The comments I get when I post while traveling are always interesting. Yesterday was a good example. First, you need to know that I post this blog here on my website and then the text (with no photos) on the Cruise Critic message board of the cruise line I am sailing on at the time. So when I get comments, I get them in three places—here on the blog, on Cruise Critic, and from my closest friends, who often comment via e-mail (a few post on FB where WordPress automatically sends a notification whenever I post).
So yesterday I did a mini-rant about the weather. Boy, did I get the comments. First, many people said, “That’s just the way the weather is. You need to get over it.” Others chided me about my reaction to the runes, taking photos of them in the rain and mud and dissing them for being so small.
My reply is this: I write this blog primarily to document our travels and tell other people how we traveled in case they are looking for ideas on places to go, people to meet, food to eat and more. But it has become a place where I can also showcase my photography. The deeper I get into creating photos, the more that is equally important to me. I say that because bad weather means terrible photography. Sure, I could open up my photos from yesterday and change the weather, but that’s not the photographer I want to be. For instance, here’s yesterday’s photo of downtown Kirkwall at sunset. 
Sure, that’s real 😁. (Pretend this is in a sarcasm font.)
So when I complain about the weather, it just means that I am complaining that the weather is so flat that it is worthless for photos. And when I diss the runes, it’s because they just don’t make that great a photograph. Especially when you are trying to take a photo of just the stones without having a hundred other guests trying to take selfies in the shot. And I am sorry, even on a beautiful day, they hold no major significance for me. We have visited the runes in Inverness on which Diana Gabaldon based the Outlander novels, and those are much cooler.
Another complaint I have been getting from one particular person (he knows who he is 😁) is about this line: “Don’t forget; if you click the first shot, you can scroll through with your arrow keys or by swiping. And PLEASE…don’t look at my photography on a phone. Please…” that I include before most of my galleries.
I do this for a number of reasons. Many people (especially those who are new to reading WordPress blogs) have no clue that they can click a photo in the gallery and see it enlarged to fill the screen and then scroll through the entire gallery. People still send me e-mails asking, “Is there someplace I can see your pictures larger than those little thumbnails?” So, I leave that line in. Then, others will view my photos on their phones. I am a pretty anti-phone guy. I use mine primarily for texting, playing solitaire while waiting to do something else or listening to audiobooks when I walk. So when people tell me I saw your pics and ask them how they liked this or that it was in one, they say, “That was in there? I missed it.” I know they looked at them on a tiny screen.
Let me give you an example. Here is the photo I consider the best one I took in 2023. We were on Oceania’s Vista sailing out of the harbor in NYC. 
A few people told me they never noticed the boat caught in the light. I knew they had only seen the shot on a phone because when you first see it on a phone, it barely gets to the water level. Thus, my reminder.
And lately, thanks to this trip and the folks at Celtic Legend (where we rented our car for the Scotland part of our trip), who have featured me on their FB page, I am getting many new people looking. They need to know this stuff 😁. So, if you have been following along since I started this thing in 2018, you have my permission to skip that tiny reminder. And I will try to mention it less.
Before you comment, take every single thing I wrote with a grain of salt. I am usually just making a joke or ranting about some little thing that I really don’t care about. —Jim Bellomo
