The Pakistani Spectator

Would you please tell us something about you and your site?

My name is Borut Peterlin and I live in Slovenia. Slovenia is a small country on the southeast edge of European Union. I studied photography in Czech Republic, Italy and London and I grew up with idea of how small and united world is. With my blog I’m nourishing a feeling how tiny, tiny I am, but yet irreplaceable!

Do you feel that you continue to grow in your writing the longer you write? Why is that important to you?

More experience, more focus, clearer ways of delivering ideas that you want to share. It’s important because that’s one of the most important skills of humankind to communicate in both directions. Telling and listening.

I’m wondering what some of your memorable experiences are with blogging?

I’m professional photojournalist and I’ve been blogging about an incident about violation of human rights of a Roma family. Some members of Roma family Strojan was involved in a series of incidents and after one serious incident provoked by non Roma person who lived with Strojan Roma family, whole neighborhood made a fierce protest demanding Roma family to be moved away from their neighborhood and that they don’t have a right to live on their property. The agony of a family with 6 man, 10 women and 15 children was going on for more then a year as refugees in their own country. My blog was one of the sources where foreign journalists were getting their information. Among others also from New York Times, Herald Tribune, Neue Zuricher Zeitung, Days Japan, EuropaRadio,…

What do you do in order to keep up your communication with other bloggers?

I leave comments. Comments are well important, because it’s not as it used to be that one person is preaching to others, but the communication goes both ways. That’s the key difference! It was always that few people were shearing their ideas to the masses, but now everybody is audience, critic and author at the same time!

What do you think is the most exciting or most innovative use of technology in politics right now?

The motor of this phenomenon is social networking. People are no longer a herd of consumers, but are co-creators, demanding to be treated like that. Barack Obama phenomenon is not that he is a fantastic speaker and inspiring leader, but it is that he convinced people that they can make a difference and that their opinion does matter. It will be extremely interesting to observe how much his social network will develop when he will win the elections.

Do you think that these new technologies are effective in making people more responsive?

Absolutely!!!

What do you think sets your site apart from others?

Photography! I’m good in photography and photography is a universal language, which message could be consumed in one breath take. In the beginning of my blog I was blogging on many themes, but I realized it’s more productive to keep focus on just one theme with some occasional aberrations into funny anecdotes.

If you could choose one characteristic you have that brought you success in life, what would it be?

Persistency and reliability! No doubts about it!

What was the happiest and gloomiest moment of your life?

When my daughter was born I felt I don’t want to observe it through camera viewfinder, but I want to embrace the moment fully and directly with my eyes. When my second daughter was born I felt the same, feeling a small, but a fundamental part of life as a process.

If you could pick a travel destination, anywhere in the world, with no worries about how it’s paid for - what would your top 3 choices be?

Traveling in your mind is the most exciting and surpass everything. Or said it differently if you travel just to reinforce what you already know about the place, you didn’t travel at all.

What is your favorite book and why?

Hm… for sure one of the most important book that I’ve read several times is The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Garry Zukav. It’s so important because it introduced me to the basics of quantum mechanics as a philosophy in plain English. I believe that when the interpretation of the world through Quantum Mechanics will be applied in everyday we are about to through live a second Renaissance, which will develop on a global scale.

What’s the first thing you notice about a person (whether you know them or not)?

I notice their body language that is expressing their sincerness. 

Is there anyone from your past that once told you you couldn’t write?

Maybe it did, but obviously it was not memorable. It’s not that I don’t care what other people say about my work, but I’m biggest critic and biggest fan of my work.

How bloggers can benefit from blogs financially?

As it works for me, I benefit from my blog only indirectly. I couldn’t agree more with the philosophy 1000 true fans. http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php

Is it true that who has a successful blog has an awful lot of time on their hands?

No, on the contrary! Successful bloggers are fully engaged with their profession, but they love the profession so much they “burn midnight oil”, just to share their passion with the rest of the world!

What role can bloggers of the world play to make this world more friendlier and less hostile?

The process of connecting people itself will teach us to view the world from different point of view rather then just from our personal egoistic perspective. Blogging is in the heart of this process.

Who are your top five favourite bloggers?

http://aphotoeditor.com/

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/

http://burnsautoparts.blogspot.com/
http://www.presentationzen.com/

http://matjazz.wordpress.com/

Is there one observation or column or post that has gotten the most powerful reaction from people?

For sure it was my post on the protest against Roma family.

http://borutpeterlin.wordpress.com/2006/10/29/sad-day-for-myself-for-slovenia-for-eu-and-for-the-world/

What is your perception about Pakistan and its people?

I never been in Pakistan, but I’ll surely visit it, because a lot of my friends were enchanted by its people and geography. I know that you have great mountains and that Pakistani army saved Slovenian climber Tomaž Humar from mountain Nanga Parbat.

http://www.climbing.com/news/hotflashes/humarsavedblades/

I know a story about Musharraf and since I grew up in Yugoslavia and observed Milosevic regime I have no kind words for politic spin doctors.

Have you ever become stunned by the uniqueness of any blogger?

For sure! Especially the clarity of thoughts and the method of delivering further on.

What is the most striking difference between a developed country and a developing country?

Developed countries became developed also with much uncivilized meanings like imperialistic wars, colonizing, genocide, etc… All this methods are worth every condemnation if they are done in present or if they were perpetrated by my ancestors.

What is the future of blogging?

Personally I’ll continue to build my internet identity on several platforms from lightstalkers, wordpress, Facebook, digitalrailroad, flickr, … and by that I’ll become visible on a global scale. Tomorrow I’ll do a commissioned portrait for a magazine from Texas that found me via lightstalkers. You found me via wordpress.com, many others found me via flickr. The future is to develop all this platforms so they will gravitate toward your personal website on which you offer your services, products, etc. 

You have also got a blogging life, how has it directly affected both your personal and professional life?

It demands quite some time, but it’s great to write a good post and wake up early to see what other people think about it. If you blog for years, it becomes an important personal and social document.

What are your future plans?
Develop my career of freelance photographer internationally, globaly. 

Any Message you want to give to the readers of The Pakistani Spectator?

As Bono from U2 said, when you are teenager you think you can concur the world and sometimes you are right!

By blogging you can concur the world!

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