Web Profiles

This month marks the anniversary of a column that began in July 1999 as Website of the Month and has evolved into Web Profiles. Along the way, I’ve tried to include tips and trends to help readers improve their own web-based activities. Take Pinterest (http://pinterest.com), for example. It’s a virtual pinboard that lets you organize and share images, among other stuff, with people on the web. It’s like Twitter (www.twitter.com) for your photographs! I’m going to give it a try and so should you. In the meantime, I’ll continue to seek out new websites, to boldly go…sorry, I got carried away. I try to include at least one Shutterbug reader’s site in each episode but I can’t always tell that from your site, so click the Contact button on my website, www.joefarace.com, and tell me about it. You could find yourself featured in an upcoming column.

National Photography Month started in 1984 as the week-long American Photography Celebration but now runs the entire month. May was also the home of “Take Your Camera to Work Day” that was funded out of my own pocket but faded after a few years because of the cost of creating a user-friendly site. If anybody’s interested in helping relaunch the website I could restart it next year, depending on whether the Mayans were wrong or not. May is also my birthday month and I’d like to thank all of Shutterbug’s readers for their support over the years.

Maybe it was the 17th Earl of Oxford (www.shakespeare-oxford.com) who really wrote the above line but it’s a nice thought nevertheless. The quote’s actual authorship was the concept proposed in the film Anonymous as well. (Look for a review of the film on my movie blog www.ihatepopcorn.com.) What’s for sure is that the creative endeavors of the four wedding photographers featured this month display work that transcends the genre, producing images of beauty, sensitivity, and love. And isn’t that what weddings are all about?

Many people’s New Year’s resolution is to lose weight and since, as of this writing, I’ve lost 53 lbs, that’s low on my list of possibilities. Last year in this column I announced a resolution to make a new photograph every day and post in a gallery called “2011 Photo of the Day” (http://farace.smugmug.com). If you visit it, you’ll see that I’ve only partially succeeded. The project turned out to be much harder than I expected and only heightened my appreciation of some of the Picture-a-Day blogs and websites featured in Web Profiles during 2011. Instead, my 2012 New Year’s resolution is to update all of my websites and blogs and I’m well on my way, including a long-overdue update to www.joefarace.com. In the meantime, you can draw some inspiration from the websites and blogs that are featured to kick off the New Year.

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.

Steichen was always one of my photo heroes. A true Renaissance man, along with Alfred Stieglitz he opened the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession in 1905, won an Academy Award for his World War II film The Fighting Lady, and became director of the Department of Photography at New York’s Museum of Modern Art where he curated the legendary “Family of Man” exhibit that traveled to 69 countries and was seen by 9 million people. A companion book sold 2.5 million copies. Yet, many photographers today don’t even know his name. One of this column’s goals is to bring future “Steichens” to the attention of Shutterbug’s readers and I’m especially proud of the group of photographers that I’ve assembled for this month.

This month’s column marks a special anniversary since this column, originally called Website of the Month, was originally launched in July 1999. In a much more recent column, I mentioned not hearing from Shutterbug readers about their own websites and since then the dam burst and I’ve been flooded by e-mail. Thanks to all of you who took the time to write. Working through all those e-mail messages takes time but for this month I’ve selected four reader sites that are “submitted for your approval,” as the late Rod Serling often said. Look for more readers’ sites to appear on a regular basis as well as a photographer’s blog of the month, which started unofficially last month.