Happy New Year: A Look Back at 2016

Another year has come and gone and while 2016 wasn't too good in the celebrity world, it was a pretty good year hear at Donten Photography.  This year saw us expand our horizons again while we crossed another two states of the visit list during our summer road trip to the Great Smoky Mountains.  Then thanks to getting a new car over the summer, we have been able to extend our smaller trips our a little further now that we are not relying on a vehicle with over 300,000 miles.

It's hard to believe that is has been seven years since I began this website.  It has continued to grow over the years and as of the end of 2016, almost 6 million viewers have visited my photography.  that is only the verified visitors to the website and the photo galleries and does not take into account those who have viewed on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other sites that have featured my work.  The 6 million are direct clicks on the website and the photo galleries.  Still to this day it amazes me that so many people have visited to see my work.

One of the highlights this year was our road trip to Tennessee.  That was by far one of my favorite trips that I have been on.  You know when I moved to Florida in 1998, I didn't think I would ever want to go back to the mountains or experience colder weather.  However that trip to the Great Smoky Mountains has me rethinking a post-retirement move to the mountains.  Florida has been fun, but it wasn't until that trip that I realized how much I miss elevation and change of seasons.

The trip also hit home in late November while watching the news and learning that Gatlinburg had been ravaged by a massive wildfire that started at Chimney Tops area of the Great Smoky Mountains and raged through Gatlinburg.  It felt like we had a personal connection with the disaster as the hotel we stayed at, Westgate Smoky Mountain Resort had been destroyed by the fire.

As we look towards 2017, there are new things coming with the site and some things that may be changing.  Towards the end of 2016, I began adding photos to a Flickr site, all new photos have been added to the site while I have been working on adding older content.  This is as a result of storage restrictions on the Pbase site which has hosted the photo galleries since the sites inception.  As the collection grows, so does the cost of storage and unfortunately I do not have the money to pay for the amount of photos that I need to host, so Flickr seems to be the way to go.  I hate having to migrate mainly because a lot of traffic came from the Pbase site and the amount of work that goes into the migration, but since this is a hobby and not a career, I can't continue to pay a high premium for website storage.

In 2017 we also have big plans for new content for the site.  All of this is contingent on savings and money, but we have set aside some time off work for travels.  I would like to stick with our plans of one road trip per year and the shortlist seems to be pointing to Niagara Falls/Toronto or Charleston, SC.  Budgeting is a huge hurdle for this to work, but I have been working hard at trying to make sure we get one good trip a year.  We would also like to throw in some smaller trips throughout the year, explore our state a little bit more.  I have been itching to get back to Disney and as I have been adding archive photos into Flickr, it only further enhances that desire to get back there.

In closing, I would like to thank each and every one of you for supporting my work. You are my motivation for keeping this project on-going.  This site isn't just about sharing our memories with the world, its giving families personal connections with their son playing professional baseball 1,000 miles from home or documenting aviation history through photographing of planes at a local airport or just highlighting the beauty of our great country.  Everyone has their own personal connection with my work and I appreciate everyone who visits.

Here's to a great 2017!!!