Do you use your name as part of the title of your blog? Do you use your face as the avatar that shows up when you like a post? How much of yourself do you reveal in your postings?
Recently I have been pondering these types of questions. Ever since I turned 65 this past summer, I have been more reflective and introspective than usual. Retirement has posed some new opportunities and challenges as I seek to redefine myself in a way that does not necessarily include paid work.
As most of you know, my name is part of the title of this blog, “Mike Powell: My journey through photography,” and the URL is simply michaelqpowell.com. The template of the blog and even the “About me” section have not changed much since I set up the blog more than seven years ago. I think it is time to make some changes there and will probably do so over the next few months.
As a first step, I have updated the photo in my avatar. Over the past year or so I have assisted my mentor Cindy Dyer with some portrait sessions and, in addition to helping to set up lights and hold reflectors, I have served as the “model” to test out the lighting set-ups. Earlier this month, Cindy sent me the first photo below from one of those sessions.
Ever since I had cataract removal surgery a couple of years ago, I wear glasses only for reading and sometimes for computer work, so I am happy that my updated photo shows me without glasses. A side benefit is that I now have a much clearer sense of the actual color of my eyes. As you can see in the second photo, my previous avatar image that was also shot by Cindy, my eyes tended to look darker behind the glasses.
To a significant degree, I don’t care what others think about the way I look and act. I don’t think a lot about my appearance and you will rarely find me taking selfies—I feel a little strange posting photos of myself. What I care more about is having a sense of integrity, a sense of consistency in my actions, a feeling of comfort with who I am, and a willingness to do what I think is right. This blog provides a relatively unfiltered view of what I see and often what I feel—I am generally proud with having my name and my face associated with it.
So what about you? Do you ever think about your image? Has your view of yourself changed over time? Do others see you the way you see yourself? Do you care what others think?
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
I’ve thought about these questions for my own blog, and I’m not going lie, it feels weird thinking of my profile pic or name as a brand or something like that. In your case, I’ve associated Michael Powell with a guy who takes great pictures. So when your posts come through, I know when I see your name that this it’s time to scroll through new pics. Having your face in the blog makes us seem personable.
In some way my name has been associated with our businesses for 30+ years, the web site only a piece. So I guess at this point I don’t give it much thought. Besides, I’ve never been pretty LOL.
However, I have been wondering about modifying my site look and feel. There is a fear of what changes will do to my structure though. There is about 7,000 pages, probably 25,000 photographs. The use of individual header images, per page, may keep me trapped… and I am NOT using custom code. That can be a disaster with general WP updates.
Perhaps I will watch what you 🙂
Did you stumble across the spring of eternal youth on one of your wilderness meanderings because you have not aged at all between these two photos?
I actually have not pondered the questions you pose because I probably don’t give adequate thought to my blogging in general. You may have noticed that I just write straight off the top of my head. I should maybe address that. That lax attitude means that my avatar and biography/blog introduction thingy have not changed since I set up this blog six years ago. My hair is noticeably greyer and my glasses have changed.
More broadly, I don’t really care about my physical image. I like to look clean and presentable and tidy but that’s it. I would no doubt benefit from caring more. I actually hacked off too much of my hair a few days ago and probably should have had a hairdresser neaten it all up but I really don’t care. I care about how people perceive me, of course, but my physical appearance doesn’t play into that.
Interesting question Mike! In my Commercial career I have always been the guy (or my company) behind the scenes. I did commercial photography and presentation work for a very wide variety of corporate, ad agencies & commercial clients for 50 years. So it is more comfortable for me to just show my personal images I have taken just for fun without my name. Also friends, relatives and old clients can see what I am up to!
I prefer photos of people for avatars, and I have changed mine a few times. I had a professional portrait, but that’s not the guy that writes my blog. I like knowing who you are, and I feel a little closer knowing what you look like, but mostly, I’m just an often-amazed admirer of your photography.
With me it isn’t that I care what others think but I have had some strange stalker like issues resulting from my blog so I prefer to keep a low profile.
Besides, I couldn’t put my hand on a photo of myself if I had to.
Cindy did a nice job. I like having a face and name to go with the blogs I read. There are some blogs I have been following and commenting on for years and it feels strange not to know their name nor face! I realize it is a personal thing whether one wants to stay private, but I like the real life connection.
I like both pictures. You have wonderful eyes. They look kind. Love your bird photos and your insights during your travels.
Thanks for your kind words. I think that the old adage “eyes are the window to the soul” is often accurate. I tend to look directly at people, which some people find disconcerting. When riding the subway here in the Washington DC area, for example, people seem to deliberately avoid eye contact.
I have always been quite open about who we are and what we do on our blog. In all the years of blogging and writing articles, I have not had any issue with stalking or trolling. People seem to enjoy getting to know us and living the sailing life vicariously. We describe what we do and how we feel, worts and all. The avatar is a photo of our boat rather than myself, and there are rarely photos of me on the blog just because I am typically the one behind the camera! I think it is nice to have a photo of yourself, Mike, it is more personal.
I am one of the ones living vicariously with you, Wade, and Bengie and I love the way that you, Chris, share a balanced view of life on your boat. It would be easy to portray a romanticized view of life on the sea, an escapist view of endless frolicking with the fish, but instead you tell us about the reality that includes bad weather and faulty equipment. That, I think, humanizes your experience and makes it easier to relate. Much of social media, it seems, provides a selective, curated view of lives that superficially seem so “perfect.” I much prefer the “what you see is what you get” approach that we both seem to have adopted. 🙂
Thanks Mike. I am glad you appreciate how we go about things and share a similar approach.
When I hit 70, I made some changes to my ‘About’ page, and started Lagniappe, my second, mostly-photography blog. I adopted a new theme for both blogs, with a more open, cleaner appearance, but I kept my avatar, partly because, after more than a decade, it’s so recognizable.
If I were starting a blog today, I would have used my name, and a photo. In fact, the URL for Lagniappe uses my name. But back in the day, when I began writing on the Weather Underground site, there was so much concern and anxiety about self-revelation — it’s a little hard to imagine today, but it was a different world back then, and people still were trying to figure out how much (if anything) to reveal about themselves. I guess we’re past that!\
Now, when it comes to self-revelation in posts, there’s plenty of that, but it’s often oblique. I’ve always said that I want my writing to be personal, but not confessional. The difference can be substantial.
Thanks for sharing your experience. The digital world has certainly changed a lot since its earliest days. I like the differentiation that you draw between being personal in your writing vice being confessional and I think I agree with that. It is good to have some filters–not all information needs to be shared with everyone. I believe, though, that what I choose to share should be authentic and genuine–it irritates me when people distort the truth to make themselves look better, fail to take ownership for what they say and do, or hide behind the mask of anonymity when making comments and statements on-line.
Just firing off a quick reply. When you changed your avatar what really stood out to me was that I could no longer easily pick your photo out when scanning the ‘likes’ on a post. Previously I could pick you out really easily. Think this is due to the lack of contrast between your face and background – you tend to disappear among all the little photos. Being on the other side of the world from most bloggers I’m sleeping when most people ‘like’ my posts and don’t see them come in. So in the morning I check the photos. Also when I enjoy someone else’s post I like to check who else I know has been in and liked it. It’s easy to miss seeing your new photo. Seeing it at large size of course is interesting as it’s a really nice photo of you when seen at normal size.
I too noticed that I didn’t stand out as much when I liked a photo–the previous yellow background really made me really obvious. Maybe I need to put a gold border around my new avatar. 🙂
Haha 🙂
When I first started appearing on social media I noticed a lot of angst about how much should we reveal of ourselves and how could we protect our identities. I gave it some thought and then stopped thinking about it. The reality in today’s world is that it is almost impossible to take part in anything involving the internet and retain any iota of anonymity. There is so much behind the scenes of the internet that we have no idea about and that makes it difficult to know how to proceed if we will be worried about who knows what. So I decided “Don’t worry, be happy” would be my mantra.
I try to make my blog enjoyable to visit but I’m not a relaxed conversationalist most of the time. I hope, for the most part, the images can stand on their own and on occasion my words might add something of interest or entertainment. For years I hated sharing pictures of myself but have become more comfortable. I try to smile but most of the time that looks more like a grimace. You, on the other hand, have a nice smile that appears quite friendly and honest. Keep doing that. 🙂
Thanks, Steve. I actually do smile a lot and don’t mind photos of myself, though it is very rare that I take one of myself (I don’t “get” the need that some folks feel to take an endless number of selfies.) I agree with you about the lack of anonymity on the internet. My postings provide lots of clues about my personality and interests, but I intentionally avoid most divisive issues like politics. I initially thought I would just post photos, but have moved to a point where I enjoy writing just as much. The last time that I checked, WordPress said my average post this year was 174 words.
It is astonishing what some folks will do for a selfie and, in some cases, what they will destroy in the undertaking. I am also avoiding politics with an occasional slip up. What is going on in that realm is driving me crazy and the less I watch the news or read comments the better I sleep at night. I am pretty strongly opinionated and have found that with a very few exceptions, no one wants to hear about that nor will it affect anyone else’s viewpoint. I’d much rather see and share images and knowledge about Nature. A life that is all roses. Wouldn’t that be nice? I have no idea what it would be like. And I think a life without its ups and downs doesn’t really motivate us to grow all that much.
As for something about me, well I’ll share some over time as I have in the past. Probably the most noteworthy experience I’ve had in a long time was a bout with a near fatal West Nile Virus/encephalitis diagnosis and hospitalization last autumn. Although I am pretty much the same person after that experience, I did develop a greater appreciation of human kindness after all the care we got from friends as I recovered. Of course, most of the friends were due to Mary Beth. Without a doubt she is the best part of me. ❤
Oh, that’s funny. I responded to the last line from joyroses13. Hope you don’t mind me going on about myself. 🙂
Great thoughts! With the avatar image it was kind of an accident. I am not tech savvy. But I liked the pic so I kept it. Its Venice, a pic I took when we were riding a gondola. It brings me peace for I loved Venice!!
I want my blog to bring peace and joy to people so I thought it fit. I have shared pics of myself on my blog before, I don’t care what people think but I am not a selfie person either!
As for how much do I share on my blog about me, that has changed over the years. I want to be real, that doesn’t mean sharing everything but it means being honest with my readers. I like to keep my blog upbeat but I have shared more personal views at times when it comes to mass shootings, politics and a court trial my family went through 2 years ago. Yes, I like spreading joy but I never want to give the impression that my life is all roses!
I appreciate your blog and the pictures you share and I am sure I would like learning more about you too. 🙂
My, this post generated a lot of comments! People feel strongly about their names, their blog names, and their appearance (or not). In my case, I dyed my hair for many years but grew tired of applying toxic chemicals to my head every 5 weeks or so. When I retired in 2015, I stopped coloring it. It took a while for the roots to grow out, during which time I had bi-colored hair (weird). When I finally had my hair cut shorter than normal to get rid of the fake brown hair, all I felt was a sense of relief that the image I now project of myself to the world is a true one. This is who I am. This is what I look like. If you don’t like it, that’s not my problem.
It’s funny, but I get more spontaneous compliments about my hair now than I ever did when I was pretending to be younger.
My avatar was taken four years ago on the day I had all the dyed hair cut off. Can you tell how pleased I was to have done it?
I was pleasantly surprised by the number and the length of the comments that I received about the issues I surfaced in this post. I like to try to stimulate people to think about things that they might normally take for granted by posing questions. One of my friends, Damien, does a similar thing in his poetry in his blog http://deuxiemepeaupoetry.com/ . I think it is useful to look inside periodically and ask ourselves who we are and whether the person we consider ourselves to be is the same one that we are presenting to the world.
I love your hair as it appears in your photograph. When I was growing up my Dad used to have a comb-over, as though he was trying to deny that he was going bald. I swore to myself that I would never do that and no keep my hair really short.
WOW! Superb shots. I love these