Archives for Photography Blogs category

With the end of another year that means a retrospective is needed (blogging requirement I think).  I already gave my favorite Photos of the Day of 2012 from my own blog so I figured I would share the work of others.  There is a lot out there to share.  And although I am a user and fan of Flickr a good place to go beyond the cell phone shots and see some work that is often one notch above the rest is 500px.com.  What’s even better, to make my life easier, they have done the leg work already on their blog and presented a good review of some of the best photography of 2012 (as submitted to their site).  Note, none of these are my photographs and full credit goes to the individual photographers and the editors at the 500px blog.  Also note, I picked some of my favorite categories, but there are more than I list here so be sure to head over to the 500px blog for all the best of the year.

Best of 2012 – Travel

Best of 2012 – City and Architecture

Copyright Elia Locardi

Copyright Elia Locardi

Best of 2012 – Black and White

Best of 2012 – Abstract

Copyright Jared Lim

Copyright Jared Lim

These are three of my favorite categories, but there are many more; commercial, celebrities, concerts (and others that don’t begin with a C).  Check out the 500px blog.  But be careful you could get sucked in a lose a whole day going through this site.

 

I do not know the man, but this is my second post about photographer Thomas Hawk.  It is not a stalker thing, but pure admiration for his body of work which is a source of inspiration for my own photography.  I am constantly amazed by the photography he posts on his website, Thomas Hawk’s Digital Connection as well on his Flickr photostream (of which he is a heavy user).  So here is another unsolicited plug – this is a photographer you should be following.

The blog Graphic Mania has a very well done collection of black and white modern architecture photography.  As Graphic Mania points out, and I agree, using black and white in architectural photography strips away elements that may be distracting, such as color, and leaves only the light, shadow and form of the building.  This really emphasizes the architecture (art) of these structures.  The photographers highlighted in the Graphic Mania post have captured a side of these structures through black and white photography that the casual observer may never see.  This one is worth checking out.

There are daily photo blogs all over the Internet now.  One popular form is the city based blog.  You can find a daily photo blog for almost any city you can think of.  For cities you are familiar with (or even those you are not) it is great to follow photo blogs for cities like Phoenix, New York City and Tucson.  I am particularly fond of www.tucsondailyphoto.com because Tucson is where I grew up and is “home.”

The Tucson blog recently requested submissions from readers so I sent one in and it was posted today.  If you are at all familiar with Tucson, or even if not, this blog is worth taking a look at.

The Art of Non-Conformity, a blog by Chris Guillebeau dedicated to “Unconventional strategies for life, work and travel,” recently did an interview with photographer Thomas Hawk on his quest for 1 million processed photos in his lifetime.  I was inspired.   Thomas Hawk’s photo style and philosophy is similar to my own.  I am not a portrait or wedding photographer and I shoot what I like for the love of photography.  This got me to thinking about what my goal or quest is in respect to my photography.  And at this point I have come up blank.  But I was inspired enough by Thomas’ photography quest to take another look at my photography goals and ambitions.

What is your goal or quest with your photography?

With the recent death of Jim Marshall, a highly regarded photographer who documented much of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, interest in the photography of that era has been on the rise.  Photography played a significant role in documenting the Civil Rights struggle and bringing it to the forefront of America’s consciousness.   The New York Times recently published Civil Rights Battles, in Black and White by David Gonzalez on their blog Lens as a tribute to the photography of the era and its role in the movement.  Well worth checking out.

No Photography SignFirst for a disclaimer; I am in no way condoning taking photographs in places where you see one of these signs.  However, as we see more and more stories in the news (or at least in photography news) about photographer’s rights it is interesting to see the photography of those who do defy the signs.

Strictly No Photography is a collection of photographs taken in places such as museum, churches, concerts and government facilities where photography is forbidden by signs such as this.  They state their mission as: “To organize the world’s forbidden visual information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  As a bit of further defiance, there is also a gallery of “no photography” signs.

How to Implement Search Engine Optimization for Photography Blogs

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of enhancing your web site with the goal of driving more traffic to it.  This is usually associated with moving your site closer to the top of the first page of search engine results so that more people find it and visit it.  Most SEO tips and tricks revolve around optimizing written content for keywords.  For most photo based blogs that presents a bit of a challenge given the minimal written content and focus on the visual.  But there are still several things that you can do to help your photo blog SEO efforts and bring your site closer to the top of the search engine results for keywords that are relevant to your site.

Before  you start to implement any of these Search Engine Optimization tips you will want to have an idea of the keywords that are most important to your site and that you want people to use to find you.  Take some time to figure out what a searcher might be typing into Google or Bing that would be relevant to your site.  Keep in mind that the broader the term the more competition and less likely you are to show up on page one.  For example, photography is a very broad term that could lead to millions of sites.  But Phoenix Arizona architecture photography is much more specific and therefore more likely to work for a site that is focused on this particular type of photography in this region.

Here are five SEO tips for photo blogs that are easy to implement with each post.

  1. Page Title Tags – The title tag is the wording that appears at the top of the search engine page.  It is an important determinant to the search engines as to the content of the site.  Make sure it is descriptive and has one of those keywords you are going after.  But don’t ramble, keep it to about a dozen words give or take a few.
  2. Alt Image Tags – One thing a search engine spider cannot do when crawling a site to determine its content is decipher images.  This can be a problem to a photography blog that is heavy on the images.  But there is a way around this, alt image tags.  This is search engine readable text that describes the photograph in words.  If you are html savvy it can be added as part of the html code or most blogging programs have a way to add alt image tags when uploading images to a post.  The same rules apply to alt image tags as page title tags, make it descriptive and use one of your keywords.
  3. Written Content – Your blog is all about your photography and you don’t want to clutter it up with words.  But written content, to some degree, can be vital to improving your ranking in the search engines.  It is this written content that allow the search engines to crawl your site and figure out what you are about and if you are relevant enough to show for a given search query.  That doesn’t mean you need page after page of babbling text.  But some good, concise, keyword optimized (not keyword stuffed) content describing the images can be very helpful.  Do not shy away from the written word.
  4. Emphasize It – Don’t go crazy with this one, but formatting that makes something stand out to a human eye also makes it stand out to the search engine crawlers.  Bold text and italicized text say “pay attention – this part is important.”  Used correctly it can guide the search engine to the details of a page that are of particular importance to its overall theme.
  5. Inbound Links – The content on your site is important but so is who else thinks your site is important.  The search engines determine this by looking at who is linking back to you.  High quality sites that link to your site can be gold.  You have to do some leg work and more than just comment on other blogs with a link to your site.  Get your web site out there.  Do guest posts, use Twitter, Facebook and other social media, discuss on forums, befriend other bloggers.  Get people talking about and linking to your site.

Bonus – Meta Descriptions – Although most search engines no longer use meta descriptions as a factor in determining the relevance and rank of a website they can still be a useful tool.  They are often used as the site description on the search engine results page (SERP) which means you can control those few lines of text that searchers see as the description of what your site is about when your page comes up in the search engines.  If you tie in some of those keywords that you are trying to rank for and it is one of the words the searcher used they get bolded.  That means you site could stand out a bit more as being the one that is relevant to what your searcher is looking for.

Beyond Megapixels had a very timely post for me recently on Curing Photographer’s Block.  There are times when I head out with camera in hand and nothing inspires me.  I may try to shoot something hoping for the best but come back with an empty memory card or images that are uninspiring.  Tiffany at Beyond Megapixels offers 5 great tips for getting beyond the block and back to shooting.  If you don’t have her blog on your reader be sure to add it.  It is well written and offers some great tips and information on photography.

I personally think New York City is one of the most photographic cities in the world.  Especially if you have an affinity for urban and architectural photography.  I came across a photo blog that features daily photographs from NYC photographer Joseph Holmes recently.  It is well worth checking out and subscribing to the feed.  His work is amazing.

Joe’s NYC