If you can believe it, this blog has been around for ten whole years this month! That’s some craziness on a lot of levels, particularly that I’ve been able to (relatively) maintain it despite everything that has happened in my personal life during that time. To celebrate, here are some fun site facts.

The first Article posted on HOI was titled “Mimetic Imagery“, and was published on February 5, 2009. At the time, I was a Friday contributor to a now defunct arts blog with five other artists across the country, and this article first appeared there in 2008, before I launched my own blog. To date, Mimetic Imagery has been viewed just a few hundred times, which is no where near the record of “most read article” for this site (that one has been read 80,522 times!).

Since that first post in February, ten years ago, I have published an additional 492 posts, ranging from fairly topical to a full photography tutorial that would become the foundation of my photography teaching from 2014 to present. To break that down a bit, that is a whopping 4.1 articles a month for the last decade (not to mention, my 1-3 articles a month for Photo Flood Saint Louis since 2012). No wonder I’m tired!

One of the articles that originated here even went on to find publication in the magazine, All The Art.

In 2013, this blog was honored to received the title of “Best Arts Blog” from the Riverfront Times, and shortly after was included in a round-up article of the Missouri Arts Blogosphere by the Missouri Arts Council.

Other interesting stats include:

• 163 followers
• Read in 185 countries or semi-autonomous territories
• Photographer most searched for on Google that led back to something on my site: William Eggleston, which has led visitors to my site over 2,000 times (I come in second, lol)
• Most clicked link (after my own): The Beautiful Kind, a local sex-positive site (I photographed and interviewed the creator shortly before RFT featured her, which led to her cover being blown and losing her job at a school- she has since fully recovered).

Lately, the blog has been detailing my move over to FujiFilm from Nikon, but that will change with some traveling plans on the horizon. It is going to be a busy 2019 for me, but I hope to show HOI some additional love this year, so please visit back soon and subscribe if you haven’t already!