An introduction — Who is Malcolm Owen?

Introductions as a first post? Geez, such a novel concept…

Blogging is much like many other things where you anticipate there to be a series of things.

The first track release for a singer or band. The first date of a potential relationship. The first time you try to remember the instructions to cook a Hot Pocket without checking the back of the box.

The initial salvo is nerve-wracking, and really should be treated in a much more relaxed manner. Everyone’s done it, so there should be less pressure, really. Especially if you’ve spent years doing the thing.

And yet, despite a decade of experience writing in public, the first post of a blog is still tough to do. It needs to set the tone and to be even partway readable.

Me [Malcolm Owen] in a videography action shot for work. Much less badass in real life, though.

That’s both a high bar and a low bar at the same time. Schrödinger’s standards, if you will.

Let’s fix that. Getting started and pushing past the first is always the way, as the second is always better.

Who is this moonbat?

Heralding from Swansea, South Wales, UK, I (Malcolm Owen) am a tech journalist by trade, blogging for AppleInsider and previously publications including MacNN and Electronista.

Away from the high-octane world of turning Apple’s financial results into readable stretches of text and the nightmare of leak reporting, I do have other interests beyond assembling words into an acceptable order.

I’m also an avid photographer, for almost as long as I have been writing for money. It got to a point that my girlfriend Emma and I set up a photography business. We called it Paper Dragons.

We’re still working to push for it to become a thing, and massive strides have been made in the direction of success, though we’re not quite there yet. Wherever “there” is.

We operate a small studio space in Swansea, located in the bowels of Dreamy Hill Coffee, a store where drinks are served and customers can browse Emma’s artwork that’s for sale.

I’m sure there’s a lot more to cover about myself and the photography business, but I’ll leave that all for future instalments, so there’s at least something to write about.

What is this Substack going to be about?

I intend this to be a regular column where I can discuss things about the photography business and other things that may take my fancy.

For me, it’s a partly promotional thing, since it’s an attempt at being as transparent as possible. I’m fairly keen on transparency, especially given the day job.

It’ll also be a bit cathartic, since I can get the things that are on my chest off of it and into the digital realm in some way.

A lowering of the blood pressure? Digital leeches? Therapeutic wordification? Whatever.

While I know this post won’t be that useful to readers, other than serving as a basic introduction to me and this whole thing [gestures at the theoretical white space room this text is based in], I do hope that future ones will entertain and maybe even teach something.

Here ends the metaphorical hard first step. It wasn’t so hard after all.