didn’t really put a whole lot of effort into learning the language. I did, however, keep myself exposed to it through books. Like I already mentioned, I didn’t really write much, but I definitely exposed myself to good writing.

In other words, I learned English through reading.

Let’s go back to the original statement though: “the best way to learn how to write is, well, to write.” How, you may ask, did I learn to write?

Again, I exposed myself to a good writing. I may not quite know all the rules of writing (though I am known to be a grammar geek), but simply because of how much I’ve read, I get a sense of what good writing is.

Yes, I know that writing more (that’s one reason I maintain this blog) helps improve my writing. I also know that some instruction couldn’t hurt either. However, I still maintain that reading helps a whole lot.

What do you think?

image credit: Reading Well by moriza - Creative Commons Attribution

Part of the way through a post on the UFC going global, I came across this:

UFC’s ambition won’t stop there. As company president White has said since he took over the company, he wants to lead the way in the growth of not just UFC but mixed martial arts all together.

“We are going global,” the 39-year-old White said. “The Philippines, Germany. We are going after Mexico.”

He actually mentioned the Philippines?!?

I don’t know how long it’ll take before the UFC actually has an event here, but I sure would be interested in tickets (or better yet, media passes - so I can bring my camera).

Tibor Radványi a.k.a. Photonovice wants to know where your visitors are from. He’s asking this as part of a three-part project on site statistics. The first chunk covered search terms that lead to your site while the second highlighted the most popular posts. By the way, both parts are done now so you can check out the results for both search terms and popular posts anytime you want.

This posts, however, isn’t really about search terms and popular posts. As the title above says, it’s a look at LightChasers’ visitors. Specifically, it’s a look at where our readers come from.

At this point, let me remind you that we’re not talking about this dark little corner’s visitors - we’re putting the spotlight on visitors of LightChasers Photography. Yes, this little blog resides in the same domain, but as the title implies, it’s just one corner of the place. Besides, this little corner probably only has 2 regular visitors. Of course, I can’t really be sure - I don’t really check statistics for this blog.

The question begs asking then - why am I posting this here instead of at the LightChasers blog? As my about page here says, “this is the place where I write about pretty much anything I want - anything, that is, except photography.” I’m trying to keep the LightChasers blog as focused on photography as I possibly can.

Yes, I know I already wrote about the second chunk of the statistics project (as well as the project results), but like I mentioned, I’m trying to keep the site focused. A post on site statistics doesn’t really fit well under the categories of images, gear, tips, or even news, so I might as well put that post someplace where it’ll actually get on the front page - and that’s why it’s here.

Anyway, moving on…

LightChasers Photography, as the about page states, is “a team of photographers based in Manila, Philippines.” Based on this, majority of our visitors should be from this little archipelago of over 7,000 islands. However, our statistics over the past three months (based on Google Analytics) say otherwise.

Less than 15% of our visitors are from the Philippines while over a third are from the United States. I wish this meant I could offer my studio’s services abroad, but sadly, photography isn’t as easy to sell online as web design, blogging skills, or some other things. I could sell through stock photography sites, but that’s for another post - if I ever write about it.

The question of where visitors from are isn’t limited to their physical location - it also includes what sites they visited immediately before landing on yours. In other words, another question Tibor is asking is this: How did your visitors get to your site?

I wish I could say that all the business cards I’ve given out were sending loads of traffic, but again, statistics say otherwise. Less than a fifth of visitors to LightChasers Photography got there directly.

Of course, since only a small fraction of visitors (12.3% to be exact) come from the Philippines, I can’t expect direct traffic from the business cards to be that large either. If you factor in the percentage of direct visitors (12.4%), you might be able to argue that there is a connection. Unless I dig deeper into the statistics though, I can’t make any conclusions.

Breaking this pie chart down into smaller pieces changes how I look at the visitor breakdown. Though the margin is pretty slim, direct traffic is the site’s top source of visitors. This still isn’t enough data to make any conclusions, but it does make me want to learn more.

As for the referrers, the top four, based on the chart to the right, are:

1. Google Search: 11.71%
   I didn’t really dig that deep into statistics like Tibor did, but the amount of traffic that Google sends my way still surprises me.
   
2. Epic Edits Weblog: 9.93%
   Brian Auer’s site caused a spike in LightChasers Photography visitors last December and still keeps sending visitors over. Once again, thanks Brian!
3. PhotographyVoter : 8.65%
   The social site I visit most often - LightChasers is a photography site after all. Thanks to all those people who think my posts are worth voting for.
4. deviantART News: 8.08%
   Over the past few months, people from various sites have kept linking to a little tutorial on shooting photographs like a terrorist. They’ve all sent quite a few visitors over, but the deviants over at dA seem to be particularly interested in the piece.

There you have it - a not-so-brief-look at the visitors to LightChasers Photography.

What if that publication told you you weren’t allowed to do that?

That’s exactly what Business Week told SmugMug “Head Geek” Don MacAskill after they put him on a feature spread (this links to Google by the way). In the words of the Head Geek himself:

They’ve made it impossible to link to their articles directly (ie, drive money-making traffic to them)… BusinessWeek actually asked us specifically *not* to link to the article. Yes, that’s right, an ad-driven publication doesn’t want us to drive traffic to them. They were kind enough to point us to their User Agreement where, sure enough, they prohibit deep linking.

Gawker, The Blog Herald, and CNET have already picked up the story, and I’m sure several others will be following suit soon.

On a tangent note, the title of Don MacAskill’s post (Why traditional ‘print’ media is doomed) reminds me of Andrew dela Serna’s Three Reasons Why Manila Bulletin’s Website is Stuck in the Stone Age.

Before I get to my picks for this year’s top 10 blogs, let me share this thought on last year’s winners: the winners were all local blogs.

The rules stated that “any blog in the world can be picked,” but it seemed like nobody cared to look beyond the blogs of people they knew. The world may be a small place, but it seems like the world according 2007’s list of emerging blogs was limited to our archipelago.

I’m all for Filipino pride, but hey, is our world really that limited?

Having said that, let me throw in my picks for this year’s list. I admit, this list might just prove how small my world is, but I’ll take that chance:

1. The NOT So Talented Mr. Montano: It would be hard to argue against including this blog in this list. Brian Gorrell’s socialite-bashing juggernaut has taken the local media (and pretty much anybody in the Philippines with an Internet connectio) by storm. Whether or not you support Brian, you’ve probably checked out his site at least once.
2. Technogra.ph: Covering “the Philippine tech scene, featuring commentary, news, reviews, event coverage, and other related developments,” Technogra.ph looks like it has grown quite a bit since it started in November last year.
3. PhotoChallenge.org: Started by Trevor Carpenter when he realized his photography challenges needed to move out, PhotoChallenge challenges (sorry, I couldn’t find a better word) photographers to “take your photography to the next level.”
4. Put Things Off: “helps freelancers, entrepreneurs and busy people just like you work smarter, play harder and live the lives they love.”
5. PhotoshopDisasters: Since this March, PhotoshopDisasters has highlighted the “truly awful piece[s] of Photoshop work.” Want to see how professionals mangle perfectly good photographs? This is the place to go.
6. LightChasers Photography: Yes, I’m plugging my own blog (not this dark little corner), but hey, I’m pretty proud of how much the site has grown in half a year. If we have to be strict about blogs though, I’d have to use this link that points to the blog. The link now points directly to the blog site, but you can also check out the main site (and our folio).

That’s pretty much what I have for you right now. Unfortunately for this list, I haven’t been keeping track of new blogs. Yes, I’ve added several new feeds to my reader since July last year, but most of them are older blogs that I had only discovered recently.

If I come up with some more entries for this list, I’ll update this post. Until then, I’ve only got this handful of blogs.

Maybe you’ve got more ideas for this list - drop me a comment below, or better yet, make your own list of emerging and influential blogs. What blogs qualify? If the blog started on or after July 1, 2007, it should be good. I suggest you check the original post for the full guidelines though.

Enjoy!

What did I find?

Half a year old, and LightChasers Photography has grown considerably. I’m pretty proud of that.

Hmm… I wonder if my ratified ranking will jump anytime soon.

update 2008.05.03: It looks like my old site, despite getting no updates since November, has stepped up to a PR4. It looks like 6 months of silence isn’t quite the PR killer I expected it to be.

update 2008.05.06: My ratified ranking has been updated! I’ve jumped 57 spots and broken into the top 100!

Blogging has finally bought me something, and it’s something that will definitely let me buy more things. I’ve got a new Transcend 8GB CF card plus a pair of new batteries for my camera.

No, it’s nowhere near as extravagant as the house, car, laptop, camera, or even phone that blogging has bought other people, but still, I can’t say that blogging hasn’t been good to me. Still, with the heat (not to mention all the walking I’ve been doing), I’m also very tempted by these fruits of blogging.

Of course, I’m still counting on photography to bring better things to the table.

In case you’re wondering why I said I had a new Transcend 8GB CF card when there are 2 of them in the photo - a lucky bear is getting the other card for her kit.