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  • Auto Keyword & Caption Import to Your Photo Portfolio

    11:28 am on January 21, 2012 | 0 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: captions, , keywords, metadata

    We’ve just launched a new feature which imports the keyword and caption information from your photos. When enabled on your site, we’ll try to find any captions and keywords that you’ve added and use those on your photo portfolio.

    How do I enable this on my site?

    1) Sign in to your site.
    2) Navigate to “site settings”.
    3) Check the box labelled “Extract keywords and captions from images”.

    How do I add keywords & captions before uploading?

    After you take photos, metadata information such as keywords and captions can be embedded in a digital image with most software programs used to edit photos (E.G: Apple’s Aperture or Adobe’s Lightroom). If you need help with adding metadata information just send us an email at support@photoswarm.com. You can also still add this info after you’ve uploaded to Photoswarm using the admin tools within your photo website.

    Why should I add keywords and captions?

    Metadata such as keywords and captions make it easier to find your photos. Captions can also help tell the image’s story. If you are selling your photos, it’s worth spending the time to add this info to help make your photos more visible to your customers.

    powered by photoswarm

     
  • Pro Photographer Interview with Mark Benson

    10:04 pm on June 16, 2011 | 0 Permalink
    Tags: ,

    In this pro photographer interview we caught up with Mark Benson and delved deeper into how he got started in photography, how he moved into the pro arena and also learned a few tips for those looking to improve their photography. Mark Benson’s pro photo website is located at tenaciouslens.com

    1. What sorts of steps did you take to learn photography? Classes, books, etc?

    I first got into photography when I was in high school. I always enjoyed art and drawing, so once I had the opportunity I started with graphic design doing lithography and screen printing, then my junior year I was able to take photography. The first day of class I didn’t even have a camera yet, but then a woman walked into the class selling her camera along with 3 lenses so I lucked out. This was of course film back in the day, so along with understanding the principles of light, the zone system and basic camera function, we had a full darkroom at our disposal.

    After high school, the camera went into storage for years where it would occasionally make it’s way back into my hands but that was a rare thing until 2007. I went on a trip down the Washington / Oregon / California coast and decided I should be using my camera, and not just a disposable one. It was during that trip that I completely fell in love with photography again. I bought my first Digital SLR in 2008 and then from there it was all about lots of reading, online research and mostly trial and error.

    2. Tell us about your experiences getting started as a professional photographer.

    Ah, the joys of starting a business… Photography no less… I am also a trained Chef, and I moved back to my home state of Utah in 2009 from Las Vegas. I wanted to be closer to my daughters and family and Vegas is a hard place to make a home as you can imagine. I worked for less than a year in a restaurant in town and ended up getting laid off due to the struggling economy and just the restaurant business in general, and so I was left with a serious dilemma. I had already been doing the occasional photography job on the side, and a light went on after I was jobless. A good friend of mine who already had started a few businesses of his own talked to me and inspired me to start promoting my skills and turn it into my own business. I have currently been in business now since July 2010.

    3. You have a fairly active Facebook page and Twitter account. How important do you feel these aspects are to your business?

    Facebook and social networking is huge now these days and I would be lost without it! 99% of my clients and followers have all come from Facebook. I am able to post photos and albums from Photoswarm straight to Facebook allowing people to be directed straight to my website, so if they have any questions about pricing, want to see more of my work, wish to contact me or even purchase prints they can do any of that.

    4. How important is having a website to what you do and what aspect or feature of Photoswarm do you most value?

    Having a website means you now have a legitimate store front and face to your business that people can go to anytime at their convenience. Customers and potential clients are able to view my work and decide if I am the right fit for their needs. Also, if I have a client I have recently done a shoot for, I can post photos to my site for them to view at a higher resolution.

    I like the quality and speed at which you can view photos as well as the option for People to purchase prints all in the same visit. The price to host a site is incredibly affordable and great for newcomers to get started.

    5. Do you remember your first photography sale?

    One of my first photography sales was quite by accident actually. I was at an art festival last summer here in Salt Lake City and I rented a great Nikon 70‐200 2.8 VR II that I wanted to try out on the crowds. I was shooting a local band on the stage when a woman approached me and asked if she might be able to contact me to view and possibly purchase a few prints, because one of the performers was her husband. Months and months went by and I never heard from her so I gave up hope for that one. In early December of 2010 I got an email from her out of the blue and she ordered a 20” x 30” canvas wrap along with some other assorted prints to give to her husband as a Christmas gift. It ended up being a very lucrative sale. My new motto is: Always have your camera with you, even when you aren’t “working”…. You never know what you may miss.

    6. What about photography captivates your interest?

    I have always had an interest for art in general, and I really love the idea that you can essentially trap time… a moment… and create your own interpretation with those moments. It’s almost like witchcraft to me.

    7. Would you give a brief walk through your workflow?

    I shoot 99% of my work in RAW format, and I push extra hard to get everything right in camera to make the most of my time. Yes, you can adjust white balance, exposure etc. all in post editing, but that not only takes more time, but the more you alter a photo, the more quality you are going to lose. So I load my photos into Lightroom 3 and will make quick adjustments, copy and sync them, then delete obvious photos that don’t make the cut. I will make a collection of my “keepers” then go in and do a more thorough round of fine tune edits. If I see a need for any further sharpening or other adjustments, I will finish up in Photoshop, save as a Tiff, then save a Jpeg for web or CD.

    8. Can you tell us about your creative process?

    I generally don’t really know what I’m going to capture when I take my camera out. I will have ideas and vague glimpses, but I work on a spur of the moment inspirational journey. I will just start shooting, and wait for the feeling to present itself. When I shoot models, we both just find a groove and I’m very open to their ideas. The more comfortable they are, the more we both win.

    9. What single thing do you like most about being a pro photographer and what single thing do you hate?

    I love that I can work on my own time and create on my own time. There is nothing more rewarding than getting to just be inspired and then act on it over and over again. The one thing I hate about it is that people want everything for free, don’t value my time or what a photographer does.

    10. What do you want to photograph that you’ve not yet shot?

    I would absolutely love to shoot on a tropical island, New Zealand, Africa, Ireland, and the Italian and French countryside. National Geographic assignment photographer!

    11. You’ve moved into food photography. How did that come about and how difficult do you feel it is to other forms of photography?

    As I mentioned earlier I am actually a trained chef, graduate of Le Cordon Bleu Las Vegas with an associates degree, summa cum laude. I began taking photos of the food that I was serving right after I bought my first Digital SLR. Also, I have a food blog that I started up after I was laid off in 2010 just to occupy my time and to keep me from crying myself to sleep at night, ha ha…

    I have some studio lighting in my home, so I started cooking recipes, posting them on my blog, and then taking photos of the final dish and occasionally of the whole cooking process. Through the wonders of social media, people started to see my food photos and have now been booking shoots for some local dessert and preserve products. I hit the thrift stores, hardware stores and art supply stores for all of my supplies and props and now I’m in business! Food photography is very tedious and time consuming, especially for someone as anal as myself. Cookies and pastries are one thing; wait until you are shooting a freshly cooked meal that has to look hot and fresh or a dressed salad that isn’t looking to fresh after 20 minutes in the light tent… Without my culinary knowledge, this would not be happening without a consultant / assistant.

    12. How do you go about getting the best out of the models you shoot?

    The one thing I’ve discovered about models is this… If they show up late or not at all, they generally don’t have what I need. Punctuality, professionalism, and a good attitude shows in your work, posing and overall look as a model. I will start off just shooting and talking to the model with the realization that the first 15 minutes of the shoot aren’t going to be “keepers”. Until they are comfortable, you can see the reluctance in their eyes. What I find is that as soon as they feel that their input is taken seriously by me, it boosts their confidence and they realize, “Hey, I don’t think this guy is gonna bite me, he’s kinda cool actually”.

    13. Which one item of equipment would you say is the most important to you?

    The most important item in my arsenal are my eyes. I see and compose my photographs all day long even when I don’t have my camera. I can see the dynamic range of a photograph before my camera tells me that there is going to be some severe clipping in sky portion of my photo, or from a glare of a window or building. At the same time, our eyes can deceive us because they are the most advanced lenses on the planet and can adjust for extreme brights and shadows, unlike the camera. But, with the right direction, a camera can capture things our eyes cannot adjust to, with long exposures and some patience.

    14. What quick advice would you have for someone who wants to improve his or her photography skills?

    Never ever, ever assume that you know everything, or even enough, about photography. I have been to two workshops in the past few months just to get more in tune with my creative process. The more you push that shutter, the closer you come to a fuller understanding of all the aspects of photography. Read books, lots of books and publications. Instead of looking at what local photographers are doing and copying their work, look up some random photographer from half way across the globe and get some real inspiration…

    Stand out above all your competition.

    See all our pro photographer interviews.

     
  • The Decisive Moment - Henri Cartier-Bresson [VIDEO]

    1:40 pm on May 29, 2011 | 0 Permalink
    Tags: , Interviews

    A very candid and interesting video interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson, a French photographer widely considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and a master of candid photography. He helped develop “street photography” and “real life reportage” styles that have influenced generations of photographers who followed.

    The Decisive Moment, Henri Cartier-Bresson from Gustavo Costa on Vimeo.

    Cartier-Bresson achieved international recognition for his coverage of Gandhi’s funeral in India in 1948 and the last (1949) stage of the Chinese Civil War. He covered the last six months of the Kuomintang administration and the first six months of the Maoist People’s Republic. He also photographed the last surviving Imperial eunuchs in Beijing, as the city was falling to the communists. From China, he went on to Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), where he documented the gaining of independence from the Dutch.
    Photograph of Alberto Giacometti by Henri Cartier-Bresson

    In 1952, Cartier-Bresson published his book Images à la sauvette, whose English edition was titled The Decisive Moment. It included a portfolio of 126 of his photos from the East and the West. The book’s cover was drawn by Henri Matisse. For his 4,500-word philosophical preface, Cartier-Bresson took his keynote text from the 17th century Cardinal de Retz: “Il n’y a rien dans ce monde qui n’ait un moment decisif” (“There is nothing in this world that does not have a decisive moment”). Cartier-Bresson applied this to his photographic style. He said: “Photographier: c’est dans un même instant et en une fraction de seconde reconnaître un fait et l’organisation rigoureuse de formes perçues visuellement qui expriment et signifient ce fait” (“Photography is simultaneously and instantaneously the recognition of a fact and the rigorous organization of visually perceived forms that express and signify that fact”).[citation needed]

    Both titles came from publishers. Tériade, the Greek-born French publisher whom Cartier-Bresson idolized,[peacock term] gave the book its French title, Images à la Sauvette, which can loosely be translated as “images on the run” or “stolen images.” Dick Simon of Simon & Schuster came up with the English title The Decisive Moment. Margot Shore, Magnum’s Paris bureau chief, did the English translation of Cartier-Bresson’s French preface.

    “Photography is not like painting,” Cartier-Bresson told the Washington Post in 1957. “There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”[7]

    Cartier-Bresson held his first exhibition in France at the Pavillon de Marsan in the Louvre in 1955.

     
  • Pro Photo Portfolio Email Addresses [PRO TIP]

    1:56 am on May 29, 2011 | 0 Permalink
    Tags: email address, , pro tip

    One part of our pro photo portfolio feature set is our pro email addresses which can be setup for your domain name. These email addresses enable our pro photographers to complete their online presence, further their professional brand and show people they are communicating with that, they are serious about what they do.

    They work like this: Say you have a pro photography portfolio called willjennings.net, instead of communicating with your customers using your personal hotmail, yahoo or gmail address (e.g: jondoe@gmail.com), we can easily create a professional email address related to your site such as info@willjennings.net.

    These can even be setup to work with your existing email address so you don’t have to change where you currently check your email. You can simply receive email from your new professional email address, at the location where you usually check your email.

    If you’ve got a pro photo portfolio website with us then just get in touch, let us know what you would like your new pro domain related email address to be, and we’ll to the rest!

    If you’ve got a light or a free photo portfolio website with us then head over to our upgrade page to reserve the domain name you want.

    powered by photoswarm

     
  • How To: Low Light Photography

    12:14 am on May 23, 2011 | 0 Permalink
    Tags: how to, , infographic

    We’ve just come across a great little Infographic done by the guys at Snapsort. Is this how you take your photos in low light? Post some links to your Photoswarm photo portfolio in the comments and share some of your low light photography with us.

    low light photography
    Snapsort’s Low Light Photography Infographic

     
  • Subtleties of Facebook Like and the Open Graph

    11:40 pm on November 28, 2010 | 0 Permalink

    Facebook Like is an amazing tool for anyone wanting to promote their work on the internet. It provides a simple way to get your work seen and for it to spread throughout the social network. We think that this method of advertising is rapidly becoming more relevant than the traditional techniques (google advertising and the like).

    When we added the Facebook Like functionality to our sites recently a fair amount of time and consideration was put into the process. It seems like a simple enough thing to do – you just drop some code into your page and voila the little Like button is ready to go. Well, for a host of reasons, it’s not quite as easy as all that.

    You may or may not have heard of the Open Graph. It’s an initiative to give a bit more meaning to the pages out there on the internet. By embedding hidden information into the page you can allow Facebook (or anyone else who reads to tags) to get a better idea of what your page is all about. It’s actually even more than that – it’s essentially a unique home and identity for each one of the images you upload.

    Why is this relevant? We wanted to make sure that your images maintain their identity within the Open Graph as time goes on. When our customers go pro they get a new domain name, and hence a new home for their images. After some experimentation we discovered that Facebook respect canonical urls, so we’ve added those to every page to get around this problem.

    Another issue is to do with the meta data. Our system uses #s in the urls to make the galleries slick and lovely. Unfortunately it means that it’s impossible for us to hide metadata in the page about each image in a way that Facebook can read. To fix this we’ve created new unique pages for each image. Within these pages we can set the metadata that Facebook pulls into the news feeds when people like and share your images. We then use Javascript redirects to jump to the correct album + image. Again, this system ensures that the references to your images and albums are here to stay – changing an album name won’t effect the graph for example.

    We’re still fine tuning things but everything seems to be working pretty well now. Hope you Like it as much as we do…ahem.

    There’s a website for The Open Graph if you’d like to read a bit more about it.

     
  • Outage

    3:48 pm on November 20, 2010 | 1 Permalink

    We had a brief outage today though things are back on track again now. Our main server became inaccessible for reasons I still don’t entirely understand (though am looking into). We’re now running on a new server that should make things run a bit faster in the long run anyway – we had planned on switching to it in the next few weeks but the outage just pushed things a little ahead of schedule!

    We’ll obviously be keeping our eye on the new server to make sure it’s all running smoothly while we continue looking into the issue.

     
    • aidan 6:57 pm on November 20, 2010 Permalink

      After a bit of investigation we’ve managed to get to the bottom of the issue. It turns out we were the victims of hardware failure.

      We’re going to continue running as usual on the new machine.

  • Beautiful Fullscreen Album Slideshows are Here!

    9:46 am on November 18, 2010 | 0 Permalink
    Tags: ,

    Hot on the heals of our new Facebook like button features and the customisable menu button, we’ve just released a slideshow feature for albums.

    Visitors to your site can now click the play button and sit back to watch your beautiful full size images slide automatically across the screen.

    Follow this link (http://bit.ly/cmXanX) and click the play button at the bottom middle of the page to see what we’re talking about.

     
  • New Customizable Menu Page

    12:05 am on November 14, 2010 | 0 Permalink
    Tags: ,

    In addition to the about and contact pages on our pro and light photo websites we’ve just added another page which is customizable meaning that you can now link to an external blog or other website, or create a separate page for information such as pricing, shipping or terms etc.

    To enable this page, login to the admin section of your photo website, click on “custom page” within the left hand menu and then tick the “show the custom page” box. Give the page a title and then choose whether the page’s navigation button should link to an external URL (eg: http://www.photoswarm.com/blog) or display the custom content you enter into the WYSIWYG editor (eg: pricing or shipping information).

     
  • You Like This!

    11:37 pm on November 13, 2010 | 0 Permalink
    Tags: , , Like

    We’ve just put the finishing touches on a Facebook like button rollout across our photo websites. Visitors to your site can now “like” individual photos, albums, your whole site or individual about, contact or custom pages.

    This is great news for promoting your work as once someone “likes” one of your photos or albums, this is published to their Facebook newsfeed meaning their friends have an opportunity to see your work too.

     
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