Photo Bloggers

[carstenw]

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I am posting this here, since photo blogging, especially daily photo blogging, has such a fast cycle that only digital photography is really practical.

 

I am hoping that this thread, in the absence of a better suited forum around here, can become somewhere where those of us, often not professionals, who try to do daily work can discuss the issues, including not only photography, but also the website design, HTML, and various support programs, not excluding actual raw processors, HDR programs, Panoramic stitchers, and so on, which we require to make sure our work does get out there on a regular basis, with a sufficiently high standard of quality.

 

I also hope that we can use this thread to solicit and offer advice to each other, in all fields. In other words, I hope that we can post links here to our blogs, or to specific photos, and have other like-minded individuals give us feedback.

 

I hope that the people who end up contributing to this thread are actually involved in the process, or are thinking of joining the trend, and are not merely sofa commentators.

 

---

 

To get it started, here is a link to my daily photoblog, which I have been adding to since the 27th of April. I hope that some of you will look at the photos, tell me which are great (if any), which suck, and which, with a bit of skill, can be rescued. I am happy to answer questions about technique, should there be any. I use Lightroom exclusively at the moment, by the way, since I like its workflow and results. Having used Lightroom, I would never again go back to using a more-or-less 1-shot solution, like ACR or C1. The effort per photo is simply too high for me, and I wish to stay within a single tool as much as I can.

 

Enough said, now to start it off:

 

Through the Lens Darkly

 

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[smokysun]

a great idea. the digital world is different, though i've never been able to explain why.

 

enjoyed your pictures. they do bring up questions concerning my own practice.

 

can we have impact usin a lot of different lenses (and zooms), or does this prevent us from honing a point of view? maybe pick the lense we love and shoot with it for a year.

 

do we do best limiting our subject matter, especially to something that emotionally or aesthetically moves and fascinates us? most exhibits have a tight focus where the pictures reinforce each other and you walk out looking through a particular artist's eyes.

 

so, i too have started a blog, more for posting writings though photos also a big part. to go over a mass of past work certainly allows me to be the critic and to see and judge where i succeeded and where i didn't.

 

thanks.

 

smokysun's heaven

[carstenw]

You make two really good points which I have come across on occasion, but not yet spent enough time with to resolve.

 

The most important point is possibly that almost all great work I am aware of was created within the context of a narrowly focused project. The daily photo blog will have a hard time reaching such levels, since for non-pros, the focused time spent thinking about a narrowly defined project, or even picking one, is simply not available. I think that the daily photo blog is a different tool, one designed to stop us from becoming rusty, and to help us find our limits by forcing us through the process at a high rate, regardless of what we have accomplished. Some of the photos I have posted on my blog are seriously mediocre...

 

And yes, picking just a few lenses to work with is sure to help us master our tools, but I am at a funny cross-roads at the moment in my life, having decided to try to start a photo business on the side, and I have 5 years in total, 1 1/2 years already gone, to prove the concept and get some income, or I will have to return the tax money I have saved so far. This prevents me from having enough time to sit around and philosophise too much. I have wondered if I should not just pay back the money and get my freedom back, but then again, I have another 3 1/2 years. Who knows, maybe I can make it? Anyway, so my purchase schedule has been somewhat elevated, and I have done a lot of lens testing and trying in a short time. I have also learned a lot from this...

 

I think the most important reason for a blog is two-fold: to create a space where thoughts and experiments can unfold, and to set a certain level of expectation which one then has to live up to.

 

I have learned a lot already, simply by forcing myself to yield decent photos at a steady and fairly accelerated rate. This may be the most valuable aspect of the blog.

[Guest sirvine]

My own photoblog is a useful history of my rediscovery of photography generally, and my evolution as a digital rangefinder photographer. The early shots are from my R-D1s days last fall, and then M8 since the start of this year.

 

I prefer an extremely simple interface, with minimal EXIF and zero Flash content. I use a customized pixelpost template, hosted on a shared server. Navigating my site to find old images is admittedly a pain since I've done away with the index view, but I sacrifice ease of use for a minimalist interface. I really like the idea of having to click to move backward in time, as it forces me to revisit the images in between.

 

I find the process of uploading images really keeps me motivated to put the time in to develop them properly and even gets me out shooting more often.

 

solsphere

 

P.S. If you are patient enough, you will see my experiments with camera tossing, too. I used the little canon P&S for those though!

[ericperlberg]

Hi Carsten,

 

Good topic I think. I've been running a site (the one in my signature) for 4 years with almost 4000 photos on it. In a sense my "blog" is an art project and my artists notebook. I shoot almost every day and each day I put up my what I feel are my best images. My art project is to walk every major street within an 8 mile radius of the geographical centre of London, something I've almost completed, taking photographs of what I find interesting/

 

I use a hosted blogging service called typepad and I have an advanced account. There are several nice features about typepad which is essentially a blogging software product called Moveable Type. First, as its hosted, you don't have any mucking about with the techy side of things which I basically enjoy but its so time consuming that I felt it was healthier for me to stay away from. Second and maybe a bit contrary to what I just said, the advanced account allows one to customise the look and feel of typepad in any way one wants by simply embedding the typepad code in one's own design, which can be as sophisticated as one wants to make it. Because its hosted, I don't have to worry about when things go wrong. There's a dedicated help group who are very attentive and typepad is very professionally run. One can also use templates which typepad have developed.

 

There are 3 levels of typepad account and mine comes with ample disk space and a good level of monthly bandwidth usage which I haven't run up against. I get about 1000 unique visits per week and even with pretty large pages I don't have a problem. I think it costs about $150/year which is on the expensive side but worth it to me that I don't have to deal with issues and setting up blogging software.

 

Typepad allows for all kinds of add ons with almost a click and drag simplicity so adding Google adwords or google maps or amazon books etc etc is relatively easy. Similarly one can add RSS feeds and trackbacks etc. There's a decent built in stats package but it pales in comparison to Google's free Analytics package which one can also use if one chooses. On my type of account its possible to have domain forwarding so basically I bought the domain (curiouslyincongruous) from a large US company called Pairnic and then by plugging some details into the domain name control panel at Pairnic and some details on my typepad dashboard, the connection is made and works relatively seemlessly.

 

One nice feature of good photoblogging software is the ability to both tag images and assign them to categories that are user generated. So in my case, I catagorise each photo from the section of London where it was taken. Thus someone can click on Aldgate for example and see all the images over time that I've taken in the Aldgate section of London. Alternatively the images are archived by date so the viewer or me can go back to any day in time and view the images. I also sell images, mostly to magazines doing articles about London and my "blog" allows others to see my work but also I have my folders synced to my site so I can quickly find the original Tiff files or RAW files related to the image.

 

I started off "photoblogging" with annotating my images with comments and allowing viewer comments. But over time I stopped both. I stopped commenting on my own images because I felt I wanted the images to stand on their own and my daily gushings felt tacked on and I often wished I had said less or something different a few days later. I quickly grew bored with the kinds of comments I got from my viewers too and didn't find them useful, informative or even interesting to read. Partly this is because of a photoblogging trick of commenting on someone elses' blog in order to drive traffic to your own blog. I didn't enjoy or want to partake in that game. Also, a lot of people looking at photos on blogs are not very sophisticated and their comments reflect that. So for my purposes I turned them off.

 

Others of course do enjoy these sorts of activities, witness Flickr and its success. There are some relatively active photoblogging groups in Europe. London has London Photobloggers and Europe has europe photobloggers | meeting place for european photobloggers for those so inclined. There are regular meetups and a spirit of comraderie for those looking for that.

 

I've also messed with some free blogging software. WordPress WordPress › Blog Tool and Weblog Platform is very powerful and free and Google has Blogger [/url] which is free. The well known photographer William Greiner uses blogger: William GREINER as does my good friendTom Rice-Smyth

 

In response to the posts that got written while I've been writing this, I think my "blog" shows that you can indeed have a focused photoblog on a theme. Additionally Greiner's blog is specifically about the aftermath on Greiner's former home town of New Orleans by the hurricane Katrina.

 

Some other interesting blogs (well to me anyway) are:

1) the magnum photographer Alec Soth: alec soth - blog

2) Christian Patterson SPEAK, SEE, REMEMBER

3) And Jorg Colberg's Conscientious

 

Eric

[smokysun]

thanks for the really interesting blog links. the one on color very interesting to me, and i see how alec soth's character helps him in the world!

 

a blog seems rather like applying for a bank loan first time. you have to really look at yourself. (ramana maharshi said there's only one question: who am I?)

 

one thing i've found about being on a photo posting service (i use pbase) is that a lot of people find you and you never know how. one day out of all these years i got seven thousand hits and i have no idea why.

 

yes, i don't ask for comments either (except here). when i first posted some dancer pictures, i got seamy comments about the girls. wasn't going to expose them to that.

 

putting up stuff i automatically look more critically, especially on a blog.

 

smokysun's heaven

[Guest stnami]

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Yea lots of blogs around......mine does nothing of any importance.... sam knows

*****DO NOT******

[Iron Flatline]

I'm very active in the Blogging community, and look forward to contributing to this thread....

 

...but I'mm off to catch an airplane - I'm going on holiday for a week. I'll log on and contribute when I get a chance.

 

All I can say is that I find photoblogging to be a great way to continue driving one's own creativity while also being able to share with a larger audience than was possible with just prints.

 

I am one of the organizers of the Europe Photoblogger Meet-Up, and would be pleased to have you all in Berlin Sep. 7-9 this year.

 

Also, at a later time I will submit research I completed for another group where I compiled photoblogger info. In the mean time, allow me to suggest My Expressions as a good all-in-one hosted application.

[stunsworth]

I've restarted a picture a week using the Wordpress software - link in my signature. It was recommended by someone I know on the LUG who was also doing a PAW. Setting up the software on my website was very easy, and once set up it only takes a few minutes a week to upload and post the new week's page.

 

I have to say, and I'm not refering to anyone here, most blogs I've bothered to read have been crap. Just because people have a blog doesn't mean they have anything to say, or rather anything worth saying.

[Guest stnami]

I am happy to say that my blog is pretty much as not there at all......................... ............Links that leave omel.........

[carstenw]

Steve, you are very right, and it is partially to avoid falling into such traps that I am interested in having an on-going discussion here. Although I do my best to put up text which is interesting to other photographers, who my blog is primarily aimed at, I have no idea what they think. I am not terribly interested in the average websurfer's opinion, to put it mildly, but a more focused audience like here I think could offer a lot of valuable feedback, to allow me and others to spot their problems and improve their presentation, both text- and image-wise.

[stunsworth]

Carsten, I have to say I've made a concious decision this year to have more text with my picture a week. The last time I did a PAW in 2002 for the most part I restricted myself to a brief descriptive title and listed the equipment/film. I wanted to try and expand on that and provide a little more backround to the photographs I post. As a writer I can only get better <grin>.

[Skippy Sanchez]

Say, Carsten, where did you read the article about "camera tossing?"

 

About five years ago I started saving all those errant images when the shutter accidentally clicked as I'd toss the camera on my car seat or bump the release with my elbow or something while chasing house fires or whatever. (I work for a newspaper, so I toss cameras around every day.)

 

I probably have a couple dozen "accidental exposures" that a gallery owner recently said she'd be interested in showing. I could title the exhibit, "It ain't Art, It was an Accident."

 

-Skippy

[carstenw]

I think it was this month's fotoMagazin, a German publication. If you search for "camera tossing" on Google, you should find some good articles, it is all the rage at the moment

 

Camera Toss (The Blog)

 

Flickr: Camera Toss

 

A CAMERA TOSS INTERVIEW

 

:::: Satugo the worlds first Bouncing ball camera ::::

[Guest sirvine]

Here is my camera tossing experiment (and on my photoblog to stay on topic).

 

solsphere

 

There are about six images in the series. This was shot on Powershot SD300.

[smokysun]

Amazon.com: Looking at Giacometti: Books: David Sylvester

 

here's what giacometti himself says in the interview at the end of the book:

 

 

"While I used to want to travel, these days it makes no difference to me whether I do or not. I am less interested in seeing things because a glass on the table astounds me much more than it used to.

 

"If the glass there in front of me astounds me more than all the glasses I've seen in painting, and if I even think that the greatest architectural wonder of the world couldn't affect me more than this glass, it's really not worth while going to the Indies to see some temple or other when I have as much or more right in front of me. But then, if this glass becomes the greatest wonder of the world, all the glasses on earth equally become the greatest wonder of the world. But so does every other object. So, in limiting yourself to a single glass, you have much more of an idea of every other object than if you wanted to do everything. In having half a centimetre of something, you have more chance of getting some feeling of the universe than if you claim to embrace the whole sky."

 

and here's a photographer who very much approximated this ideal:

 

Amazon.com: JOSEPH SUDEK: POET OF PRAGUE - A PHOTOGRAPHER'S LIFE: Books: JOSEPH). Farova, Anna (SUDEK

 

 

smokysun's heaven

[carstenw]

so, i too have started a blog, more for posting writings though photos also a big part. to go over a mass of past work certainly allows me to be the critic and to see and judge where i succeeded and where i didn't.

 

smokysun's heaven

 

I finally had a spare moment to look at your blog. I must say that I especially like your manipulated portraits. I should try to be less factual myself in my photography, and get more into the message of my images than their factualness, I think. I am too literal.

[carstenw]

My own photoblog is a useful history of my rediscovery of photography generally, and my evolution as a digital rangefinder photographer. The early shots are from my R-D1s days last fall, and then M8 since the start of this year.

 

[...]

 

solsphere

 

P.S. If you are patient enough, you will see my experiments with camera tossing, too. I used the little canon P&S for those though!

 

I just visited your site, and I love your courtyard stitch. It has a very neat feel to it, as well as being technically great. I also love the earlier B&W photo of a fan in a windowsill, as well as some B&W cityscapes. In fact, your B&W work appeals more to me.

 

That is funny, actually, because in a way I have observed the same about my own work. When I develop my pictures, I decide whether to keep the colour or convert to B&W, and at that moment, I am satisfied with my decision. However, when I later go back and look at what I have done, I tend to prefer my B&W work. I need to dig a little deeper here and explore why that might be.

[carstenw]

I am interested in how easy the various systems make it to maintain a blog. My own blog I have designed and built myself, and it relies only on HTML and CSS. I could add some Javascript at some point, if there was a reason, but I would like to keep it simple.

 

- To add a new date, I copy a three line header from the second-most-recent day, and modify the date in three places. Then I update the top entry's date in two places (no "next"). Then I copy an image link from the previous date and modify the filename. Then I type.

 

- To add a new page, I copy the previous page, and remove all the entries except one. Then I modify the tiny table of contents at the top, and then change the current date, and start typing.

 

- To change the look, I need to modify the DIV HTML parts, and the CSS file. The text all stays.

 

With something like Moving Type or Pixelpost, is the amount of work reduced? How easy is it to change from one look to another? How easy is it to add a table of contents, or perhaps some links at the side?

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[ericperlberg]

I am interested in how easy the various systems make it to maintain a blog. My own blog I have designed and built myself, and it relies only on HTML and CSS. I could add some Javascript at some point, if there was a reason, but I would like to keep it simple.

 

- To add a new date, I copy a three line header from the second-most-recent day, and modify the date in three places. Then I update the top entry's date in two places (no "next"). Then I copy an image link from the previous date and modify the filename. Then I type.

 

- To add a new page, I copy the previous page, and remove all the entries except one. Then I modify the tiny table of contents at the top, and then change the current date, and start typing.

 

- To change the look, I need to modify the DIV HTML parts, and the CSS file. The text all stays.

 

With something like Moving Type or Pixelpost, is the amount of work reduced? How easy is it to change from one look to another? How easy is it to add a table of contents, or perhaps some links at the side?

 

Not sure what youu mean by

How easy is it to change from one look to another?

 

but Typepad and Moveable Type and WordPress are template driven through CSS. For WordPress and Moveable Type there is a sizeable community of developers with both free and fee based templates. Even the free ones can be quite elaborate and powerful.

 

Here are some screen shots of my typepad interface, moveable type is very similar:

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

This is what I'd normall work with. To create a new post you click the New Post button which brings up an empty form. You then create your text with the wysiwyg formatting and add your image with the attach image icon.

 

If you prefer to work on the HTML directly you click on the edit HTML tab and go to work.

 

 

Certainly easier than the process you describe. WordPress looks substantially the same.

 

HTH

Eric