Never was there a time when it was so easy or inexpensive to create a great-looking website than right now. I created my own site (www.joefarace.com) using a WordPress template from Obox (www.obox-design.com) that’s hosted on GoDaddy.com and the whole magilla cost a little over $100—along with lots of my own time. What about your site? If you read Web Profiles regularly you know that from time to time I like to feature Shutterbug readers and if you would like to see your website or blog featured here, click my site’s Contact button and tell me about it.
I said it last month but it bears repeating: “Never was there a time when it was so easy or inexpensive to create a great-looking website than right now.” Yet one emerging trend is to pack as much text onto the opening screen as possible and if a picture must be used it should be tiny and maybe show a portrait of the photographer. There’s an old joke whose punch line is, “First, you have to get their attention.” That’s true of websites as well. That landing page should be your signature image—that gasp factor—that makes the viewer look, linger, and want to see more. Give it a try.
Thanksgiving Day is celebrated in the United States and Canada, although up North it’s the second Monday in October. Other places around the world observe Thanksgiving celebrations as well and I’d like to celebrate it here by thanking the people who make this column possible. Big thanks goes to Editorial Director George Schaub and Managing Editor Andrea Keister, who occasionally suggest sites for the column but mostly just make me look good. A big thank you goes out to all of the magazine’s readers for their support over the years. In recent issues I haven’t had as many Shutterbug Reader-of-the-Month sites but I’ll make up for it this month, starting with…
I only get to be in touch with you once a month through this column and Digital Innovations, but if you want more frequent reports, you can follow me on Twitter (www.twitter.com/joefarace) for daily updates on what’s new in digital imaging along with a dash of silliness. What’s more, my how-to blog (www.joefaraceblogs.com) has been restructured to feature a different topic each day of the week, such as Macro Monday, Travel Tuesday, and because I ran out of alliterations, Landscape Wednesday, Automobile Thursday, and Portraits and Glamour Friday.
"The first step in blogging is not writing them but reading them."--Jeff Jarvis
Twice in the past I've tried to create a blog and failed miserably each time, perhaps because the blogging sites, not me, controlled the software used to create and maintain them. Recently my pal Ralph Nelson (
His Master's Voice The simplicity of Blake Shaw's homepage (www.blakeshawphotography.com) hits you over the head with a soft hammer belying the complex imagery within. The...
"...anyone can write a nonfiction piece. In fact, all nonfiction writing was just `What I Did Last Summer' over and over again."--Evan Hunter writing as Ed McBain
After returning from a trip to Puerto Rico last year I tried a small venture in self-publishing, resulting in a 7x7" travel photography book. It's like a micro-sized...
“To the complaint, ‘there are no people in these photographs,’ I respond, ‘there are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.’”—Ansel Adams
It’s June, a month of brides and Shutterbug’s Digital Darkroom special issue. In this month’s edition of Web Profiles, I’ll introduce you to a website created by an amazing...
“Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted.”—Krista Now, Southland Tales
When Olympus announced the Four Thirds concept at PMA 2001, I was among the many members of the press who were, to put it in the most polite terms, skeptical. At the time, it seemed to me like a cure for no known disease, but I began to get...
The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.--Augustine
Of all the things photography does, showing us distant lands was one of its earliest functions. Before direct flights to Beijing, the first photographs of China that appeared in National Geographic gave readers a sense of what the country was like, even though few would ever make the trip. Two...
I’m often asked how photographers can have their website appear in this column, so I decided to offer some advice that even if it doesn’t get you featured in Web Profiles will improve the quality of your site.
Don’t use Flash. It may be fun, but why spend time and money to limit the number of people who can view it? Using Flash means literally millions of iPhone and iPad users can’t see your site.
Avoid the temptation to fill the site with graphics that compete with your photographs. First impressions count and you want visitors to focus on your images.
“Get your pretty little portfolio off my desk before I go into a diabetic coma.”—J. Jonah Jameson to Peter Parker
In case you forgot (or maybe didn’t know), Peter Parker a.k.a. Spiderman is a freelance newspaper photographer; one of the highlights of the movies to me is the off-handedly whimsical way his editor, J. Jonah Jameson, treats him, but it never stops...
"But when television is bad, nothing is worse...a vast wasteland."--Newton Minow
In his now famous speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, the FCC's Minow may have quoted Edward Estlin Cummings but he was on-target in addressing the state of television in 1961. I have to wonder what he would think about the visual and aural...
It’s hard for me to believe that it’s November already. As I write this, the trees and plants on Daisy Hill are still in full bloom but this column gives me an opportunity to thank a few people who have helped me over this year. Thanks to Tim Fiedler (www.dracophoto.com) who is responsible for the redesign and implementation of my car photography website and blog (www.joefaraceshootscars.com). He also implemented my movie blog (www.ihatepopcorn.com) with an assist from Ralph Nelson (www.ralphnelson.com) who designed the header. Thanks also to Kevin Elliott (www.digitalmd.net), the computer guru who keeps my systems running. And finally I am thankful for the continuing friendship of my pal Barry Staver who started having monthly breakfasts with me 20 years ago ostensibly to share Photoshop tips but has evolved into much more than that.
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