Getting more out of Flickr

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How I’m getting more out of Flickr

I have a free account with Flickr at the moment. And I am finding more and more ways that Flickr can help my photography skills and my communication and networking with others.

I have found that Flickr groups are great for this, and makes Flickr a truly interactive photo sharing site. It was just a case of choosing a group or groups that I wanted to join and then I could join in with the discussions and submit photos or do the challenges. Finding other photographers and commenting on their photographs has givien me inspiration and taught me a lot.

Free account or Pro

What I have now realised is that a free account while free, and giving immediate access to the Flickr network does have it’s limitations. Like a 200 photo upload limit that can be viewed and a limit of 3 sets per account. This wasn’t something I had thought about when I opened the account as I was going to be using it for my Project 365 so I didn’t over load my blog (this one). But now I want to share more than just my Project 365.

I was starting to wonder why there was a lot of pro accounts around and now I know why. With a pro accont there is unlimited uploads and sets and stats etc…

I don’t want to sell the pro account here, but I am going to upgrade my account because Flickr has become a more important tool for me than I expected it to be. So I want to continue to use it to it’s full potential and not be restricted. Of course there is a fee for this of $24.95 for a 1 year account (not too bad).

My Flickr groups (at the moment):

Learning photography with Neil Creek
Project 365
Your Photo Tips

My Flickr Photostream

Mandy

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Welcome To The New Look TPB

Welcome to the new look for The Photographer Blog, it’s a completely new design for the blog making it more of a ’site’ than just a blog on it’s own. Which will give me the opportunity to display more content easier, and allow me to add some new features as well.

It’s taken a while to choose the design and decide on how things were going to look, but I am very pleased with the result. There are still some tweaks to be made but I wanted to get it back online as soon as possible. Some of the new features to check out are:

A separate home page and blog page

There is now a Home Page where you will find some of the new features like the featured video. The TPB blog can now be found on the Blog Page. These can be easily found in the navigation at the top of the site.

A featured video on the home page

The home page now has a featured video about Digital Photography from You Tube, which will change on a regular basis.

The latest from my Flickr account on the home page

I now have a feed across the middle of the home page showing the latest images in my Flickr account.

RSS subscription still available from every page

If you would like to stay up-to-date with what is happening on The Photographer Blog then you can do that by subscribing to my RSS Feed. Either by choosing an option from the eNews and Updates on the top of the sidebar on the blog page, or by the white icons at the very top right of any page, or last but not least there’s also a subscribe page just in case you wanted another option!

I will be adding a newsletter and hopefully a gallery soon, so as the new features are added I will post an update about them.

But for now I hope you enjoy the site as much as I have building it, please feel free to have a look around and let me know what you think (or let me know what doesn’t work!).

Mandy

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Finding a Good Photography Project

There are loads of good photography projects around. There are a couple of regular ones on blogs that I follow that I like to take part in, like at Neil Creek’s blog. But he hasn’t got one on this month so I’m looking for something new to try.

I also take part in some Flickr group projects that I’ve joined recently which are normally weekly, and then there’s always my Project 365, so doing something else as well could be too much.

But I’ve just come across a new site called Photo Challenge which runs monthly projects (every other month). In July the project is Lighting Fixtures, shooting one daily throughout the month and submitting it to the group. I love lights and lighting so this one definitely appealed to me, and although I found it a little late I’m going to give it go.

Mandy

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TPB Monthly Round Up #5

This is the monthly round up for June. I think the service I have used the most this month and got the most out of is Flickr, I have learned so much about it and used it so much this month, that I want to share some of the information I found:

I have started using and being active in Flickr Groups this month, which I think are one of the best features of Flickr. The one that got me started was a new one called Learning Photography with Neil Creek which I am really enjoying. I’m meeting lots of like minded people who have a fantastic selection of photographs, and I’m having a great time getting to know them. I definitely recommend joining a group, I had followed Neil’s blog for some time though so I had an idea the group would be good!

The Flickr groups have been a great place to find other really good photography blogs. Here’s one I found through Neil’s group: Your Photo Tips which also has it’s own Flickr group. So I think the overall benefit I like the best about Flickr, is it’s fantastic networking opportunities.

All this talk about photographs has got me joining another photography project over at Adidap - All Day I Dream About Photography. This time the goal was to take a photograph or your bedroom or something that is in your bedroom (always). This was a bit challenging as the bedroom is quite a personal space, but I gave it a go anyway…

Mandy

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How to Easily GeoTag Your Photographs

I’ve had a comment on a recent photograph that I uploaded to my Flickr account, it was actually my Shoe Project photograph, and Neil Creek was asking me to Geotag it so he could see where it had been taken.

There was only one problem, I had no idea how to Geotag my photographs. I just never tried before because I thought you could only do it with special gear and a GPS, which I don’t have and I am not planning on getting.

What is Geotagging?

Simply put it is the process of adding geographical data to a photograph including longitude and latitude coordinates. Basically telling the world where you took that photo!

How do I do it?

So after this comment I decided I had to have a go. So that meant seeing what it was all about and how I could do it.

From what I can tell (on Flickr anyway) there’s two ways to Geotag photographs and I’m going to be looking at the second one, because I feel it’s the best method as anyone can use it:

1. Use a GPS device and associated kit adding it to the image file
2. Find the location manually on the Flickr map and add them yourself

Aah, so there is another way! And whats more it’s really easy to do with no special gear required. There’s even a handy video to show you how you can Geotag your photos by adding them to the map. It’s basically just a drag and drop in the Map tab in the Organiser.

I didn’t know I could do this with Flickr (or even that the help section was so good) so it just shows how good it can be to have a little look around sometimes.

Geotagging is great fun, and another way for people to find your photographs. Give it a go!

Mandy

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Iron Chef Photography: Shoe Project

Do you enter Photography Projects?

There are lots of photography projects around to participate in covering just about everything. So far I’ve only submitted to one project back in March but I want to do more, I think they are a great way to learn and challenge myself. So I’ve entered another one…

Above is my entry for Neil Creek’s Iron Chef Photography: Shoe Project that he runs on his blog. Submissions have now closed for this one, but that means the voting is about to start (and will end on 29th June).

The aim of the project besides taking photographs of shoes was to tell a story with the photograph. And that is what I have tried to do. I did actually climb the hill, and then took my shoes off to take the photograph of them!

It was very simple to enter the project, I just had to upload the image to my flickr account and then enter the address on the form. But it could have been on my blog or on any other photo management site as well.

There’s a public vote for entries as well as the judges vote so you may like to drop by and take a look?

Mandy

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My First Month of Project 365!

Well I have finished the first month of my Project 365, the first milestone. I’ve uploaded all my photos to my Flickr account, except two which I took on my mobile phone, I’m still looking for the lead to upload them to my computer!

I’m not doing a specific project 365, like a self portrait one. I’m more documenting my year where possible and the things around me. Which is really interesting. Some days are harder than others when thinking of something to shoot, but it’s challenging and making me look for photo opportunities everywhere.

So much for this photo a day thing, I never realised that to get that one photo I was going to have to take so many! But because I am taking so many photos I feel I am starting to improve and I’m learning a lot, as well as getting better at spotting photo opportunities.

I’m really enjoying it, and just looking back at last month is rewarding and gets me excited for this month.

Here are three of my favourites from this month, if you would like to see more then take a look at my Flickr account.

Mandy

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TPB Monthly Round Up #3

Here’s the TPB monthly round up for March, doesn’t time fly!

I’ve found some really interesting information this month, so without waffling on too much about it here they are:

You may have heard me talking about the Photography 101 course that I am following on The Digital Photography School blog, well they are written by an Austrailian photographer called Neil Creek who has his own blog and is also part of the new fine art photoblog. Both sites are really good with some fantastic photographs, I could learn a lot from these guys.

I’ve also opened my first Flickr account this month for sharing my Photo 365 pictures, I knew nothing about Flickr before this month, and I’m finding it to be a really useful and easy to use photo management system. It’s full of features and I’m sure it will take a while for me to get acquainted with them. I’m hoping to set up my flickr photo stream on my blog, so we’ll see how long it takes me to figure that one out!

And last but not least I have discovered Squidoo, well I’ve known about it but I haven’t used it until this month. It’s a service where you can set up a web page or ‘lens’ for free to do with an interest or hobby or just about absolutely anything you fancy. So I have started some on photography, it’s a great way to promote a blog or site that you are involved with and would like more people to know about. You can make as many ‘lenses’ as you like and change them as often as you like so it’s nice and flexible.

Mandy

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What is a pinhole camera?

Until this week I didn’t really know much about pinhole camera’s, ok I knew they were one of the first types of camera’s and very basic using a hole instead of a lens. But I had no idea what the photographs looked like or how you made and used one.

What is a pinhole camera?

It is the simplest of image making devices, it’s basically a light tight box with a small hole in one end, on the opposite side of the box is photographic film or paper which records the image (or light) that passes through the hole. Due to the way in which light behaves the image appears up side down on the back side of the box. I heard about them from the Photography 101 course I am following on the Digital Photography School blog which I talked about in my last post.

So how do you make one?

I had an image in my head of a pinhole camera being very old and made out of polished wood! I was amazed when I found out they are used widely today and can be made out of just about any kind of box or can. So much for what I know! There are loads of great pinhole images on flickr if you want to see what they look like.

You can buy kits that you can build yourself which sounds kind of cool, I like the idea of making a camera from scratch and then taking photos with it. And there are loads of different kits around to choose from. Take a look at these examples, pinhole camera kits.

Or you can make one from scratch out of household things, people have made pinhole cameras out of coffee tins, cereal boxs, cookie tins by the sound of it pretty much anything. Take a look:

Oatmeal box pinhole camera
Pinhole polaroid camera
Pringles pinhole camera

This is definitely the hands on technique, but I’m not sure about working out (and getting it right) the exposure time by measuring the size of the hole against the distance from the hole to the film. It sounds like a little bit of trial and error, but that’s what this type of photography is all about doing it completely from scratch, and knowing you really did create the image!

I never considered using a pinhole camera before, but I’m really interested to have a go now!

Mandy

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My Project 365 is Live

This is my first photograph for my Project 365. Which was taken on a trip to the park on Saturday, and is off a Canadian goose who was looking a little sad and dejected in the cold and wind.

Starting the Project 

I started my Project 365 on 1st March 2008 and have been taking a photo a day ever since (a whole 4 days - so far so good). So only 361 days to go!

I’m not too worried about thinking of photos to take, not at the moment anyway I’m only 4 days in and still confident. I think I’m more worried about forgetting to take one.

I am going to keep notes on what I take each day, like a mini diary so I don’t duplicate anything. And also it will compliment the photos nicely as a document for the year.

Sharing the photos 

I talked the other day about Flickr and possibly uploading the photos to an account there to share them. Well I have set up a Flickr account and uploaded the first photograph. There are loads of different features that I am starting to get to grips with, and being a Flickr newbie I will share them here as I go along. I will probably upload the photos in weekly batch’s at first to see how that goes rather than daily. And I will post once a month here to share how it is going.

A little inspiration 

For a bit of inspiration here are some other photographers that have taken the Project 365 challenge on:

Sandy 365
Carol365
Nicole365

I am looking forward to this project and committing to it for a year, and also looking forward to seeing how I have changed by the end of it!

Mandy

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