Returning home to blogging on ImagesByCW

A decision made neither lightly nor fast, during our OBX vacation

Just over three years ago I left my ImagesByCW blog and ventured out into the world of blockchains and crypto and found

A new home on Hive.

It was exciting and fun and I met a lot of good people. But over time I noticed that I didn’t feel the same level of need for “anonymity”. In fact, the opposite it started to bother me. People were sharing somewhat personal stories, as you do on a personal blog but I didn’t “dare” really relate because – is that person real? There was always that bit of distance. I’m actually sure they were real but there was this lingering feeling of not quite connecting.

Add to that the fact that I was receiving small amounts of crypto. This is not inherently bad, after all it was one of the reasons I chose Hive, but now it was time for taxes and beginning with the 2021 tax return details needed to be filed. Now, I don’t have anything much against filing taxes but getting the details I needed off a very small and relatively unknown blockchain proved to be very difficult, tedious and it takes a lot of time. Basically, a dealbreaker for me.

All of these little annoyances took the fun out of Hive for me. First I took longer breaks in between blog posts and then, finally, I published my last post over there on January 3, 2025.

Yet, I wasn’t ready to return back home to ImagesByCW.

First I had to test out this new blogging platform I had heard so much about. Substack.

Have you heard of it? It is quite a fun place to blog, especially if you like blogging on the go i.e. they have nicely optimized apps for mobile. For me, that was never a priority. There are ways to do that with WordPress, too. It may be a little clunkier but I blog on my computer most of the time anyhow.

Substack also has a “built-in” audience which you don’t get with your own website. But while the audience is built-in, you will still need to hustle and bustle to find and grow your personal audience. Which is part of the blogging game, I get it, but – I don’t want to spend more time on the marketing part of getting myself seen than on creating. It doesn’t feel right.

What I came to like most on Substack (probably due to X turning to shit) is the option of posting short-form content and I’ll likely continue to use that. But overall, I prefer to own my content, have it on my own website and have the URL and Google pointed to ImagesByCW instead of to Substack.

Now, some of you came from my PhotoPaintPen Substack and I am super happy you’re here.

I suspect that you prefer the Substack interface. I respect that and I am looking into a way of cross-posting to Substack without getting penalized by Google for publishing the same content twice. Unfortunately, Substack does not support an API to integrate it into any other website. I’ll have to see if I can find a way.

You have the option, of course, to “unsubscribe” from ImagesByCW / PhotoPaintPen at any time. And while I’d hate to see you go, I’d really do – please know that I understand. Life choices, just like the one I made for my blog, art and writing. Emails these days can become overwhelming fast and so can be too many choices (for blogging).

Speaking of blogging. One thing that has not changed during my venture to other blogging sites and I suspect this will never change

Images will always be dominating my blog on ImagesByCW

They may be drawn, painted, glued, inked, created digitally or traditionally or they might be photographed but there will always be images.

So, here you go. It’s October and thus time for our annual Outer Banks trip. Here are a few sunset photos taken over the Pamlico Sound on different evenings.

Thank you so much for for reading, for being here and for giving me a little time out of your busy days. If you have any question comment drop them below or through my contact form.

I hope to be seeing you soon.

Cheers, Claudia