I just realized I've been on HIVE for exactly a month now, Dec 13th, 2021 being the day I joined and shared my first post on HIVE.
My first post was in C/PhotographyLovers as that's why and how I came to HIVE. HIVE was introduced to me as a way to reach out and share my photography more and become a blog outlet. I've also joined a few other communities like the Black and White, Photofeed, and Nature Lovers communities.

Heres my impressions after a month.
_{I'll also be throwing some of my images in here - because I think theyre cool.}

Day 1

I received a most helpful beginners guide from Hive account@kieranstone -[ Hive: A Complete Beginner's Guide (With Fun Doodles) Pt. 1] which I promptly ignored and hopped right in. So my first impressions were basically "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS WHAT DO YOU MEAN I NEED MULTIPLE KEYS!?... Wait I have to pay to signup?... why is this COMPLICATED???

Week 1

On day two I actually read that handy guide and all of a sudden a bunch of light bulbs clicked. For myself, thinking of HIVE as like Reddit with Crypto built in really helped. It made many levels of this place like communities and users much more straight forward. And if I ignored the blockchain stuff it meant I could focus on just exploring and checking out the communities. Week 1 I mostly spend just commenting and discussing with a bunch of communities. Trying to explore all the different places that HIVE may have a place for me and what I enjoy. Although the games didn't interest me, I'm extremely excited to see that blockchain gaming is a thing. I hardly understand it, but the concept sounds amazing and I hope to find a way to enjoy them here with everyone too.

_{This shot is the main image I shared in my Intro Post. A personal favorite from the last year.}

Week 2/3

Week 2 was much better. I'm in a Twitter chat now, and I've been introduced to multiple discord chats. Between all of these I've started to fully grasp HBD, HP, RC, HIVE....etc, oh and all this PIZZA and BEER that I've been receiving. The sub tokens are something I have yet to explore still. But it seems like at the very least its a fun way to give an alternate tip - like buying your buddy a cold one.
I posted a bunch more in week 2, and also started to get more creative with my formatting. Hive account@caseygrimley sent me this most helpful formatting guide by Hive account@sjarvie5 - [Formatting tips by Sara Jarvie] which has also been extremely helpful. Now I can do things like this!

_{Which is immensely useful to show images side by side, like in this case of the same tree in changing seasons.}

_{Or, formatting this text to be centered below these images.}

In week two I also started to better grasp the concept of HP and how it plays into my weight in this community. I've decided that I'll start allocating 100% of my post rewards to HP to further increase this and help share the wealth more. I'm hoping this will both help me boost the awesome content I've been seeing here, and also to help with posts I think deserve some more attention.
I've stuck Week 2 and 3 together because really they were the same. It was over the holiday break and I didn't do anything too extra.

Week 4

Well, we technically are only just finishing week 4 today. And really all I've done this week is further reading and enjoying various posts here. I've participated in two of the #monomad challenges, and placed in both which was great fun. It's always fun seeing who the finalists are and how their work differs so much from my own.

I'd be lying if I didn't say that I thoroughly enjoyed monochrome photography. So I'm extra pleased to see such a strong community there. Heck, I even think I've met the requirements in this post, so lets make this my #monomad entry for today too!

Some Critiques - Because Not Everything Is Sweet

I'm really excited about HIVE. But I have to say there are some things I've already seen that I'm hoping will be improved with time.

• For one, the signup is so incredibly convoluted and daunting that I see the usership of HIVE being a struggle to increase. Thats not necessarily a bad thing, but it means my ability to convince my friends to use yet ANOTHER social platform will be difficult - let alone the scary buzzwords like "crypto" and "blockchain" that come along with HIVE. And I want my friends to join me here.
• Another tough thing is the whole currencies. The fact that there are three is annoying. I understand how they work for the most part now. But, for a new user that was a task and half trying to understand the differences and how they impacted me. I suppose it was setup that way with intention. But it's definitely a barrier to join because of scariness of money impacting your posts.
• Formatting! This is a tough one. It's functional, and there is a lot here. But its not user friendly. If you look at that formatting post its a bunch of HTML scripts you need to use to center a post, or you cheese it and use a table to insert photos into. It seems like considering the blog style nature of this place some quick key functions would be really helpful. In the same way that you can press ctrl + I and an auto "Italics" option comes up, some quick "three image", or "centered text" options would greatly improve the experience.

I don't even know who to give this feedback to. I've heard of the watchers, but until I figure out how to best give my feedback I'll just leave it here and hope that someone sees it.

Month 1

Its been great overall, and I'm stoked to be here. I have to shoutout Hive account@tristan.todd Hive account@caseygrimley and Hive account@intrepidphotos for encouraging me to signup and walking me through my first month here. I'm still learning lots of stuff which is great, and still diving into the specifics of it too. But I see the potential here, I love the blog style format and for giving me a reason to spill my thoughts out, and I'm excited that I'm rewarded with more than a thumbs up for any effort I put in here.
Looking forward to Year 1 now!

I'll leave you with one of my all time favorite monochrome shots I've taken. The Grand Canyon, AZ