I created this post for the contest "How Steemit has helped me", hosted by the founder of SteemAlive community @prolee. Check the link above for details and conditions on the competition. My feed brought my friend @bambuka's post for this contest (I should say -- I read it with great pleasure!); and since I love interesting challenges, I did not pass by in silence.

"How Steemit has helped me" - this is such a simple question that cannot be answered in a nutshell; for some people (for example, for me) it is an iceberg that has a large invisible part. If you are ready to listen, I have a long and remarkable story for you.

(By the way, here's smth like the prequel part for you: a post I wrote for the 'Who is your Steemian best friends?' contest hosted by @ulisesfl17 and @steemingcurators a year ago. I covered part of my Steemit story in that post. And since I love hypertext by heart, I will link both Internet bits to each other).

Now, a brief version: no, Steemit did not give me money. It gave me a lot of fun, non boring life full of drive, and +100 level-up to creativity. Totally new horizons have opened up for me!

And now, a long version.

First, I'll take a step back. I am made of contradictions: on one hand, I am a creative person, but on another, I am not one of those who are usually called a "content creator". I am a natural-born editor, a proofreader who is focused on polishing, polishing and improving someone else's works. For many years of my life I was engaged in a business that was pleasant to me and made other people happy, but - roughly speaking, I participated in other people's projects, I did not produced anything I could call "mine". Well, perhaps there were a few ... In 2018, I completed one large project (I published a book; but said book was made of materials written by other people, again... you get the idea, right?).

And at some point in time I realized that I had to make my own barn, that is, a casino, "with blackjack and whores." I really wanted to have material that other people would want to improve, correct, translate into another language, ask for permission to use ... under which my copyright will stand, that's all this.

In 2018, my friend @tatdt introduced me to the Steemit platform, and I got magnetized. One more step back: I am not a photographer, but I love looking at beautiful pictures, and I have been photographing since childhood, as an amateur. Like the rest of us, for many years I have mainly photographed my family and our trips. (I bought my first digital camera in 2006). Over the years, I got tired of photographing my family, and gradually I came to the conclusion that I am a bad photographer and I take uninteresting, bad photos, and I should not do this.

In the photo: a predatory sundew plant caught an ant. In principle, I have never taken such pictures before!

Another example - I used to shoot as it was filmed, because the camera sees ... (see photo above). If the light is bad, then it was bad shooting, to be sure. Now I can show the result like below. (But I still don't know how to control light. These are my tasks for the future).

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The reason is that by photographing my family and storing these photographs in the archive, without showing them to anyone, I hit the ceiling, reached a dead end in development - and I felt it. Suddenly, everything changed when I started a blog on Steam. My photos turned out to be in demand content, thanks to which my blog has grown well. The blog demanded "tasty healthy food" and I started photographing more. Moreover, I discovered new genres for myself: street photography, urban archeology, macro. I bought a second camera and several new lenses that greatly expanded my options. I will not go into a detailed description (this is beyond the scope of the post). I can say out loud the first, the most important:

Steemit boosted my growth as a photographer

And it really helped a lot, I got a real boost and motivation to take more pictures and process photos: I discovered new genres of photography (street, macro, focus steak, landscape photography). I have no problems with places where I can see beautiful photographs (communication environment, discussion of photographs are very important for professional growth). Stimulus is a very suitable place, a comfortable environment for such communication. Competitions allow for "competition" in a mild form, allow "feeding" the sense of one's own success, which is important for an amateur photographer. I can't say that I learned a lot, but in any case, I am very inspired by @axeman's example.

Now I even do what I have never done before - watch master classes in photography and photo editing on YouTube. I have mastered the Lightroom program a little (my stumbling block, from which I have kept aloof for a long time). And most importantly, I have applied and added to my arsenal the processing of photographs in the .raw format, something from which I also deliberately avoided and stayed away all these years of my photography hobby. And it was just a giant step forward for me.

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Pre-Steemit era photo, me at a gig back in 2011 (c) @tatdt
My first digital camera is featured in this frame: Canon 350D (aka 'Digital rebel') with cheap 50mm 1.8 lens.

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The real face of cryptoblogger qwerrie (c) @tatdt

Creativity and curiosity

It's no secret that Steemit often changes the rules of the game anew. This is a living, changing organism, even after six months it is impossible to find it the same as you left it. The brain has to work hard, settling in this place. While writing articles and reading other people's publications, I learned a lot (but this is commonplace!). If I didn't already know HTML markup and English, I would probably have to learn it and thank Steemit again. And the fact that the brain is all the time busy with the useful processing of new information (and not stupid accumulation of it) - greatly lengthens life, perhaps objectively, and absolutely surely - subjective. I spent two and a half years on the blockchain, which would seem to be not such a long time. But in these two years, sooo many things fit in - according to a subjective feeling, as many as five years. This is also a wonderful bonus that improves my quality of life.

I turned into a blogger!

...mastered a new trade and got a second job.

Now I have passive income!

Yes, yes, I admit: the question of money also worries me, of course. But I'm not here just for the money. Until now, I have not withdrawn a single dollar - on the contrary, I invest a lot in it every day, like curmudgeon Scrooge McDuck, counting on big dividends later. Time is a very expensive resource, in fact, and I invest a lot of it, not to mention investments in camera and photographic equipment, an arsenal of lenses, etc. I don't know how soon I will grow to a killer whale, but I hope! In the meantime, my daily income has already reached 7 stims - not such a trifle.

Become a boss yourself

Actually, I meant all sorts of artwork and design, photo processing ... but in a broad sense - I work for myself, I make decisions myself, including about investments and asset sales. It is a very pleasant feeling to be in charge of yourself.

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FUN!

You will laugh, but imagine - some people do not know what to do with their time. They are bored!!! They even watch serials on TV ... leaf through the endless feed on Facebook ... and I don't know what else. I also had a Facebook, and thanks to Steemit, I was able to close this page forever. Yes, some of my friends remained there, but now I have other friends, and it is much more pleasant for me to communicate with them here. Steemit is my new cozy home, and it is much, much warmer and more pleasant than Facebook, which has always remained a stranger to me .. no, I can't even call it home, it was always a strange visit.

The last -- but not the least:

I got a bunch of friends all over the world!

... with whom I communicate on a regular basis, and have already met some of them in real life, I hope not for the last time: @madlenfox, @datych, @ veta-less, @tatdt, @bambuka - this list is limited for now, but I hope to continue!

I am no longer 20 years old, at my age friends and a pleasant social circle are of great value, when people start a family, many old acquaintances gradually dry out and shrink. Therefore, I repeat - this is very cool, this is a really wonderful undocumented feature of the blockchain ... of course, in the event that you are inclined not only to take, but also to give. Friendship, it is always mutual, is a give-and-take.

Mutual (buzzword) consulting and friendly help (I do not mean "cuckoo and cock" help), information exchange are very important on stimulus, this is a social network! and are especially important for beginners. And on the one hand, I regret that I came to the platform so late, but on the other hand, I am partly even glad that I came so late: by that moment there were already people who were ready to help me. I stood at the foot of the mountain, but on someone else's shoulders, and I could see further, it was easier for me to climb to the top.

My friend @tatdt in the flesh - Steemit promoter and cryptogames veteran (well, comparing to myself).

Photographer's favorite genre: taking pics of other photographer at his job. Mister @bambuka himself in these frames - (c) @qwerrie

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some mushrooms ...and thanks for the fish!

Having already finished the post, I thought about one more aspect. I don’t want to lengthen the post and waste your time, so I’ll write briefly: it was thanks to the stimulus and passion for macro photography, strange as it may sound, that, in the process of writing posts, I began to learn much more about the environment, primarily about mushrooms , insects and plants. And this is also priceless!

Now its time to part. I thank @prolee for this splendid initiative. Good intelligent challenge is always a positive fruitful thing that helps to create good content, like this story I told you, and leave all participants with good aftertaste.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

BLOG is set to 100% powerup, as always.

All images taken by me, copyright (c) @qwerrie