I'm Getting Married & You're Invited
Why Substack and I are not a perfect fit, but why we're getting hitched anyway
On April 25, 2023, this momentous event happened:
My first Substack newsletter!
Now, one year and 90 post later, I’ve decided it’s time to stop dating and to move in with Substack. And I’m bringing my toothbrush in the hopes of eventually getting my teeth white enough to get the paid subscribers I need to one day afford a ring.
In other words, I’m opening up my paywall to Paid Subscribers.
With a year under my belt, I’ve concluded that I and Substack are not a perfect fit, but overall we have a pretty good relationship, and compared to what’s out there in the IG/FB/TikTok/AdNauseous world, I’m pretty satisfied with it.
So…next Sunday, on the anniversary of my first post, I’ll be opening my paywall,
I’ll share more details soon, but basically I’ll be offering free and discounted prints, along with their backstories, to paid subscribers.
Right now I want to share a few challenges I’ve had with Substack, and why I’m still going all in despite those challenges.
I’m a Photographer on a Writer’s Platform
Substack doesn’t even have a photography category! But…I want to continue to experiment with the photo-essay form. Substack is as fine a platform as any for that. I’m giving myself a challenge to find a cross-over audience — a healthy mesh of readers and fellow photographers. It’s a steep challenge for sure, but that’s what I’ll be doing.
I’ve Got a Photographic Identity Crisis
The biggest issue I’ve had with being on Substack has been that so many of you photographers and writers have found your calling. You may be great technicians and teachers; you may be fine portrait or landscape photographers. You’re novelists and short story writers, cultural critics, political wonks, illustrators.
The Venn diagram in which y’all seem to be rubbing shoulders is your clear understanding of who you are and what your art/vocation is.
I ran a business for 18 years; I know that having a strong identity with a clear mission statement are essential to success.
But I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up. I don’t feel close to having that clear identity for myself. As a result, I feel somewhat of an outsider on Substack.
Being in the street is what I love most. I’m an introvert by nature, but in the streets I love interacting. I love the traveling, the new cultures, the rural, the urban, the radical, the conservative.
I love being a witness to this fucked up place called the world. I wish this world was fairer, more just, less partisan, less toxic, and healthier for children and other living things. But I love its complexity. That’s what I love trying to capture.
And I still don’t know what that means.
When I launched “Eye on I” — my Substack moniker — a year ago, I launched it with this very same challenge in mind. I wrote at the time that while the search for anything resembing “truth” or “authenticity” with a camera was elusive,
“what I’ve found in my camera and in my catalogs has been an ongoing record of me, the ‘I’ behind the ‘Eye,’ an ever-growing catalog of my ongoing and evolving obsessions and concerns.”
A year after I wrote those words, not much seems to have changed. I’m still snapping away, hoping to see myself more clearly through the viewfinder. Ninety posts in, that challenge has not diminished.
So the question remains:
How Will Hitching Up with Substack Help Me ?
My answer is simple: Because Substack has you. And you. And you.
You, my readers. You, my pledgers! You, my subscribers.
Here on Subtack, y’all feel real. I won’t know for certain until I have coffee and schnapps with each of you, but I believe my photos and words are being seen and read by flesh-n-blood, authentic human beings who are smart, savvy, and committed readers and creatives. And that means everything to me.
I don’t want to come across as a Hallmark Christmas card or aspirational cat poster, but I learn from you and you sustain me.
I work alone all day; I travel alone. I deal with difficult people. I’m probably difficult myself.
You keep me grounded. You don’t offer much criticism (I’m open to more!), but when it comes, it’s always helpful.
It’s funny. When I was pushing Instagram hard, I’d get between 50 and 250 likes on my posts. I had 400 followers. These are not influencer numbers by any stretch of course, but I was steadily growing my social presence.
So why do I feel so much better when 12 or 15 of you “like” a post?
Because I know you’ve read and thought about what I’ve written. I hope this decision helps me to find more of you, but the couple of dozen of you consistent Substackers and readers who follow me on and off the platform mean everything to me.
Your honesty and authenticity means everything.
So if you want to know why I’m doubling down on Subtack, why Substack and I will soon be flossing shoulder-to-shoulder and spitting out our toothpaste into the same sinkhole, you can peek into the mirror for your answer.
As my father would say, Off we go like a herd of wild turtles!
Mark, such a well written post offering plenty food-for-thought for us fellow photo substackers. Charge ahead!