The Experiment

I don't know why I didn't try this experiment sooner.

Oh, now I remember why: I don't like typing on my smartphone, and Blogger—the tool that I use to create my blog posts—isn't as user-friendly on a small screen.

But last Thursday, as I went to bed without any ideas for a Friday blog post, my mind turned to my upcoming trip to Costa Rica. I had already made the decision to leave my laptop at home, which made me think that for the two weeks that I would be in Central America, there would be no Brown Knowser blog posts.

Two weeks is a long time for me to go without blogging.

Now, I had never tried to write a blog post on my phone before. In the past, I've composed posts on tablets, which gave me more real estate in which to work, and I've also posted through Blogsy, which made using Blogger a bit easier on the tablet.

But for 99 percent of my blog posts, I've written on a laptop, which gives me full ease of access to the space I need to type (with a keyboard), add photos, and format the content where needed. A smartphone just doesn't compare.

My blogging environment on a laptop.

Smartphone environment.

As I was lying in bed, thinking about my trip and wondering what to do about blogging, and disappointed with myself for not having come up with a blog post for Friday, I decided to give writing a blog post on my phone a chance. I rolled over, onto my stomach, reached for my phone, and started brainstorming.

When I run out of ideas for blog posts, I often dig through old photographs for inspiration. And my Google Photos account holds a lot of memories from the past, including some scanned photos that I haven't yet touched—that is, I haven't edited them at all.

I scrolled through old, untouched photos, until my eyes fell on an old slide image that I had taken as an early experiment in exposure. It was a flower bed, full of tulips, where I had measured the light of the ground below the plants.

I quickly edited the photo to correct the washed-out result of the slide and added a bit more saturation and detail. But that was it.

If I had edited this photo on a bigger screen, I might have noticed some of the dust that was captured by the scanner, and would have edited the bits of debris out. But I couldn't see the dust on the image on my phone, so... lesson learned.

With the edited photo saved, I opened Blogger on my phone and started typing. It was a bit slower to write with only my thumbs and I was careful about checking for typos.

With the content written, I imported the photo into the body of the post. I added labels, as I do for every post, but because it was already after midnight, at that point, I didn't need to schedule the publishing. I just let it go live.

So last Friday's blog post was created and published entirely through my smartphone. Sure, it was a bit more labour-intensive, but the experiment worked.

When I have time to write, during my Costa Rica travels, I will do so. I won't have issues with dust on the photos and I've already proven that I can easily transfer images from my various cameras to my smartphone, edit them, and share them.

I can't promise that The Brown Knowser will continue regularly over my two weeks of vacation but I'll do my best.

Stay tuned.