At 11:39am, the train crossed into Belgium.
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IMG_5713ps
Tags: Windmill wind turbine wind power green energy green rural Belgium farmland Europe progressive electricity scenery the future travel vacation
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I started a new Instagram account a couple months ago called @36filmpics, so that I could get that sort of niche account popularity and show off my film pics without compromising the privacy of my personal account. I saw lots of other film accounts with thousands of followers, and thought "That could be me!"
Thus far, it's growing a lot more slowly than I thought a public account would. I think one of the main factors holding it back is that sex sells, and I'm not selling sex. I'm a 36-year-old guy, and...while I'm sure there's a niche for that, too, it's not what I'm into. I remember I used to complain about that on Flickr years ago, too -- not about young women showing skin (let's be honest), but about them being able to use the "hot" factor to become more visible.
But more importantly, even if I did get 100 likes on a photo instead of 10, would I be happier?
No. And the same goes for Flickr. Most of my pics these days get maybe 3 to 7 likes. When a pic on Flickr gets 17 likes, that's something. But what I really want is meaningful engagement. Comments are more important to me than likes...because someone put some thought into it; a bit more than clicking the star or the heart or the thumbs-up.
I'm satisfied with the engagement I get on some Flickr pics, and some Facebook pics, and the occasional Instagram pic, so...although I find myself chasing the dragon of social media fulfilment, what makes me happy is the process of choosing a photo to post, editing it, and typing a story to go along with it. The process of curating and creating...and hearing what you like about my product; that's why I keep doing this.
As a 9-to-5er who happens to also be a photographer, it's really all I can hope for without devoting my life to photography and growing a brand.
And of course, now that I have a little girl, one day she may stumble upon this account and find it interesting and/or thoroughly embarrassing, so there's that!
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IMG_5717ps
Tags: farmland field grass crops green farm corn is always interesting not corn tree rural landscape Belgium
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It's kinda hard to know what to focus on in this picture, since there are so many things in it at various depths. As you'll soon see, the windows on the next train I took were cleaner, too. But I wanted to post it because it's one of only a few cityscape-like shots I got of Brussels.
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IMG_5730ps
Tags: Brussels Belgium city skyline rail infrastructure travel trip pole
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I got off the Eurostar train and walked through the main hall up to platform 9, where I shared confusion with a young English woman about whether we were on the right platform. Here's an SNCB Siemens EuroSprinter train coming up to another platform in Bruxelles-Midi/Brussel-Zuid station.
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IMG_5734ps
Tags: Train locomotive SNCB Siemens EuroSprinter rolling stock station railway people travel tourists Europe vacation Belgium
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