Your questions and concerns are critical and being asked by many newcomers.

It was difficult for most newcomers to get upvotes when they begin. Even now with number of followers there are times my upvotes are not very high. Commenting on replies like I see you are doing within your own blog is critical, even though you do not have much steem power (SP). Upvote those who reply to your post, even though you may not have much SP to have an effect.

As other's have commented on reading other peoples work is very important. It can start bringing in small amounts of SBD and SP. I spent some time doing this when I began. This was prior to doing an introduction post.

patience, patience, patience.

You have to provide well thought out quality content when even commenting on other people's post.

You need to remember there are a lot of newcomers like yourself that are trying to do the same thing as you. You will pick up many as followers, but they will not have a lot of impact on upvoting your content...They just do not have the SP. You need these followers because in time their SP will grow and they will start having more of an impact.

Another way to build the needed SP is to buy some steem and power it up to steem power. I saw in your introduction post That you have other cryptocurrencies..you could sell a little and purchase some Steem and move it into your wallet and power it up. Actually now is a good time to buy a little due to the price correction. I bought most of mine at 16 cents, yet with price correction I sold of some other crypto's and bought more Steem. I sold off some tokens that were not performing well. Something to consider...even if it is a small amount of steem you purchase you can use it to lease some SP.

With more steem you could also lease some SP via minnowbooster or similar service.

Photos that are not your own you should note who took them.

All in all @bonniehere it takes time and patience. Many that have been on Steemit for awhile may not take notice of you for awhile. Do not ask for them to follow you or upvote you. It is frowned upon by many.