share your photoblog

saltydog

Hello fellow Dgrinners,

Just like myself, I am sure that many of you have a photoblog somewhere in the vortex that is the World Wide Web. Mine is somewhat sparsely visited due to lack of promotion and most recently, lack of effort - but I am attempting to change that.

In any case, I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread where we can share our blogs. To generate traffic as much as to motivate ourselves to keep posting and photographing, and to receive some feedback. And of course I am curious as to what other people have to show for themselves .

Okay, here we go. A lot of pics on this site are really "just for fun" which is what makes this enjoyable for me. My blog can be found at http://saltydogphotography.blogspot.com/

Greetings,
Jana

OffTopic

What a great idea Jana. I've been experiencing a bit of the same, and although my readers and (more importantly) subscribers are gradually and slowly growing, I would love more interaction with readers to know if I'm going in the right direction with this whole thing. Although a large part of my blog has to do with exploring the backcountry regions of California (overland expedition style), I tend to throw in a mishmash of stuff.

And since I resorted to begging for comments on today's post, I made sure to leave a comment on yours on your Salvation Mountain post. One suggestion I would make to you is to have a direct link to the gallery you talk about in the post - one click is so much easier than having to navigate to your website and the search for the appropriate gallery (which I'm going to do right after I post this).

I am constantly perusing other photographer's blogs to see what's going on, for inspiration and just to see things from a different point of view, so I hope a lot of people post links in here because I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else is up to.

My blog is at the link in my signature.

Moogle Pepper

I had tons of blogs. haha!!

Well here is my more up to date one: My Blog

I tend to write more than post photos on it.. but what the hey.

saltydog

Thanks, OffTopic and Moogle! Geez. it's hard to believe that the three of us are the only Dgrinners with a blog, is it now?

In any case, I very much enjoyed reading both of them and it made me aware what mine might be lacking. Mine is really all about the photos and not much else. Gotta see where I'm going with that.

OffTopic - Thank you for your comment and you are so right, I meant to create a link to my gallery with that Salvation Mountain post by simply clicking on the word "gallery", D'OH! But I had to figure out how to do that and then forgot about it, thanks for the reminder. I also left you a comment. Reticulating Splines? Gotta love it !

Moogle Pepper - I am not done reading your entries, will post when I am done.

I really enjoyed those two links and have bookmarked them in my browser. Now, how about everybody else? Anyone ???

Moogle Pepper

I used to use Blogspot for my blogs, but then I discovered Wordpress and the tabs. And then it was .


From what I have read of your salty, they are pictures and a paragraph describing the photo and the experience around it. At least that is what I get from reading. It's a real photoblog.

I just like to write when writing on mine. Once in a while I will insert a cool photo I have taken and talk about it, or what I did to it.

denisegoldberg

Somewhere, somehow, years ago... I became addicted to playing with words as well as photos. It all started with journals about my cycling trips and it extended into regular blog entries, both with and without photographs. My blog is accessible via my smugmug site, in my signature below. Just click blog on the navbar to be transported into my blog (that resides on blogger).

I've customized my blogger site to match my galleries so (I believe) it is easy (somewhat seamless?) to switch between the two.
And all of the photos in my blog are set up so a click on the photo takes the viewer to that photo's gallery (with the clicked photo active).

--- Denise

darkdragon

Hey, I've got one too. I don't update it every day :cry I try to, but you know trying just failing right? I'm off to take some shots here in about 5 mins so I will definately be updateing the blog this afternoon.

I don't rant or write much in it, just a little bit. I figure people want to see the photo not read my complaining

My Plog

saltydog

denisegoldberg wrote:

Somewhere, somehow, years ago... I became addicted to playing with words as well as photos. It all started with journals about my cycling trips and it extended into regular blog entries, both with and without photographs. My blog is accessible via my smugmug site, in my signature below. Just click blog on the navbar to be transported into my blog (that resides on blogger).

I've customized my blogger site to match my galleries so (I believe) it is easy (somewhat seamless?) to switch between the two.
And all of the photos in my blog are set up so a click on the photo takes the viewer to that photo's gallery (with the clicked photo active).

--- Denise

Hi Denise, I just checked out your "musings & ramblings" blog and I think that your photos are beautiful and a lot of fun to look at. How come that you don't enable comments on your site? And how's that new camera treating you? I"ll be sure to bookmark your site and check in from time to time. Thanks for posting!

Many greetings,
Jana

saltydog

darkdragon wrote:

Hey, I've got one too. I don't update it every day :cry I try to, but you know trying just failing right? I'm off to take some shots here in about 5 mins so I will definately be updateing the blog this afternoon.

I don't rant or write much in it, just a little bit. I figure people want to see the photo not read my complaining

My Plog

Another one that alternates between the odd and the beautiful . Love it. I very much enjoyed checking out our pictures, but that long-legged insect gave me the creeps - I used to be irrationally terrified of them when I was a kid. I'm okay now but looking at a close-up still gives me the shivers, haha . In any case, here's another link I'll add to my bookmarks!

Edit - oh, and of course it's not an insect but an arachnae, but for me they're all just creepy-crawlers. I am talking about your April 12th entry btw, not your "furry" candidate from later, oddly enough those don't creep me out at all...

DonRicklin

My Photo blog is DonRicklin.Com Photography where I have links to my other sites and a long list of Lightroom Related Links. Posts currently of new SmugMug Galleries are start/feature at http://donricklin.smugmug.com/.

Don

denisegoldberg

saltydog wrote:

Hi Denise, I just checked out your "musings & ramblings" blog and I think that your photos are beautiful and a lot of fun to look at. How come that you don't enable comments on your site? And how's that new camera treating you? I"ll be sure to bookmark your site and check in from time to time. Thanks for posting!

Many greetings,
Jana

Jana -
Thanks for your comments!

I don't have comments enabled because I'm not likely to go wandering through each post to find the comments. I much prefer the guestbook feature on my <a href="http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/denisegoldberg">cycling journals</a>.

But you really made me think, because I'd love to get comments on my blog. I think I'll set up a journal-style gallery as a blog guestbook and link to it from my blog. I wonder if anyone will use it? But - nothing ventured, nothing gained! I've added that to my list of things to do...

So far the G9 is treating me well. I love my dSLR, but I found that it wasn't always with me, and I like having a camera with me all of the time. The G9 is small enough to tuck into the corner of a bag and just keep it with me.

--- Denise

nvisiblephoto

Nice idea. I actually just set up my blog and posted my very first post today. You can be the first to leave a comment

Here it is!

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what I'd like to post in there besides photo sessions if anything.

I'd like poeple to actually be entertained

OffTopic

denisegoldberg wrote:

Jana -
Thanks for your comments!

I don't have comments enabled because I'm not likely to go wandering through each post to find the comments. I much prefer the guestbook feature on my cycling journals.

But you really made me think, because I'd love to get comments on my blog.
--- Denise

Hi Denise, I see that you're using Blogger. If you go into your Settings and then into the Comments tab, there is a spot down the bottom where you can enter your e-mail address (actually, up to ten e-mail addresses!). Every time someone comments on one of your posts, you'll get an e-mail with a direct link to the comment so you can easily respond if you choose.

I love this feature, and actually wish SmugMug would implement something similar because I never think to check my guestbook and I frequently find comments people left weeks (sometimes months) ago.




...and saltydog, that was a fantastic guess and absolutely correct!


The best way to generate traffic and increase your standing with google is to have outside sites linking to your blog, so I'm wondering if there is any interest here in creating an official (or unofficial) SmugMug Blogroll, where we would all link to each other's blogs?

darkdragon

saltydog wrote:

Another one that alternates between the odd and the beautiful . Love it. I very much enjoyed checking out our pictures, but that long-legged insect gave me the creeps - I used to be irrationally terrified of them when I was a kid. I'm okay now but looking at a close-up still gives me the shivers, haha . In any case, here's another link I'll add to my bookmarks!

Edit - oh, and of course it's not an insect but an arachnae, but for me they're all just creepy-crawlers. I am talking about your April 12th entry btw, not your "furry" candidate from later, oddly enough those don't creep me out at all...

Thanks for the comments! Glad to have another reader. This reminds me, i gotta get an update up there.

darkdragon

OffTopic wrote:

Every time someone comments on one of your posts, you'll get an e-mail with a direct link to the comment so you can easily respond if you choose.

I love this feature, and actually wish SmugMug would implement something similar because I never think to check my guestbook and I frequently find comments people left weeks (sometimes months) ago.

Smugmug has this feature, I'm not sure what setting it is (I'll take a look), but I do get an email whenever someone comments - with a link and everything.

The best way to generate traffic and increase your standing with google is to have outside sites linking to your blog, so I'm wondering if there is any interest here in creating an official (or unofficial) SmugMug Blogroll, where we would all link to each other's blogs?

I'm not 100% sure on this, but I don't think it counts for links in forums. At the least, I don't beleive the rankings count as much for links in forums as they do for other website pages.

denisegoldberg

OffTopic wrote:

Hi Denise, I see that you're using Blogger. If you go into your Settings and then into the Comments tab, there is a spot down the bottom where you can enter your e-mail address (actually, up to ten e-mail addresses!). Every time someone comments on one of your posts, you'll get an e-mail with a direct link to the comment so you can easily respond if you choose.

I love this feature, and actually wish SmugMug would implement something similar because I never think to check my guestbook and I frequently find comments people left weeks (sometimes months) ago.

Thanks Lori. I did know about that. I guess I only had half of my comment issue in my previous post. I just don't want comments scattered through my blog posts at all. I don't mind people reading them, but I want them in a central location. I think I am going to spin an unlisted gallery to use as a guestbook for my blog. I'll add it to my blog "side-bar" and see what happens. I've been a bit hammered at work lately, so the idea kind of disappeared from my brain. Oops!

Thanks for the reminder - this time I wrote it down!

--- Denise

OffTopic

darkdragon wrote:

Smugmug has this feature, I'm not sure what setting it is (I'll take a look), but I do get an email whenever someone comments - with a link and everything.

Thanks for that info darkdragon - don't know how I missed that setting

And you're right, links in forums don't carry as much weight as incoming links from other websites (especially high traffic websites)...hence my suggestion for the blogroll, which is a list of other blogs (linked) on a blog's sidebar. It creates incoming links to those other blogs, which carries a higher weight. It also generates traffic - I can't tell you how many times I've discovered some really neat work just by checking out some of the links in a blog's sidebar.

The key is how to get other people to link to you, and a lot of people do that by agreeing to exchange links with people who have blogs with related content (ie. photography or geographical location).

Dizzle

I have been blogging since 2002...unemployed journalist made for lots of pissed off fodor to put out there.

Now that I have turned back to photography I recently started my site as a blog with some extra info.

Please check out www.23photos.com and let me know your thoughts. Not a daily blog, but my goal is to have a picture with every post and to try to post some sort of relevant information about either my photo experiences or the photos I post.

www.onedayonepicture.com is a photo related blog I do with a few other photogs in my area. We have kind of gotten off track with it, but its a fun thing to do with others.

denisegoldberg

After our conversation here about comments in blogs, I've added a guestbook to my blog. I really didn't want to turn comments on in my blog - not because I don't want them, but because I don't want to need to go wandering through each blog entry in order to find the comments.

I created a gallery to be used as a blog guestbook. I've linked to it in my blog sidebar, and I've posted an entry about it too.

Check it out by clicking the entry in the sidebar of my blog - or you can go directly to my blog guestbook by clicking here.

I wonder how long it will take before I see any comments there...

--- Denise

denisegoldberg

Some of the folks who have posted here have already matched blog & photography site from a high level look & feel standpoint - matching backgrounds, banners, navbars.

If anyone else is interested in doing this, I posted a thread this week with notes about matching the looks of a (blogger) blog with a customized smugmug site. There may be some useful information there for folks who have their blogs on a site other than blogger although the details of matching the sites are specific to blogger. I did include some other information about how to place photos in your blog - and that would apply to any blog or web site.

See this thread for details - HOW TO match your blog to your smug site (blogger-specific, + some general info).


--- Denise

jeffreaux2

I have one!!
Lynne Hulbert (urbanaries) talked me into it!

I have been at it since the end of 2007. I probably update on average 3 times a month...or whenever I shoot something that I want to talk a bit about. It is an excellent way to display a few images from a day's shooting.

The link is in my siggy.

larsonpics

Dgrinners,

I JUST started a blog and trying to get the hang of it. Blogs all have different format, but trying to tell the story of the journey as well as include some of my photos. I welcome comments or tips. And my next blog will about the journey of building a blog.:D

photos: http://larsonpics.com
blog: http://larsonpics.blogspot.com

entropysedge

I just have photos on my blog ... not much words ... http://www.fastcatstudio.net

Cayuse

I started one about the same time as I got the D60. It can be found here. Hopefully one of these days I'll get some time and be able to do some customizations but until then it's a start.

MissB

I've been checking out everyones blogs...too fun! Its like an insight on the lives of these little avatars. Im at http://www.crunchymonkeys.blogspot.com
Its mostly mommy talk but I link to my flickr there. I love Digital Grin by the way..this is really a great resource!

Becky

catspaw

I have... probably too many online journals, but they are my 'escape' and mental happiness while at work, so i did the logical thing.

I created another one I find my musings are more about setting up and establishing my photography as a business than about the photos themselves ... but that will probably change a bit over time.

http://catspawphotos.blogspot.com

knu

Check out my photo-blog: http://ugelstad.tumblr.com/

byoshi

http://bayphotos.blogspot.com/

I use blogspot, have no real complaints with it.

TusharDalvi

Just started my new photoblog at http://tushardalvi.smugmug.com