Posted Sunday, June 22nd, 2025 at 17:08 UTC

I finally got around to setting up a small Ko-fi account a little while ago, but waited a bit before linking it and waited a little bit longer than that to actively say anything about it. Partially because I wanted to pre-load it with at least a couple things (and test that I had it set up at least somewhat properly) first.

But mostly because I’ve been waffling on whether to do anything with it at all given our rapid descent into economic nightmares, more forever wars, and that paying for groceries and healthcare and a million other things is more urgent than indulging in tokens of support for one random person’s creative pursuits.

Some inspiration came from Posting from Taiwan at the End of the World a few months ago by Faine Greenwood which I’ve had in the back of my mind since. Contacting local, state, and national officials, voting, showing up for group and mass actions, and trying to help within the community where I have some usefulness are all sort of baseline activities. But I, like many others, will go insane (or fall into an inescapable pit of despair) if I don’t have personal outlets as well.

Where I’ve settled is that even though some people claim to place little to no value on art, and specifically photography, I do place a value on my work. Not just the actual and rapidly increasing cost of lenses, memory cards, editing software, and so on but the tremendous time and energy to find somewhere interesting and sit with it long enough to capture something that feels worth sharing.

The value I place on it isn’t some immutable, incontrovertible, objective truth, a measure by which anyone who disagrees or values differently is summarily judged wrong. But it carries at least a little bit of weight. While my primary motivation to capture photos is to be able to leave some record of the world as I’ve been fortunate enough to experience it, not to become another like-and-subscribe prattler^[1], if someone else out there shares in notion that it’s worth a little bit, well who am I to get in the way of making this a sustainable pursuit?

As for what exactly could be put on offer to make tossing a few bucks or kroner or yen into the hat, I’ll admit I’m not feeling exceptionally inventive right now. High/full resolution copies is an obvious (to me, at least) option and I’m setting aside selections from the trove of images in my archive to do just that. Maybe discounts on prints when I get that set up at some point? Raffles for puppy playdates? That last one seems legally questionable, and I don’t want to add “find a lawyer specializing in international sweepstakes” to my todo list. Maybe that can be a freebie for anyone who happens to be local-ish and able to figure out what dog parks the twins frequent^[2].

I’ll try to think of a few things that would be maintainable and not devaluing. If you somehow exist, and even more wildly unimaginable are reading this, and have an idea or three please don’t hesitate to reach out.

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1. Not just because I’m violently allergic to being in the spotlight, though that doesn’t help. ↩︎

2. Please don’t be a stalker. Thanks! ↩︎