Thinking about removing the social media integration from my photo blog. 🤔 Not sure it adds anything meaningful to be honest. Don’t get me wrong: I currently enjoy using Mastodon and the interactions there, but I enjoy direct conversations (mostly via email) with people that I follow or people that follow me (mostly via RSS) much more!
The personal website of Florian Ziegler
- Author
- Florian Ziegler
- Rights
- Copyright © 2000-2025, Florian Ziegler
- Public lists
- HWC DUS
January 2025
New Rules
About calling your photography “work”: I mostly agree with Cedric's post, though I think sometimes calling it work also can give it special meaning, as in “I put some special effort into this”. I think of it more in terms of “I worked hard on this”, without it becoming my work (as in profession or obligation). I wholeheartedly agree that photography should spark joy and you should do it for yourself first and foremost.
I want to compile a list of people doing a 365 photo project, preferable if they use their own blog to do so. Other platforms (Mastodon, Pixelfed, Glass) are fine, too, as long as I am able to follow via RSS/Atom. So if you are doing a project yourself or know of a project, let me know! Please share for more reach. 🙂
Aaand it's done: No more FB! Now WhatsApp. Already started texting people about alternatives (Signal). This might take a little longer, though.
Quick update on the Linux experiment: I think I have everything up and running to get my day to day work done. What I am missing most so far is Tower, but I am slowly getting used to the VS Code Git integration or just using the terminal.
At an indoor playground with the kids this morning. The noise level is something else…
Just deleted my Instagram account. (Yesterday I already closed my Threads account.) I am currently waiting for my Facebook data download (how is this taking so long?) and then I will close this account as well. Now, moving away from WhatsApp will be a bit more complicated. I’ll have to tell a couple of people to install Signal.
Went ice skating with the family today. The kids were hungry so we went into the little snack bar. When my wife asked what kind of meat the sausages were, the answer was a proud “Pork, of course! We are in Germany after all!” 🤦♂️
We didn’t buy any pork sausages.
2024 Retrospective
Doing some light video editing and exporting this evening and using my wife’s M4 iPad, because it is the most powerful computer we have. Exporting 4k video is screamingly fast. 🤯
Still feeling under the weather. 🙄 And because I couldn’t go out today, I added Bluesky comments to my photo blog. 🤷♂️ With their open API to get likes (just like Mastodon’s) it was pretty straighforward and easy to do. They are now displayed with the Mastodon favorites below every post. I will write it up in a proper post down the line.
366 Days of Daily Posting
Yesterday I finished my 366 project. 🙌
It feels very strange not posting today! (It’s not that I haven’t taken any photographs… 🤔)
Yesterday I ordered 853 small format prints from my Aile project. As we didn’t visit Turkey last year, and most likely won’t be able to do so this year either, I thought this longer break might be a good marker to finally start working on this project again. I would love to create a photo book, but in order to do so, I have to live with the work, and that is much easier done with physical prints than with images on a screen.
The Linux Experiment
The 366 zines (part II and III) arrived yesterday! 🎉 Unfortunately half of them are not up to the quality that one can expect. I already contacted Blurb customer service and will hopefully get this resolved quickly. Not worried, as I had similar issues before and Blurb handled it exemplary every time. My guess is that they were (are?) quite overwhelmed with Black Friday / Christmas orders. I’ll sign and ship the good half on Saturday. 🙌
Muscle memory can be a b*tch.
It is my opinion, that not every app needs a “year in review” feature. In the example below, Asana is seriously telling me that Claudio – the only other team member! – was actually the one I most often collaborated with. Not shit, Sherlock! 🤦♂️

Just ordered the second batch of project 366 zines (part II and III). Looking foward to receiving, signing and shipping them! Blurb says they should arrive before December 10th. 🙌
With all the possibilities of connecting online, meeting in person is still the most effective, when it comes to discussing the important stuff. Had a very productive two days with Claudio! 🙂
First hour of home schooling is not going great. SchoolFox is apparently not able to provide a stable video call: kids randomly drop out, jerky video, choppy audio. You would think that this should not be an issue, given that this is a central part of their service. 🤦♂️
Something that’s pretty common here in Essen: My daughter has remote schooling tomorrow because of bomb disposal.
Yesterday they found yet another WWII UXO (British, 250 kg) around 400m from her school. My coworking space is also right inside, at the edge of the security area and will be closed while the KBD (“Kampfmittelbeseitigungsdienst”) is working on the bomb. Usually this is done right away, but they are still in the process of evacuating a nearby hospital.
I’ll be sending out the next newsletter regarding my Project 366 Zines over the weekend. Part II and III are almost ready and there’s also another chance to get your hands on Part I. Subscribe, if that sounds interesting to you!
Woke up, went to get something to drink from the kitchen, saw the oven clock: 6:20 am. Thought: I might as well not go back to bed. Sat down at the computer. After 20 minutes, I realized it’s 5:40 am. We have yet to change the oven clock to winter time…
In other news: I had a very productive morning!
Still on the train, which of course is delayed. However this gave me enough time to finish editing my #btconf images & I even managed to upload them to the website.
The full gallery is available here.
Thanks to all of the speakers for the inspiration!
Added a little theme switcher to the website:
