How would I do this?

vandrv · October 14, 2010

I have recently started doing a bit of horse show phototography and I have a question as to the best way to post the photos on Smugmug. So far, I have just posted them all in a gallery created for the event. But With several hundred photos to look through, I would think this would be discouraging, when trying to find a single competitor. When I shoot an event, there might be about half a dozen photos of each competitor. What I would like to is create a gallery for the event with different sub galleries label by each competitors number. That way they wouldn't have to wade through a bunch of photos that they have no interest in. Is this possible, and how would I go about doing it. If there is a better way, I would certainly like to here it. Anybody here shoot events with lots of competitors? How do you handle this. Thanks for any help
Joe

Phyxius · October 15, 2010

Hi Joe!

My name is Christina and I'm a Support Hero at SmugMug but, I'm also an equine photographer.

I found your site listed in a customization thread so, I took a peek at what you're doing. (I'm also in Maryland, so pretty close to a lot of the events you've photographed!) I see that you are using categories but, you aren't really taking advantage of subcategories yet. A great way to split up horse show/event galleries is to divide by rider or by class as you suggested and I'll go over a couple examples here:

Olde Hope Farms - Octoberfest (Category)

Green Horn (Subcategory)

#23 (Gallery)

#24 (Gallery)

#25 (Gallery)

Elementary Rider (Subcategory)

#30 (Gallery)

#31 (Gallery)

Elementary Horse (Subcategory)

#35 (Gallery)

etc.

This way is great if there are a whole bunch of competitors and/or you were able to get a lot of great shots. You would include all of the dressage, cross country, and stadium pictures in their gallery.

If the event was smaller or didn't have as many riders you could separate by class only then, keep the riders in order of go. This works well for dressage and eventing because there are schedules.

Olde Hope Farms - October Fest (Category)

Green Horn (Gallery)

Elementary Rider (Gallery)

Elementary Horse (Gallery)
--etc.

If you're shooting at a hunter or jumper show riders do not have a specific order of go and their photos could be a bit harder to find if they were in a very large class.

We are working on offering more galleries levels, it a huge feature request. I know that as an event photographer having just one more level would be awesome! So, if you were shooting at a series like Olde Hope Farms Night Shade series and you were doing the whole series you could make Olde Hope the category, Night Shade the subcategory then, have a third layer that split by class and finally the galleries. You can see that feature request here: http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/332102-more-gallery-levels-?ref=title

And also keep an eye out on The SmugMug Blog to stay up-to-date on all the latest news and releases! http://news.smugmug.com/

Another feature that can help your customer find their photos quickly is keywords. You can keyword the photos with the rider's number and then they can search the keywords for their photos. However, this can get a bit confusing when the same numbers are used at many events. To see more about keywords see our help page here: http://www.smugmug.com/help/keywords-tags

I took to the liberty of looking at some of your galleries and the pictures are great! The kids and their families must be thrilled.

If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask, we are always happy to help!

All the Best,
Christina

vandrv · October 15, 2010

Christina,
Thank you very much for taking the time to answer my question. This is exactly the advice I was looking for. I haven't really delved into Smugmug that deeply to fully understand the concept of categories and subcategories. I had thought about keywording by entrant number and didn't really see how this would be a whole lot of help, unless people were willing to take the time to search. I will give your ideas a try. I think this is probably the answer. If I have any more questions, I will be sure and get back to you.
And thank you as well for your compliments on my photography. I checked out your website, as well, and your photographs are fantastic. Thanks again for the help
Joe

vandrv · October 23, 2010

Christina, I have a followup question. I pm'ed you this question, and just now read that that wasn't the way to go about asking, I apologize for this. Anyway. What I was wondering is, using your idea of each event as a category, what would be the best way to provide a link to them on the homepage? For example, I currently have a button on the navbar called events that takes you to horse shows which are in the events category. if each show is a separate category, there really isn't a good way to do this. I guess basically my question is, what is the best way to make each show as easy to find as possible. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks
Joe

How would I do this?

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