Looking for Something?
New Media Expo Blog
Navigation
  • Posts Tagged "digital photography"
Posts Tagged for

digital photography

Putting Pen to Paper: P H O T O G R A P H Y

Author:

Have you ever had a challenging time coming up with a blog topic? Everyone has a different way to jumpstart their juices. I simply take notes (yes, actually take to paper, pen in hand) and jot what comes to mind. So if you’re at a complete stop, simply grab a piece of paper, then start jotting anything that comes to you. Every dot is a powerful connector.

I love photography, so I decided to jot down each letter to jumpstart this post about my inspiration for taking photographs. Perhaps one of the letters will stick-to-mind on your next jaunt into the world of photography, or in your own writing discovery.

P-H-O-T-O-G-R-A-P-H-Y

Passion: everything that gives this little planet a voice excites me. I am always present-minded aware that life is fleeting. It gives me that sense of urgency to capture unique moments of truth.

 Autumn Rainbow

 

Honesty: many people ask me if I “stage” my subject. I am a true believer in what you see in that moment is truth, and I want to snap it and share it, exactly how it presents in front of me.

Asbury Park Americana

 

Opportunity: opportunity is all around you. Look down, to the side, up. Frame a spot catching your eye. And snap the shot. Right place, right time.

Three Umbrellas

 

Timing: sometimes you’re simply in the right place at the right time. And, sometimes you’re not. So create that timing. When you anticipate that perfect moment wait, patiently… patiently.. patiently… then snap your shot!

Tent Sweet Tent

OOH!: it’s that feeling: “STOP THE CAR” ~ you just *have* to stop what you’re doing, grab your camera and take the shot. There’s nothing like the feeling that you captured a moment no one else had the chance to see, and immediate need to share it!

Sandy Moment

 

Gratitude: when I’m in the right place at the right time; when I upload my photos to my computer then discover the camera captured something I didn’t see, I say “thank you” aloud to The Universe.

Kiss

Readiness: goes without saying.  A photographer is *always* ready to take the shot. Whether it be camera-in-hand or simply cell phone with camera, anything with a lens, and memory.

Grandfather

Amazement: I truly am amazed by life. Its design, texture, color, shape, expression. Everyday is a day of wonderment and inspiration to capture that moment.

Celebration

 

Patience: admittedly, not my strongest ability, though, interestingly, if I anticipate that perfect shot, I can hold tight and still for as long as it takes.

Effervescent Rainbow

 

Happy: the moment I have the opportunity of time to grab my camera and head outdoors to shoot, I’m happy, and all in the world is good.

Serenity

 

Yay! The feeling of sharing my photos and seeing a person’s eyes light up and say “Wow! I love this!” It gives me complete joy to evoke emotion with a photograph. It gives me a true sense of accomplishment and confirmation of purpose in the art of photography.

Snowswept Beach

 

So if you find yourself at full-stop on ideas for starting your post, or you’re a budding photographer interested in looking for a way, or reason to begin, simply grab your pen, and sheet of paper. Your mind already knows the answer; it just needs the pen and paper to jot the “how to” and then, you’re on your way!

Do you have more tricks for coming up with, and moving ideas ahead?

5 Fun Digital Photo Effects Apps for the iPhone/iPad

Author:

We all know how important multi-media elements are to a blog post. Using digital photography is a great way to quickly obtain images relevant to a post. I use my phone constantly to snap pictures, and since I just got the iPhone 4 I’ve been playing around with all the fun photo effects apps! First I’m testing the free ones, and then I’ll see about upgrading.

Here are 5 fun apps for digital photo effects and my thoughts on each. For each app I used the same picture of a single rose stalk in my backyard that blooms four roses at a time!

Instagram:
I love the retro feel of the photo effects in this app! You can choose to take a new picture or use existing ones from your camera. Once you’re done zooming and cropping you can add one of a dozen effects and then share via Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or email. This picture uses the Hefe setting.

Color Effects:
Turn your photo to black and white, and then color select portions of the picture for accent. You can also change the color to a different one altogether. Note: After testing this out, I suggest zooming in several times to get into tight spaces for coloring!

Fotolr PS:
This app is like having a digital scrapbook tool in your pocket! You can edit portraits by adding/editing eyebrows, changing the hairstyle or color, removing acne, adding makeup and more. After you’re done you can add a frame or text and then place your photo into one of several scenes or backgrounds. That’s what I did here:

Comic Touch Light:
Along with a couple of effects, the best part of this app is the ability to add comic/thought/speech bubbles to your photos! The full version offers even more capability.

Old Photo Pro:
Select a picture and this app immediately converts it to look like an old photo. You can then tweak the brightness, contrast, and/or change the paper edges until it looks like it’s ready to slip into a frayed album.

What are your favorite photo effects apps?

5 Ways Photographers Can Build a Strong Online Following through Social Media

Author:

… by Eric Kim

Nowadays, almost anyone can be a photographer. With falling prices for DSLR’s and other cameras, everybody and their uncle bob can take impressive photos. Not only that, but there is a plethora of sites for photography such as photo blogs, Flickr, and Facebook. To say the least, it is very difficult to set yourself apart from other photographers let alone build a strong online following.

I faced this problem when I started shooting photography. I wanted to share my photographs with the world, so I created a website and hosted my photos—expecting everybody to come to me. As Ray Liotta famously said in the film Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” However, in the digital age, this is no longer the case. I grew more and more disappointed as time passed and I didn’t get nearly as many pageviews and comments on my site as I dreamed. It took a lot of asking around, personal experience, and trial and error before I figured out my fatal flaws in my attempts to build an online community for photography.

In this post, I will share with you my personal successful methods to build a strong online following through social media.

Create friends:
Social networks online work very similarly to those offline. If you want consistent views/comments on your photography, you need to have friends and a network. You cannot expect other people to give you feedback if you don’t give feedback to others. And in order to have friends online, it takes hard work and time. Comment on the works of others, and also communicate with them through Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and blogs.

 
Think about it, who are the best friends—the ones that always talk about themselves or those who want to hear your input and suggestions as well? Relationships are always a two-way street.

 

Promote the work of others:
Nowadays everybody wants to be a star. However the problem with this is that nobody likes blatant self-promoters. Rather than trying vigorously to promote your own work, focus more on others and the community. If you have a blog, feature other photographers. This has many strengths. First of all, you will build a stronger connection with other people—who might mention your generosity to their own online networks. And ultimately by highlighting the work of other photographers, your work will be better known as well. And most of all, it feels great to help others through building an online community.

 

Ask for the input of others:
On my Facebook fan page, I always try to spur discussions by asking the input of others. Instead of simply showing your work and telling people to check it out, ask them what they think about your photos. Ask them what they like and possibly what could use improvement.

 
Create discussions by asking people’s opinion about certain topics. For example, you can ask: “What do you prefer, color or black and white?” This is a topic that many people have a strong opinion on, and creating a lively debate is often good.

 

Be consistent:
Although it is not necessary that you post new photographs or blog posts everyday, it is important that you are consistent. For example, if you regularly post three times a week (Monday, Wed, and Friday) and suddenly you quit posting for a week or two, all of the people who check out your site will no longer be interested and never come back.

 
Although it is difficult to be consistent with photography, you cannot rely on inspiration alone. As Chuck Close famously said, “Inspiration is for amateurs, and the rest of us just show up and get to work.” There will be days where you won’t want to go out and shoot or upload your work. However being consistent is crucial.

 

Stand out:
There are millions of photographers out there—what differentiates you from the rest of them? This can be accomplished by several ways:

  • Stick to a genre of photography: Keep your portfolio consistent by only showing photos of either nature, portraits, or urban images. A cluttered portfolio looks unprofessional and you won’t be very memorable.
  • Define your style: Don’t make your images look like everybody else’s. Either choose a radical type of post-processing or show your color through your writing.
  • Be controversial: It is not good to always be wishy-washy in what you believe in. If you think that film is awesome and digital sucks, vocalize that. If you think that film is played out and just for hipsters, say the same. Controversy always attracts attention and will make you much better known.

So what tips do you have to build a strong online presence through social media? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts!

Eric Kim is an international street photographer based in Los Angeles. He has traveled all around the world, shooting photography in places such as Paris, London, Prague, Venice, and Seoul. Furthermore, he recently taught a street photography workshop in Beirut, Lebanon and currently runs a popular street photography blog as well. You can see his work here and also follow him on Facebook, Flickr, or Twitter.

The iPad 2 – I Want it For Only One Reason. The Camera

Author:

I have an iPad. I use it for a multitude of applications, including blogging. But the one thing that drives me crazy is the lack of a camera. I include an image in every single post, and it would be so much easier to snap a photo with the iPad instead of having to use a work-around!

Of course I want the new iPad. Not for the memory or the thinner design (I actually prefer a bulky, sturdy version for my 3-year-old who likes to throw it across the room). Just for the camera.

But, for those of you who care about the other aspects, here are the details on the new iPad 2:

  • Main CPU is a dual core A5 processor – up to 2 times faster than the original iPad.
  • New graphics processor that’s 9 times faster than the original iPad.
  • Built-in cameras for photos and video: One for frontal FaceTime videoconferencing and one on the back.
  • Built-in gyroscope, like the iPhone 4.
  • Thickness: 8.8 mm (down from 13.4 mm)
  • Weight: 1.3 pounds (down from 1.5 pounds)

The price and color options will remain the same. And it

So when is it coming out? March 11th and the 3G model will be available on both AT&T and Verizon networks.

Will you be grabbing one?

Sources: MacWorld, NY Times and Mashable

Image Manipulation Tricks For Bloggers!

Author:

… by Aaron Hockley

You’re a blogger and probably aren’t a professional graphic artist, but you know how important it is to include images with your blog posts. Stock photos are often boring so you want to show off some of your own photos. Let’s take a look at four options for image manipulation that don’t involve the huge learning curve or capital investment of full-blown Photoshop.

  • Picnik (online, free) – Picnik is a decent image editor that can crop, resize, and perform global color adjustments to images online. If you use Flickr, you’ll find Picnik integration is built-in (on the Actions menu above a photo, choose Edit Photo in Picnik.
  • Adobe Photoshop Elements (Windows, Mac, $72) – unlike its $700 big brother, Photoshop Elements doesn’t attempt to edit the kitchen sink. That said, if you’re a casual photographer preparing images for the web, odds are that you’ll be able to do everything you’ll want from this basic version of Photoshop. Based on the full Photoshop application, Photoshop Elements packs tons of useful features. Cropping, color adjustments, layers, cloning, image stitching and more can all be found. If you’re going to do much with photos, I strongly recommend Photoshop Elements as the best all-around image editing tool for casual photographers.
  • GIMP – GNU Image Manipulation Program (Windows, Mac, Linux, free) – The GIMP is a powerful open source image editing program that’s evolved in a fashion that provides a substantial portion of the functionality of Adobe Photoshop. While it’s powerful, I see two things that might turn someone off about GIMP. The first is that (just like the full version of Photoshop) all of that power involves a pretty steep learning curve. The second is that as an open source project that wants to be like Photoshop, you’ll find that it’s just different enough that most Photoshop tutorials won’t directly translate or apply (which helps contribute to that steep learning curve).
  • Paint.NET (Windows, free) – Paint.NET is another open source image editing program – this one based on Microsoft’s .NET software development framework. If you’re a Windows user, check it out since it offers a great set of features for that platform. While it doesn’t have quite as many features or polish as Photoshop Elements, for the types of tasks that bloggers often need (resizing, cropping, perhaps a black and white conversion, sharpening) you’ll probably find that Paint.NET can meet most of your needs.

What tools have you used? What are the best ways you’ve found to get images ready for your blog?

Aaron Hockley is a Portland-area photographer who also blogs about the photography ry and speaks about the intersection of social media and photography. Follow Aaron on Twitter.

Photographs Can Equal Repeat Visitors!

Author:

… by Teresa Boardman

The humble still image is a powerful social object. People simply love photographs of just about anything. Flickr, the popular image sharing web site, flourishes because it is a social network based on photography. The images range from on-the-spot shots taken with camera phones to professional quality images taken with high end DLSR cameras, and everything in between.

The internet is visual and Google loves images. Yet as I attend WordCamps and bar camps for bloggers there is rarely a session that has anything to do with still photography. There are often sessions for how to use video in blog posts but rarely still photography.

This year at BlogWorld there were a couple of sessions that were related to travel photography and I attended them all and learned from the travel industry. They know that to effectively advertise hotels and travel destinations they need amazing photographs and they know how to leverage photographs to attract customers.

It isn’t just the travel industry that can benefit from photography – it can be used to sell any idea or business! Yet still images are often of poor quality or missing from business blogs and web sites. Businesses can benefit from high quality photography and use it to attract patrons.

It is hard to understand why someone would pay a designer to design a site but will not take the time to find some great photos for it or hire someone to take them. Chances are, anyone visiting the site will notice the photographs before they see the design or read the content, and it is the photos that will grab their attention and keep them on the site.

Photographs are like glue on a blogs, they can keep readers on the site and they are like magnets that keep people coming back.

If you are involved in organizing a bar camp or word camp or conferences for bloggers consider offering sessions on photography, photo blogging, and mobile blogging and how to use Flickr. Photographs can be the foundation of a solid social media marketing plan. It has worked well for me for years. The people who read my blogs may forget what they read but they remember the photographs and they remember me because of them.

Take advantage of the humble low tech and inexpensive still image as a way to attract blog readers. Photographs are social and they are media. Maybe in 2011 there will be more photography related sessions at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo.

Teresa Boardman Realtor/Broker with St. Paul Home Realty.  Serial blogger, writer and photographer and founder of the award winning St. Paul Real Estate Blog in 2005.  Her blog started as an experiment in online marketing and is used today as an example of the best practices in real estate blogging. Boardman also writes a weekly column for Inman News and is the author of the St. Paul Photo Blog.

More Than Words: Better Blogging with Photos

Author:

Aaron Hockley
Photography Tips for a New Media World
Room: Tradewinds A & B/10
Friday, October 15 2010
Time: 11:00am-12:00pm

You’ve heard the tips from various sources about how photos can be used to liven up your blog posts. Whether they’re supporting material for a text post or standing on their own as content, photos and other graphics give a bit of pop to the otherwise mostly-textual web.

Today’s point-and-shoot and DSLR cameras offer great resolution and all sorts of features for prices that are lower than ever. You’ve decided (rightly so) that taking your own photos means you’ll have more authentic and unique content than if you find images elsewhere for your site…

… but then you realize that your photos might suck.

It’s okay. You’re headed in the right direction, and it’s not hard to polish off your social media photo skills. Here are a few tips to up your game:

  • Before shooting: Don’t obsess about camera gear. 99% of the cameras are better than 99% of the photographers. Whether you have a point-and-shoot, a fancy DSLR, or a camera phone, you have what you need to get started creating images. Since you’re here reading the BlogWorld blog, I suspect that you’re amongst the digitally-savvy… your iPhone or Android smartphone probably has a camera capable of great images.
  • When shooting: Fill the frame. Get close so that your subject fills most of the viewfinder. There’s an old photo adage that says when you think you’re close enough, get closer. For photos embedded into blog posts this is even more true – you’ll want your subject to take up all of the screen real estate that it can.
  • When embedding: Bigger is better. You went to the effort to create a nice photograph; don’t lessen the impact by only showing a 100 pixel thumbnail. There’s a reason why Flickr’s “small” size is 240 pixels – I consider that the minimum for effective use in a blog post.
  • When inviting engagement: Instead of just posting a photo as supporting material on your blog or Facebook page, put up an interesting picture and ask readers to come up with a caption. Folks can invent some hilarious captions and you’re sure to get a variety of responses. You can do it as a contest with a prize or not… either way you’ll get people talking about your article and picture.

If you’re interested in more tips both for photography and how to use photos on your blog and social media outposts, join me along with Kris Krug for our BlogWorld session called Photography Tips for a New Media World. Kris will be diving into a bunch of advice and secrets for creating better photos and I’ll be talking about getting those photos online and how to best integrate them with social media to drive interest and engagement.

Aaron Hockley is a photographer and blogger who has been involved with social media since 2002. He attends and speaks at various new media conferences and is often quoted and consulted on the use of social media by the photography industry. Follow along with Aaron on Twitter (@hockley) or keep up with his latest musings at Picture Pundit. He can be reached by email at aaron@hockleyphoto.com.

Learn About NMX

NEW TWITTER HASHTAG: #NMX

Recent Comments

Categories

Archives