Twitter taught me distrust early on: noise and outrage masquerading as thought, certainty without responsibility, unpleasant behaviour stripped of consequence. Instagram promised beauty and delivered appetite, an endless polishing of surfaces that quietly hollowed out attention. Both felt like places where speed mattered more than care, reaction more than reflection. I engaged, briefly, then kept my distance. I still do. Especially X, there’s not enough distance for that, well, maybe Mars.
And yet, here I am, enjoying Linkedin
Over the past year these short journal fragments, initially written to please a demand from my daughter, she wanted a journal; deep, personal, insightful. I gave her a diary; of experiences, places, photographs. I’d always been saddened by my Dad’s incapacity to share the contents of his heart, it turns out that may be an inherited tendency. Anyway, the thoughts became a journal on my website, then they found their way here.
Written early, before dawn, a displacement activity, a short mental stretch before the agony of photoshop. Or late at night when the house is quiet, space and time to think. Unexpectedly these meanderings have somehow travelled. Half a million impressions in a year, nearly one hundred thousand people reached. Numbers that feel faintly absurd to write down, because they were never what I was aiming for.
What caught me off guard was not the reach, but the quality of the echo. Thoughtful messages. Careful disagreement. Architects, students, engineers, fellow photographers, people who recognise that our world is under strain and that easy answers are part of the problem. People grateful not for certainty, but for honesty, some clarity, a bit of hope, a bit of faith. And for ideas that admit doubt, complexity, responsibility.
These posts aren’t content, I wouldn’t know content if it bit me, they’re closer to field notes. Observations made from standing in rain, on scaffolds, on half-finished buildings, wondering what it is all for, and what we’re trying to achieve. They come from a life spent looking closely, at buildings, at people, at systems that shape how we live, how we might live.
Perhaps that’s the lesson. The platforms themselves are blunt instruments. But if you approach them without polish, without strategy, without the hunger to be seen, if you write as you would speak to a trusted colleague, something human can still get through. Or, at least, I hope it does.
So I’ll keep writing, if you’ll keep reading. And thank you, for the comments, the engagement, the sidebar conversations, the ‘we must have a coffee and talk about this’. It has been an uplifting and life affirming experience.
Little postcards from behind a tripod, a few pictures and some scribbled reflections, ready to be placed on the mantlepiece, or stuck to the fridge door.
Happy New Year, see you in 2026
