Freshly Pressed? Nope, but the Next Best Thing Is…

For the category of “living,” the continuum of awards runs the gamut from the Profiles in Courage Award to the Darwin Awards (ahem). In science, a paper can land in the journal Nature or in the Journal of Irreproducible Results. In film, the gamut goes from the Oscars to the Razzies. In fashion, from the Best Dressed to Mr. Blackwell’s list.

Great blue heron eye-to-eye with dragonfly.

For literary efforts, the pinnacle is the Nobel Prize, and other awards along that continuum include the Pulitzer Prize and the Man Booker Prize. Somewhere down the line is the WordPress Freshly Pressed Award, and so on, ultimately including the various “grassroots awards” handed out to their peers by members of the blogging communities.

I will never win a Nobel Prize, although I’ve rubbed elbows with one winner, who is surprisingly unassuming. I would be thrilled with a photography Pulitzer (who wouldn’t?), but a girl can dream.

My blog is a long-shot for a Freshly Pressed shout out for several reasons. It’s a “concept blog.” It’s a nature blog that is highly-focused on one primary topic: great blue herons, a “niche” topic if ever there was one.

My blog doesn’t shed light on the “human condition,” except as reflected in environmental concerns about the ecosystems of Eastern Massachusetts. It doesn’t create new jobs or solve world hunger or heal domestic violence or cure childhood leukemia or stop nuclear proliferation or raise money for a worthy cause or bring peace to the Middle East or fix financial institutions that are too big to fail.

My blog doesn’t list dry facts and statistics that are just a Google search away, but if you’re looking for unique, original photos shot from my kayak and my own original, often quirky, observations about birds and nature, I’m your girl.

But there does seem to be something about great blue herons – perhaps their grace and beauty – that touches something in people. Being in the presence of the great blue herons touches something in me, almost like a meditation where time falls away into a place of peace and calm, floating on the water.

I feel fortunate to be able to share the herons and their photos and stories in this blog, all made possible by WordPress. For free. No pay-wall. How cool is that, a space to share, where we can write and read, that costs us nothing.

Which brings me back to awards. Most bloggers will not ever be Freshly Pressed, but many will receive recognition from their peers with one of the many “grassroots” awards. These community awards are a good thing, a way for “the people” to honor their own.

There are some who declare their blogs “award-free” zones, who don’t participate in the community awards process. That is their right (the awards process is VERY time-consuming and fraught with the risk of overlooking someone and causing hurt feelings), HOWEVER, I suspect that many of those with award-free blogs would NOT decline a Freshly Pressed award from the WordPress editors. Am I right? Ok, maybe there are a small number who would turn down a Freshly Pressed award – after all, a tiny number have turned down the Nobel Prize and Oscar statuette, but still, am I right?

This post started out as a preamble to five grassroots awards I’ve recently received and need to acknowledge properly. I think it’s an honor to be recognized by my peers. I’m going to break all the rules for those awards, though. I’m going to do away with the requirements to list 39 things about myself, I’m going to do away with the requirement that I nominate 42 fellow nominees in turn for each award. I’m going to simplify these peer-to-peer awards and hopefully make them easier, and more fun. It’s about community at the end of the day.

And I’m going to give a shout out to some people who have award-free blogs. They don’t have to accept or follow-up in any way whatsoever, and they can email me to be omitted if they would in all honesty decline a Freshly Pressed award, no questions asked.

If I find a new restaurant that I really, really like, I want to tell people about it. If I find a blog that I really, really like and want to tell people about – well, how is that any different than spreading the word about the great restaurant?

After all, a blog serves food, too. A blog serves food for thought.

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Thanks to Michelle W and WordPress for the Weekly Photo Challenge: One prompt. The one thing in this photo that draws our eyes is the dragonfly sitting on the heron’s bill – even the heron’s eyes are drawn to the dragonfly!

Thanks to Cheri Lucas Rowlands and WordPress for the Weekly Photo Challenge: Community prompt. The grassroots blogging awards are one of the best ever reflections on “community.”

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Remember: Walk softly and carry a long lens.™

© 2013 Babsje. (https://babsjeheron.wordpress.com)

Great Blue Heron, Dragonfly, Community, Awards, Grassroots