My Curie Story - GarethB

Early this year, I was introduced to a new platform by the name of Steemit, figuring it would be a good place to blog about my travels, photos, and all the resulting adventures that come from it. The photos just sit on my hard drive otherwise, gathering digital dust and never seeing the light of day. So, why not try a new platform?

Over the first few weeks, I thrashed out quite a few posts, but they didn’t seem to be doing much. One or two upvotes here and there - maybe even a comment if I was lucky.

While pretending to work one Friday afternoon, I was looking through some of my photos I keep in a folder called “Lightroom Exports”. I decided to pick and upload some of my astrophotography images - a quick post with a bit of explanatory text, but mainly dedicated to the photos (you can see it here). Post live, I packed up and then went off to gym, not really expecting much of it. That evening, I had to drive across town to stay at my parents house - as they had gone away for the night, and the dog and cat still needed company. Their Wifi was down, so I didn’t bother doing anything internet related.

The next day, I went back to my house after my morning swim and figured I’d check Steemit, hoping for a comment or maybe a few upvotes - nothing fancy. Imagine my surprise when I saw the pending payout sitting at $180. Am I seeing things? Maybe it’s meant to be $1.80? Nope. Hard refresh and looking in a different browser? Still no change - $180 was correct. Additionally, my reputation score shot up to about 45, and my followers went from single figures to over 100... what happened?

Steem value has obviously gone down a bit since then...

Yep, you guessed it - a generous upvote from the lovely folks over at @curie was the reason for the new boost in popularity (to me, at least). As far as I could figure out, @carlgnash was responsible for bringing my post to light, as he was also kind enough to feature me in that weeks Curie Author Showcase. It took me close to an hour to respond to all the comments and well-wishes, and I was truly floored by the positive reception to my work.

Since then, I’ve been fortunate enough to receive a few more Curie upvotes - namely for the posts below - as well as connecting with a few of the Curie curators.

• Lightpainting The Playground

• The Incubus Concert Experience

• Daybreak Over The Rhino Peaks

• My Subaru Stories - Exploring The Origins Of An Obsession

Most importantly, it gave a good boost of motivation to keep blogging on Steemit, and to keep sharing my creative side with everyone. So, if you're just starting out and perhaps feeling a little despondent that your work isn't being "recognized" - just keep at it. Good things take time after all.

In closing, thanks @curie - you're doing some good things here. Readers can consider voting for Curie as a witness by clicking here... so go ahead and be a generous human being.

Hey look, it's a picture of me - for proof that I exist