It all started very innocently yesterday night when I started going through some old pictures, to see if I could find something interesting to re-edit and share.
I usually try to edit and publish pictures as soon as I take them, but I also have a big catalog of older pictures that are sitting on my hard drive and it’s always fun to pick one up from the “vault”. So that’s exactly what I did.
The picture in question was taken during one of the many trips I made when I lived in Ireland. If you ever been to that country you would now that there’s a lot of vegetation and beautiful forests to explore. That day the light was perfect so I obviously took my camera out!
As I always do with my favorite pictures, I share them on 500px.com ((You can find my profile here)). Usually I get some likes and/or favorites, but yesterday I had the pleasure to assist to the so-called “snowball effect”.
Like after like, in literally 15 minutes the picture above reached the status of “Popular“, with new likes appearing in a constant stream. My phone went crazy!
I didn’t write this post to auto-celebrate my picture. It surely felt good to get so many recognition for my work, but it also made me very aware of how things quickly disappear in the modern day. One minute you are the most popular kid in town, the minute after everybody is already moving on leaving you behind ((My picture is already starting to lose traction on the website, after few hours of being stable at a certain rating)).
This lesson also taught me not to keep holding onto past achievement, but instead to use those to set the bar higher for the next achievement. It was a confirmation that I’m on the right path, but also a kick to improve and do better and better next time.