Ten-Year Flickrversary (Still no exit)
Continuing at the Horn Lake Target for this photo, but we’re jumping forward a bit. Interrupting our August 2023 remodel photoset, this shot takes us to a time after the remodel’s completion, looking at a set of emergency exit doors at the rear of the salesfloor within sporting goods. Ten years ago, a photo of this very spot was my first-ever upload to flickr. (They realigned the dang aisles in the remodel – there’s now an endcap blocking the spot where I was standing back in 2014, so it was impossible to get the exact same angle!)
I suppose it’s a cliché in and of itself to say I’m at a loss for words, but truly I am. (This, despite the long description you can clearly see below!) I can’t say I’m surprised it’s been that long, because in a lot of ways, no, it does feel like I’ve been doing this for a long time. On the other hand, in other ways, it’s still crazy for me to think I’ve been at this for so long. Ten years is a very long time! That’s a decade of my life – and I’ve only had two of those, plus some change! When I started this account I was a junior in high school, bored at home over Christmas break. I enjoyed the opportunity to document local retail in the region I grew up in as well as the opportunity to join the community, interact with y’all, and curate a photostream (and a blog!) as a fun hobby during college. Five years of that went by, and now I am a CPA living in the capital area of the state I’ve called home for my entire life. I don’t know what I envisioned for myself post-graduation – nothing concrete, really – but I will say that this was an unexpected location, and it’s crazy to me that flickr, and all of its people, has been there this whole time, throughout everything.
I don’t know what to say to you guys. I really don’t think I would have been (or continue to be) as engaged in this hobby if not for all of you – the photos you upload, the blog posts you write, the comments you leave, the images you fave. I wish I could say I had some grand special plan to celebrate ten years, but I really don’t. Heck, as I wrote last week, we’ll be starting 2025 with the remainder of my first-ever photoset not to conclude cleanly at year’s end: no big deal, of course, but internally at least it does seem to speak to the ever-decreasing amount of time I seem to have available to devote to this hobby. And that makes me sad. But, by the same token, I’m still not intending to go anywhere. I do want this to remain fun for me, and I think the crowd I “grew up” with on flickr is mostly experiencing similar pulls in life drawing them away from more regular activity, and that’s okay. I love all the newer folks too, and thoroughly want to continue encouraging people to keep joining the hobby, as it is a ton of fun. Moreover, I like to think it actually does accomplish something important: not just photographing a random store, but documenting an appreciation of design decisions, historical recordkeeping, and so much more than that. And it’s wild to think that my photos may well be an impetus for some people to join the site – I never really anticipated I’d be an inspiration just like many others have been to me!
Anyway, to continue what I was saying – in order to keep this fresh and fun and not get burnt out, uploads may keep slowing down, I don’t know. I don’t want them to, but I’ve also learned I don’t want to make any promises, lol. What I do want to do is keep going through my backlog, because I’ve got plenty of neat places to share, and to let you know that I haven’t stopped adding to the backlog, either, even if it is in much less frequency than years past. I have uploaded over 8,630 photos, and written over 150 blog posts. I can’t believe it! And y’all have viewed and read so, so many of those, some of you 100% of them. Thank you for that!!
I had a goal to photograph all 29 Kroger stores in Mississippi, and I finally met that goal last week, just shy of this 10-year mark. (I’ve actually photographed 32 out of 29 – Kroger closed a few over the years!) I’m sure you know by now that I love the state I live in and I’m proud to be sharing its retail with you guys. As I said, I’ve got so much more to upload in the future, and while I don’t have anything specifically special planned to celebrate ten years, I am at least happy that my final photos of the Horn Lake Target post-remodel will serve as a bit of a way to mark the occasion. With that store having been the very first one I ever uploaded a photo of, that seems pretty fitting to me, and so too was my thinking behind sharing this particular photo for this anniversary.
I did notice that somewhere along the way I must have gotten myself confused, as it looks like that “before” image was uploaded on December 30th, 2014, not the 31st, which is when I thought I joined the site :P Ah well, my annual New Year’s Eve post has become a tradition for me by now, so no sense in changing that up! I’ll see y’all in a few days with some fresh uploads to kick off 2025. Happy New Year everyone, and thanks again for supporting me for 10 years on flickr (and counting)!!
(c) 2024 (for about a day or so anyway) then 2025 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)
Ten-Year Flickrversary (Still no exit)
Continuing at the Horn Lake Target for this photo, but we’re jumping forward a bit. Interrupting our August 2023 remodel photoset, this shot takes us to a time after the remodel’s completion, looking at a set of emergency exit doors at the rear of the salesfloor within sporting goods. Ten years ago, a photo of this very spot was my first-ever upload to flickr. (They realigned the dang aisles in the remodel – there’s now an endcap blocking the spot where I was standing back in 2014, so it was impossible to get the exact same angle!)
I suppose it’s a cliché in and of itself to say I’m at a loss for words, but truly I am. (This, despite the long description you can clearly see below!) I can’t say I’m surprised it’s been that long, because in a lot of ways, no, it does feel like I’ve been doing this for a long time. On the other hand, in other ways, it’s still crazy for me to think I’ve been at this for so long. Ten years is a very long time! That’s a decade of my life – and I’ve only had two of those, plus some change! When I started this account I was a junior in high school, bored at home over Christmas break. I enjoyed the opportunity to document local retail in the region I grew up in as well as the opportunity to join the community, interact with y’all, and curate a photostream (and a blog!) as a fun hobby during college. Five years of that went by, and now I am a CPA living in the capital area of the state I’ve called home for my entire life. I don’t know what I envisioned for myself post-graduation – nothing concrete, really – but I will say that this was an unexpected location, and it’s crazy to me that flickr, and all of its people, has been there this whole time, throughout everything.
I don’t know what to say to you guys. I really don’t think I would have been (or continue to be) as engaged in this hobby if not for all of you – the photos you upload, the blog posts you write, the comments you leave, the images you fave. I wish I could say I had some grand special plan to celebrate ten years, but I really don’t. Heck, as I wrote last week, we’ll be starting 2025 with the remainder of my first-ever photoset not to conclude cleanly at year’s end: no big deal, of course, but internally at least it does seem to speak to the ever-decreasing amount of time I seem to have available to devote to this hobby. And that makes me sad. But, by the same token, I’m still not intending to go anywhere. I do want this to remain fun for me, and I think the crowd I “grew up” with on flickr is mostly experiencing similar pulls in life drawing them away from more regular activity, and that’s okay. I love all the newer folks too, and thoroughly want to continue encouraging people to keep joining the hobby, as it is a ton of fun. Moreover, I like to think it actually does accomplish something important: not just photographing a random store, but documenting an appreciation of design decisions, historical recordkeeping, and so much more than that. And it’s wild to think that my photos may well be an impetus for some people to join the site – I never really anticipated I’d be an inspiration just like many others have been to me!
Anyway, to continue what I was saying – in order to keep this fresh and fun and not get burnt out, uploads may keep slowing down, I don’t know. I don’t want them to, but I’ve also learned I don’t want to make any promises, lol. What I do want to do is keep going through my backlog, because I’ve got plenty of neat places to share, and to let you know that I haven’t stopped adding to the backlog, either, even if it is in much less frequency than years past. I have uploaded over 8,630 photos, and written over 150 blog posts. I can’t believe it! And y’all have viewed and read so, so many of those, some of you 100% of them. Thank you for that!!
I had a goal to photograph all 29 Kroger stores in Mississippi, and I finally met that goal last week, just shy of this 10-year mark. (I’ve actually photographed 32 out of 29 – Kroger closed a few over the years!) I’m sure you know by now that I love the state I live in and I’m proud to be sharing its retail with you guys. As I said, I’ve got so much more to upload in the future, and while I don’t have anything specifically special planned to celebrate ten years, I am at least happy that my final photos of the Horn Lake Target post-remodel will serve as a bit of a way to mark the occasion. With that store having been the very first one I ever uploaded a photo of, that seems pretty fitting to me, and so too was my thinking behind sharing this particular photo for this anniversary.
I did notice that somewhere along the way I must have gotten myself confused, as it looks like that “before” image was uploaded on December 30th, 2014, not the 31st, which is when I thought I joined the site :P Ah well, my annual New Year’s Eve post has become a tradition for me by now, so no sense in changing that up! I’ll see y’all in a few days with some fresh uploads to kick off 2025. Happy New Year everyone, and thanks again for supporting me for 10 years on flickr (and counting)!!
(c) 2024 (for about a day or so anyway) then 2025 Retail Retell
These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)