Posts Tagged ‘tips’
Advanced Guide to Flickr
As promised, here are more tips on how you can have more fun on Flickr. Now that you’ve signed up, uploaded your photos, added your favorite contacts and joined fantastic groups, let’s take a look at some of the advanced features you can explore.
(If you’re a Flickr newbie, you may want to first read Flicker 101: A Beginner’s Guide for basic tips when starting out.)
Citizens of Flickrville, let’s take a tour:
Browse most interesting photos
With a mechanism to track all uploaded photos, Flickr comes up with cream-of-the-crop shots every day based on favorite tags, comments, views and others—they’re the best of the lot, handpicked by the gods, the blessed ones.
These great photos should be useful if you are looking for inspiration and diverse perspectives. It’s every Flickr member’s dream to find his photo land a spot on the highly desired Flickr-loves-you list.
Click Explore from the Flickr top menu to see random interesting photos. Refresh the page to see the next one. You can also check out more awesome uploads in the last 7 days or see them in a calendar-view of the current month.
Blog your Flickr photos
Surely, most of you maintain a blog. Although blog platforms like WordPress and Blogger have their own photo-posting capabilities, Flickr takes photo blogging to a new level by allowing you to post your new sunset shot directly from your photostream. Flickr can talk to your blog.
Configure your Flickr account to allow posting photos to your blog. After you set it up, you can make a test post to see if everything’s working well. You should be able to post to your blog by clicking the Blog This button at the top of the photo. Presto! You’ve just blogged it.
Get a personalized URL
One, it’s easier to remember. Two, it creates personality. When you sign up, your Flickr address looks too generic, not to mention a little robotic:
By setting up a personal name, you change it to something like:
Be cautious though. Once you set your new URL, it’s locked. You cannot change it again.
Show off photos on your website
Add a strip of Flickr photos on your blog or website. Let your visitors see—the instant you upload them—your recent Paris trip or your last gastronomic adventure in Melbourne. You can also choose to display the photo pool of a Flickr group that suits the purpose of your website, or simply show random photos from the whole of Flickr.
To do so, create a Flickr badge, copy and paste the generated HTML into your website’s source code and start showing off those photos.
Explore and discover
Flickr continues to evolve both in functionality and playfulness. There’s just a lot that can be done. Discover more Flickr treasures yourself and share it with us here. Feel free to post your suggestions in the comment section. Be assured that we’ll continue to post interesting finds as we go along.
The Non-Rules of Photography: How You Can Enjoy the Experience More
Long ago, Lomography.com listed ‘8 Golden Rules of Lomography,’ rules which may very well apply to photography in general. Technically, they are labeled rules but to those who practice photography, they are more like guides to breaking the formulated rules in taking pictures — right composition, accurate lighting, sharpness, what-have-you’s. They focus more on enjoying the experience of shooting and capturing.
So let’s go with the non-rules.
Take your camera wherever you go. In the park, the flea market, your school, your office, your friend’s bridal shower, in the laundry shop — everywhere. As long as you have your camera in your hand, everything around you starts to have a different color and story about them that just craves to be captured on film.
Use it anytime — day and night. They say that the best times to take a photo is at dawn or at dusk because it offers fantastic lighting. But anytime of the day is just fine. Don’t worry about night photography for the darkness of the night has its own charms.
Photography is not interference in your life. On the contrary, it’s a significant and integral part of it. The results of your photography are wonderful signs that you are alive.
Try the shot from the hip. You don’t need to always look through the viewfinder to get a good picture. Have more freedom in terms of perspective and you just might be pleasantly surprised. Hand it up in the air or lower it down to the ground. No one’s stopping you!
Approach your objects as close as possible. One of the most striking photographic themes includes photos shot on macro. It’s great if your camera has a good macro feature, but if it doesn’t, who cares? Get close. People show more soul up-close, so does your pet, for instance.
Don’t think. Just shoot.
Be fast. Sometimes your money shot will only last a quarter of a second. Always be prepared to shoot and do it fast. Don’t worry about getting the right settings.
Don’t care about any rules. Actually forget about the rules. Discover your own kind of photography and define your own rules. Just do it, do it the way you want and do it now.
Do you follow any rules in your photography? Share it with us.
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