Unplugged #19: Thinking long-term, an upgraded film scanner, fear and finding out, and a phoenix rises from the ashes
Where is this thing going?
For those of you who prefer to read on paper (or e-reader) rather than in your Substack or email app, I have converted this essay into an easily printable PDF
Good evening! I’m struggling to pull together a coherent narrative for this week’s entry of Unplugged, as I sometimes do. You know, a neat little theme or thread that runs through everything I share. Sometimes it almost seems to write itself, but this week it does not, perhaps because I’m coming down off a couple of deadlines and I don’t feel like I’ve been able to apply as much thought to what I want to write here as usual.
So instead I’ll share a glimpse into something that’s been preoccupying me for a week or two. What are my long-term plans for Alpenglow Journal? Where is this thing going?
I’ve made no secret that eventually I would like this to be bigger than it is now, and hopefully to exist in print. But I’ve read a few things over the last couple of weeks that reiterate something I was in danger of forgetting: you can’t build a business on a platform you do not own.
As of now, a handful of readers have signed up to be paying subscribers — a wonderful gesture for which I’m tremendously grateful. I’m also surprised, because right now I’m not offering anything in return. But it does highlight the fact that sooner or later I’m going to need a plan for going a bit more pro with Alpenglow Journal.
I’ve always been very clear that its presence on Substack is temporary. Right now this is where my readers are, both current and potential. For a period — maybe a year, maybe five years — I need to concentrate on building a foundation of consistency and trust. Substack is a good place for that. But when it’s time to start offering something more substantial for paying subscribers, I don’t think I’ll be doing it on Substack.
Most likely I’ll be using Ghost. Ultimately the open independent web is the only thing on the internet you can trust, and I’d do well to remember that.
Anyway, this is more a reminder to myself than anything else. Substack may be the new shiny thing, and yes it has many advantages, but principles don’t change. (See a link I shared below for more on this.)
Something else that’s preoccupying me: prep for the Alps! I leave in just over a week, and have a lot of work to get done between now and then. But I can’t wait to be back on the trails.
From my desk
Working on right now
Sidetracked magazine Volume 34. I’m hoping to get as much done on this as possible before I leave for the Alps week after next. Work is well underway on most of the stories now.
We’ve recently wrapped up work on Like the Wind issue 46. Pre-orders aren’t live yet, but keep an eye on likethewindmagazine.com/shop – won’t be long now!
I’ve just finished my latest article for The Great Outdoors magazine, all about the excellent snowshoeing trip I completed in Austria last winter. I’ll let you know when it’s out.
Image selection for an analogue photography exhibition taking place next month. More on this soon.
Recently published
In case you missed it, last week’s Alpenglow Journal piece was a look at my iPhone photography from the Alps in 2022, and how I’m changing my approach this year.
I have a Wild Walk in the September 2025 issue of The Great Outdoors, covering a fantastic route I completed in the Central Highlands last summer. In about a month it’ll be the 10-year anniversary since I first started writing for TGO.
Recently processed film images
I’ve recently upgraded my home scanning workstation with new negative carriers from Negative Supply. My old carrier (the Lobster Holder) gradually started irritating me more and more, because advancing the film was slow and it had film flatness issues. The new carriers are much faster – especially when scanning uncut negative strips. I even managed to jerry-rig two old glass yoghurt pots to act as impromptu spools. I can now scan an entire roll in about half the time it took me before. And I can scan 6x9 negatives border to border with no crop.
Here are some sunny images from this week’s scanning session, all shot on trips down south to visit family last month. Leica M3, mixture of Kodak Vision3 250D and Kodak Gold film stocks.
Art
From an overnighter in the Cairngorms last week. There’s a new direct bus from Blairgowrie to Braemar and it’s going to make such a difference to my adventure plans from now on…
What I’ve been reading
Books
Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, Yanis Varoufakis
Some of the economic theory in this book is a bit dense for me, but the author builds a compelling case that capitalism as we understand it has actually come to an end. Capital itself still exists and remains powerful, of course, but the new economic order is dominated by a new form of feudalism. Varoufakis claims that we are all either cloud serfs or cloud proles now.
The entire book is framed by Varoufakis as an attempt to answer this question posed by his father in the early 1990s: ‘Now that computers speak to each other, will this network make capitalism impossible to overthrow? Or might it finally reveal its Achilles heel?’
Standout quotes so far:
The more our mass-produced cravings are satisfied, the less satiated we feel. The greater the capacity of the technostructure to stir the passions, the greater the void within when they are served. To fill this void, young people felt in their bones the need to break with the established order, to rebel without a well-defined cause, to proclaim their moral outrage at the technostructure’s ways.
The internet shattered capitalism’s evolutionary fitness […] It did this by incubating a new form of capital, which has ultimately empowered its owners to break free of capitalism and become a whole new ruling class of their own.
Magazines
I’m reading issue 304 at the moment. I always really enjoy Tim Clinch’s column, ‘A Fortnight at F/8’. This week he’s talking about choosing images for publication, competition or exhibition. Quotes:
The most important thing to realise when choosing which images to show is that you must have the courage of conviction and the mental strength to choose the pictures you like and not try to second guess a third party who is waiting to trip you up on something dull and technical.
When it comes to your photography and your vision, always remember a famous quote […] ‘Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!’
Lots of good things in the September 2025 issue, but for me the standouts are ‘De-stress in the Dolomites’ by my friend Andy Wasley and ‘California Dreaming’ by my brother James.
From the web
✉️ Substack Did Not See That Coming
Oh boy, what a can of worms. I have struggled with my concerns regarding Substack since day one. When I returned to Substack last year, it was with great trepidation. And I agonised over my decision to go all-in on Substack for literally months.
But I’ll admit I did not know some of the details reported here by Ana Marie Cox. We’ve all seen Substack’s slow slouch towards social media enshittification. Obviously that’s no accident. The financial reality Substack finds itself in explains much.
Here are some key quotes, but I encourage you to read the whole thing in full:
Substack is rickety. It’s as unstable as a SpaceX launch, as overpromised as a Stephen Miller marriage.
Substack does not have a clear future as a newsletter business, I’m not the first to notice that. But it doesn’t have to fail outright to be a disaster. It just has to keep trying to become a life-sized map of the internet: maximum content, maximum churn. The center cannot hold—especially not for newsletters, a format that depends on intimacy and long-standing trust.
The Substack bust will not just take out a few hot-take merchants and media dilettantes. It’s going to take down a lot of working journalists who’ve built modest, sustainable incomes as well as the fragile public sphere we’ve been piecing together in the ashes of Twitter and the twilight of traditional journalism.
An absolutely marvellous interview with Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion. I stand up and applaud these principles.
You actually can do this, you know. You can just try to highlight the beauty of things you like and not try to vampirically extract value at every step.
You do not have to make an A.I. version of your own employees that operate at 1.5x speed but produce purely iterative garbage, especially in media and journalism. People don’t actually want that shit. Make a good, human thing and people will bend over backwards to support you. This is a valid way to run a company.
People like getting something in the mail that doesn’t make them want to blow their brains out, an exceedingly rare occurrence. […] the jokes are funnier on paper than on social media, where all information is flattened and pummeled to dust.
💡 Cultivating a state of mind where new ideas are born
This essay gets to the heart of what creativity really means – and how to give yourself the best possible chance of harnessing it. I already make use of some of the practices here, especially carefully applied solitude, but other ideas were entirely new to me. A highly recommended read.
[…] the development of gifted and creative individuals, such as Newton or Whitehead, seems to require a period in which there is little or no pressure for conformity, a time in which they can develop and pursue their interests no matter how unusual or bizarre. In so doing, there is often an element of reinventing the already known.
One thing that sets these intensely creative individuals apart, as far as I can tell, is that when sitting with their thoughts they are uncommonly willing to linger in confusion. To be curious about that which confuses. Not too rapidly seeking the safety of knowing or the safety of a legible question, but waiting for a more powerful and subtle question to arise from loose and open attention. This patience with confusion makes them good at surfacing new questions.
🚵♀️ Fear and Finding Out
ventures into far more serious places than I likely ever will, and she has a robust mental framework for dealing with fear.I’ve said before and I’ll keep saying it, as my own personal crusade against macho adventurers: yes, I get scared. I get scared all the time. […] So, “find out” is my antidote.
My friend
writes about his long process of recovery from an injury – and how it affects his relationship with the mountains.The mountains are the greatest puzzle to me. There is an endless knowing buried within them. To explore their every nook and cranny within my abilities, to be among them for hours on end until I become transparent – this is the endless quest.
📸 I’ve got no motivation to write, so please have whatever thoughts are in my head
: ‘Short. Unedited. Little paragraphs just on stuff.’ But this is great, and I would love to see more blogging like this! Intensely human and personal. Great half-frame photographs here too.🏔️ A Phoenix Rises from the Ashes
, edited by my friend and colleague
, is back up and running! I’m really glad to see this. Emily started Intrepid in 2017, at a time when women were poorly represented in most adventure publications. The goal was to answer the question of why the women in adventure weren’t more visible. Welcome back, Intrepid Magazine!
That’s all, folks
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Images and words © Alex Roddie. No AI has been used in the creation of any work on this page. All Rights Reserved. Please don’t reproduce this material without permission.
Honestly, a lot of your trepidation towards Substack resonated with me. I love the opportunities this platform gives to find like-minded individuals. Recently though, it's felt like ai slop, plaigarism and general shitposting has gained a bigger foothold in the feed 😔. I'd like to hope Substack learns from the other platforms, but that's the optimist in me speaking 😅.