Miles’ Blog » Photography

With exactly a month remaining before Web Directions South 2007 starts, I thought I’d have some fun on the fact that there’s always seemingly more cameras than actual people at these conferences, by starting a fun photo meme…

The object of this meme is to browse Flickr for photographic evidence that you’ve been to previous years of Web Directions, and link to as many of these offending images as you can.

The funnier (or dodgier) the photo, the better.

Once you’ve done this, you then need to encourage three others to do the same. How? Well, by linking to their photos of course. Sorry fellow West Coast Bloggers, Myles, Nick and Kay, I hope you’ll play?

Image: Charger Tyre & Sky, Perth Airport.

Now, I’m not too sure how long I’ll keep this up for, as I am known not to continue these projects, but here’s a photoblog I have put together, with some of my recent favourite images.

As previously posted, I have decided to try using Wordpress, since I know it well, with some modifications to make it into a working photoblog. There’s a few small bugs, but nothing major - let me know if you notice any weirdness at all, or have any suggestions.

I look forward to your feedback on the photos!

Image: Disused Fire Station Doors.

A few years ago, I had a photoblog. I tried a few different systems trying to find one I liked. Before that, I had a photo gallery (also using a half dozen scripts to trial it), and I’ve also had a Flickr account.

I love taking photos, and I love sharing them. I’m not sure why I find it so hard to find one method of sharing them that I am happy with. There’s plenty of options out there, but none that make me really excited.

Most gallery systems make them look very ‘file and directory’, where you see a stack of thumbnails, click on the thumb to see the larger image, and at the same time, see all of this EXIF and other data, which I personally don’t need to see.

Gallery Software (web based)
Coppermine
Gallery

Gallery Software (offline and web)
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Google Picasa

Then there’s photoblogs, which typically show you a large image, and you click on the image to see the day before, and before that. There’s also the standard blog layout, with an emphasis on the photos, and maybe some text. You can even go the free hosted versions as well.

Popular Photoblog software
Blogger.com (hosted)
Movable Type
Pixelpost
Wordpress
Wordpress (hosted)

There’s Photo sharing community sites popping up everywhere now, after the success of Flickr, however they typically have adwords or banners or some form of advertising to make up for the fact the majority of them are free. Flickr does not allow any layout changes, so that’s off my list (I mean, who doesn’t have a Flickr account?).

Examples include:
Flickr
Photo Bucket
SmugMug
Twango
Zooomr

Then there’s photo printing sites, which allow you to share and have galleries, however their main purpose is selling you prints, hats, etc. They typically all look the same, and they are fairly heavy on the sell.

Examples are:
Kodak Gallery
PhotoSite
Shutterfly
Snapfish
Webshots

What I have been currently working on, is getting a Wordpress theme to my liking, set up to look more ‘photoblog’ than blog. Knowing me, I’ll change it in a few months, however now I’m working on getting the photos uploaded, and then I’ll share what ended up working for me.

How do you share your photographs?

Image: An Australian Flag tattoo on my 3 year old daughter for Australia Day.

After my recent purchase of a Canon EOS400D, I’ve become reluctant to spend time writing, and over eager to spend time taking photographs instead.

Here’s my 3 year old daughter, Leia, after an hour of painting pictures on her easel in our backyard. The hands tell the story.

Image: Leia’s hands after painting.

So, I got a new toy on Friday, a long awaited Canon EOS 400D. A serious digital SLR, instead of the compact Sony DSC-V1 that has been my trusty friend for the last three years.

A crazy increase from 5.0 megapixels to 10.1 megapixels goes to show where technology has headed over the last three years. Now I just hope that my storage keeps up with my requirements. At 3mb per image in JPG format, the EOS400D can certainly chew up hard drive space, especially when I shoot 509 pictures in the first three days.

It’s about time I stepped out of my comfort zone with my photography, and started learning more about exposure, speeds, ISO, etc.

The pic above shows you what I was shooting on Sunday - the Red Bull Air Race came to Perth, Western Australia for the final stage of the 2006 World Series. An estimated 300,000 turned up on the banks of the Swan River to watch it, and a further 11 million watched it around the globe. An amazing new sport, completely created by a company looking for a sport to sponsor and promote - those marketing propeller heads at Red Bull are onto a winner.

Image: Michael Goulian in 2006 Red Bull Air Race, Perth WA.