2010- the most popular
With the year over, it’s always a little exciting to look back and see what photos were the most popular.
1.
I was not surprised to see this photo was #1. It may be, in my opinion, one of the best self portraits I’ve ever taken.
2.
I was surprised to see this one was #2. But I quite like it. It was really tricky to shoot, since I was using a super-shallow f/1.7 and a remote. I think it took over 20 shots to get one that I liked.
3.
I have no idea why this one is so popular. I do hear a lot that people like it when I smile in photos. I know, I know! But is that enough to push it up to the third spot?
4.
I love that this photo is in the top ten. I did it right away in the year, and it was a pretty big project.
5.
For a while this was my most “interesting” photo on Flickr. I love, love, love it. Definitely my favourite urban photo I have taken so far.
6.
I had to laugh that a foot photo made it in- of course it did! For those who don’t know, in 2008 I did a 365 project and the theme was “from the floor”, which meant I had a lot of feet photos.
7.
This was a fun panorama to do — and such an unusual subject! Maybe that’s why it is the most popular panorama.
8.
This was my first attempt at doing a double exposure. I love it! so do you all, apparently. 
9.
When I saw this staircase in silhouette I knew I had to capture it. I only had a few moments – the last few attempts and the sky had already changed too much.
10.
Okay, I’ll admit this one took me totally by surprise! In a good way, of course.
Read More »034 & Some thoughts on existing on the internet
As you all know, I’ve been crazy busy lately. But I’ve been taking it all in stride. So far 2010 is turning up to be a pretty full year for me, which is awesome. One of my goals at the beginning of the year was to really push my photography beyond the scope it had been previously. I’m not talking artistically, though I’m constantly trying to make my photos better. I’m talking socially – I want them to be seen by more people, and more importantly, be appreciated by more people. More people who think my photos are awesome = more people who are likely to purchase prints/calendars/books = more opportunities for me to take better photos. It’s a win-win-win that keeps repeating itself.
One of the first things I did was start taking Flickr seriously. I’ve been using it for quite some time now, but it wasn’t until the beginning of this month that I started to figure it out. I had to change a lot of habits that I’ve cultivated since I started using the internet and I felt that I’ve collected enough on this subject to have something tangible to share with you (my audience, who should comment more often. I know you’re there – I track you on analytics! But we’ll get to that.)
First, remember that nobody likes a one-way celebrity on the internet. This is a person who talks only about themselves, posts their content everywhere but never responds to comments and often appears spammy when they do comment. We’ve all seen the type at some point on the internet. They may have a huge following, but I promise that they did it by brute force – imagine how many people ignored them in their spamming process. So then imagine how many times they’ve posted their stuff.. everywhere…
To be effective it has to be give and take process. This is definitely the most important thing. Whatever services you use – Flickr, Tumblr, Livejournal, Blogger, Etsy, Facebook, any of it – go out of your way to make friends. Comment on other peoples posts/items. Genuine comments – and don’t reference yourself or your url! In most places, when I receive a comment from somebody, I can click into their profile to get more information. I’m going to do that if I’ve never seen you before, but I’m not going to do it if you are blatantly self-promoting yourself in my space. It’s fine to link to something you’ve done if it is genuinely in context to the conversation. That’s helpful.
Next up is have a good inventory. It doesn’t matter what your “product” is – photographs, blog posts, widgets or recipes – you need a good library of them. A portfolio, if you will. A painter doesn’t get picked up in a gallery for having one good, new painting. They get picked up because they have a strong history of good paintings. I’ve seen people set up their Etsy shop or Flickr account and have one or two items and nothing else, because they’re just beginning. That’s fine, keep it up! But don’t expect high traffic yet. Have a good solid base of items. I have photos I took seven years ago that are still viewed every day in various places. The build is slow, but strong and keeps people coming back. Don’t expect to be the next big thing if you only have one or two items to show everybody.
Now that you’re working on your portfolio, tell the world about it – one piece at a time. Back when I started posting photos to the internet, bandwidth was a big, big deal. Images had to be as small as possible, often past the sake of clarity. “Cuts” were placed on posts so that you had to click-through to see the images. Because bandwidth was so scarce, the general method would be to make a single post and under it place all the images. If you could afford the bandwidth, you could look at the pictures. If you were on dial-up and didn’t want to bother, you could skip them. I find it amazing that we’re still in this mindset when tech has progressed to a point where I can view Flickr on my cell phone.
Don’t make a big picture post and make people look at all of them. Release your photos one at a time, spaced out, so that people will keep coming back. Sure, not every person is going to view every photo, but you have a stronger chance of reaching more people this way. On the same subject, keep coming back to topics every once in a while. Every time I post a new dinosaur photo, I notice that all of my dinosaur photos get more hits than usual. People look at tags and sets and related topics and meander. Do not however, get stuck on a single topic or subject. Variety is essential – otherwise you’re just seeing the same thing over and over.
And last for today, use analytics. I use google anaylitics to track everything I can – every website I manage, my Etsy shop. I can’t use it for Flickr, but they have their own stat tracker (if you have a pro account). I love Flickr’s because it is in real-time, whereas Analytics is 24 hours old. You can also use Webaliser which is available from most web hosts, but google is so much more in-depth if you can handle the bit of code. Thanks to analytics I can tell you that consistently the hours of 11pm and 2am are the most popular for me, followed closely by 8.30am and 10am. People tend to check their internet lists before bed and first thing in the morning. I am most popular in the Pacific Timezone, followed closely by Central Europe. 85% of my viewers use Mozilla for a browser, and 10% use a mobile browser. 95% of my viewers have cable internet or better, the average time spent on my site is 12 minutes. What do these kinds of things tell me? Because overwhelmingly most of my visitors have both broadband or better and Mozilla, I don’t have to worry about image size or much cross-browser compatibility. I worry about it, but I don’t stress if something is a little weird in Internet Explorer. I have so many mobile viewers I’m working on a mobile skin for my site that auto-detects a mobile browser. Twelve minutes is a lot of time to stay on a photography website, so I think I’m doing fairly well there. (The average time on the Geek website is 25 minutes. Wow!) The timezones tell me to make sure I have new content up before those people come visit again.
I check my stats all the time, but I don’t stress out too much over them. Every Friday my numbers skyrocket until Sunday, and then Sunday night they plummet and don’t start to climb again until early Wednesday. This is consistent with my viewers and rather than try to push them, I work with them. I put up way more content during the end of the week. I’ll save something super awesome for Saturday morning. Sure, this exaggerates my numbers even more, but that’s okay. I’m working with what I have.
That’s all I have. I have to get up kind of early tomorrow, so I should get to bed. And you, dear reader, should take note to the first part of this and comment! I love hearing from my readers. Let me know where I can read your blog, too, because you know I will. 
Business Cards
I have needed new business cards for a while, and last weekend inspiration finally struck.Part of the reason why I’ve been on the fence with business cards, is I have so many different facets. I do wedding photography, fine art photography, portrait photography – and I’m also the Executive Director of The Geek Group, a national non-profit organisation. I don’t like having to keep a pile of different business cards on me and remembering to refill the particular one when I need it.
So instead, what I did was make a batch of 100 business cards, with 100 different designs. The typography on them is almost identical – some are right justified rather than left, some have black text rather than white. I worked around in photoshop and came up with 20 different images that I spread over half a page of paper, and then cut them up into business cards. So what you end up with is a tiny portion of the photo.
Here is a sample of what I made.
A little bit for everybody – some are definitely geared more towards formal photography, some have a definite science lean to them. Do you recognise any of the photos I used for these?
I’m super happy with them, and I’ve been kind of excited to find people I can give a business card to now! I really love the particular set of photos I chose, so I think when I run out I’m going to get the same batch printed again.
Read More »Gear: Meet Eleanor, the New Camera
Today I received a very exciting parcel from the FedEx dude. Inside of it was the much-anticipated (and much needed) replacement for Heidi, the Sony A100 that has gotten me through the past few years. But Heidi has been ill for quite some time now, and finally landed herself in a coma earlier this week.
Her replacement is Eleanor, a Sony A850.
Eleanor is a full-frame camera, which is SO exciting. I have a strong aesthetic for wide-angle shots, and full frame lets me do this in a way I’ve never done before. In fact, I may no longer use my 19-28mm lens as the daily carry and may switch over to the 28-80mm for standard use.
I’m also now working with 24 Megapixels… which is big!
I have no complaints so far… this camera is absolutely amazing. The quality is so much better than the A100. Some of this is due to it being first generation (The A100) and some of it is due to being professional grade (The A850). It feels so much sturdier and is a bit heavier, as well as larger. It’s faster and handles things more smoothly. I’m just really, really excited.
I also figured you all would like to see some example photos. So I snapped a bunch today while we were shooting some video at work. What do you think?
The Next Step
If you happen to find this – awesome! Thanks for stopping by.
With everything going on lately, I decided that it is high time for a new website design. I don’t usually get the urge to change things design wise, but this was sparked by a culmination of events. I am going to put up a really awesome new portfolio design in the next few days. This requires a layout that is different from what I had previously.
The reason that I am putting up a really awesome new portfolio design is because I am pushing my photography into some new and exciting directions. I am looking forward to doing more weddings, which I have not really featured on Miss Moose’s before. You can be certain you’ll be seeing more of them in the near future. And I promise that my wedding photography is far different from the run-of-the-mill photos you tend to find in magazines or advertisements for weddings. I feel that in whatever I photograph, I must maintain my sense of aesthetic and quirk.
That is, no matter how hard I may try, I can’t stop being Dada.
(I consider this a good thing!)
I also want to push more of my writings onto the website, to showcase more than photos. This will be very important in the next few months as I get some very exciting equipment arrive in the shop. It should be here within the next week, actually, and is going to allow me to completely blow you away with what I can make. Furniture, sculpture, miniatures… My world is suddenly opening up with amazing new opportunities and I want to share them with all of you.
Also this weekend I am making a big, big upgrade to my camera equipment. You’ll just have to wait and see on that one. It’s going to be cool, though. Would I do anything less?
In case you’re wondering, though, with all of this progress and exciting opportunities – no, I’m not going to stop making dinosaur photos. In fact, I may start making little furniture for my dinosaurs. Even stegosauruses have to have someplace to sleep.
Read More »Gear: Why I use Sony
I’ve decided to make my website a bit more bloggy, since I’m working on putting in a proper portfolio here as well. A good opportunity for a subject to write about came up yesterday, when I was asked why I use Sony.
I’ll admit it’s a question I get asked relatively often. When I went to Phootcamp I was the only Sony user there. In the digital realm, everybody else was using Nikon or Canon. (In that particular set of people, I think Canon was more popular)
The first big reason I use Sony is quite simply loyalty. The first digital camera I ever purchased was a Sony (a Cyber-Shot of some variety, way back when having a 5 mega-pixel camera was a big deal) and when it finally died I purchased a Sony F828, which I loved dearly and used until the day it was stolen from me back in the summer of 2006. I decided to stick with the Sony brand because the Cyber-shot only died when I accidentally dropped it off of the top of a twelve storey building. I feel it important to note that prior to that, I had dropped it roughly 50 feet (another roof) and it was just fine.
Also, back when I purchased the F828 – oh gosh, this had to be in 2004 – DSLRs were still prohibitively expensive. The F828 was appealing to me because it had a real lens, and the body rotated which was really handy. I could do quite a bit with lens attachments and it had a minimum focal distance of a few inches.
Now… I’m going to make a confession here.
While I’ve used film cameras, I’ve never developed a roll of film in my life. I shot a lot of photos in school and used whatever camera was given to me. I think most of my early practise was done on a Nikon SLR, but I’m not sure what the model was. I hopped onto the digital bandwagon pretty early (circa 1995) and until about 2003 didn’t really intend for the images I took with my digital cameras to be used on paper. Film was well and good, and I used it for what I needed… but my fascination with digital design and computers has always reigned king. When digital resolutions began to grow enough to realistically expect paper from the digital images, my world was rocked pretty hard.
I had been flirting with the idea of a DSLR, but was thrust into the idea when my F828 was stolen. I had been watching the Alpha series from Sony, but I really didn’t want to get the A100. You don’t buy first-gen tech. I learned this lesson with the F828. (They discontinued it mere days after I bought it) I’d been told by many, many people that you don’t rush into a DSLR. It’s a marriage. You will spend more money on lenses than the camera cost.
So I did the completely unreasonable thing and got the A100 the second day it was available, back when they had less than a handful of lenses available for it and hoped that it didn’t tank.
I knew it was a leap of faith. But Sony’s treated me well. Their prices are more reasonable than Nikon and I like the tech side of it more than Canon. A lot of photographers tell me they don’t like how the Sony “thinks”, but I feel like they designed the interface with me in mind. I’m an artist, definitely, but I’m also an engineer and scientist. It makes sense to me. It’s a little complicated, but it needs to be.
The lens that came with it was garbage – it ended up actually having a couple of aperture blades fall off. I replaced it with a Sigma, which was been great. I’ve gotten quite a few lenses to fit it: Minolta (three, actually), Tamron, Tokina, Vivitar, Lensbaby. They all vary radically in their price points, age and quality and I use them all extensively. I haven’t had difficultly finding lenses for it, and actually only two of them have been purchased new.
A few years ago I dropped my camera (I know, I know) and it would turn on… and make constant clicking sounds and then smell funny. I called Sony, they gave me an address to ship it to, and I had it back in less than a month. During this camera-less time, a friend of mine gave me a Rebel Xti. I used it as a back-up camera for quite a while. I’ll admit that I never fell in love with it, and found it kind of clunky – but it was also rather old, so maybe the new Canons are nicer. It eventually died in a flood, but I wish it still worked.
My camera is once again dying. This time I didn’t drop it, I promise – it’s simply old. I’ve taken over 100,000 photos with it which is staggering. It’s not rated for that. It should have died ages ago. But it keeps on chugging. I’m making the jump to full-frame soon and I’m without a doubt staying Sony.
Sony definitely has features that make me happy I bought it. The in-camera stabilisation is amazing. I can take photos over two seconds long without the use of a tripod. I know some of this is due to my amazingly helpful education as an astronomer, spending long hours with a telescope aimed just right. But I’m still a person with a heartbeat and somehow the camera ignores the vibrations. It handles low-light really well. I can hack the firmware without much problem. It works with Adobe RAW pretty well and it tolerates the massive EM field that gets generated when we’re making lightning indoors. I’ve fried cameras from a Tesla coil before without actually arcing to it, so that’s a big selling point for me. (Really.)
And yeah, I’ll admit it. I like that Sony sells components to other camera makers.
I don’t have anything against Nikon or Canon, or even Olympus or Panasonic. But Sony is kind of quirky in the camera world and it fits me really well. It might be an awful fit for you, who knows. Doesn’t really matter to me.
Read More »The amazing work of Nancy Tobin
Every once in a while I come across an artist who simply astounds me. They fill me with inspiration and desire to create my own work, and captivate me for hours. I found one of those artists today. Her name is Nancy Tobin.
Check it out. Her work is amazing. I’d love to have a long conversation with her about technique. Those are the questions I always want to know but never ask – because I don’t really like being asked them of myself. (Isn’t that how it always works?) It’s definitely worth your time.
Zazzle! Among other things.
I have been a busy, busy bee lately. While most of the busy things have not really been related to art pursuits (do you count drywall mudding as art? Because I don’t, really), I have been up to a couple of artsy things.
First! You must check out my Zazzle Store. It’s pretty awesome. It is not a place to buy prints (though I’m going to have that up and running shortly), but it is a place to buy “things”. A lot of the photos you know and love will show up there, as well as quite a bit Zazzle-exclusive content. Quite a bit of the stuff is customisable. So you can, for example, have business cards with my photo in the background and all of your contact information! How awesome is that?
They’re a great company with great prices and great shipping. Really – I did my research and have been very happy with Zazzle in the past.
And of course every purchase there goes to help keep me fed and clothed. Which is always exciting.
In other news, I have recently un-packed (From, oh, about six years ago) my paint stash. Woo! I’ve got my easel set up and it may get a work-out soon. This might sound a bit silly, but I’m kind of waiting until the weather gets warmer. I want to be able to open up my windows and paint while smelling the outdoors, be it sunshine and grass or the musk of rain. That and, I don’t really like smelling paint for hours after using it and my art space is also presently in my sleeping space.
It looks like this year is shaping up quite well to be a Very Artistic Year.
Read More »Don’t mind the dust
Hello everybody,
I have decided to turn my website upside-down and start over. With a blog! Well, a blog format. I feel this would be easier to updating, organising and just.. everything. So I’m tossing out the old, clunky, never-updated website and starting over with WordPress. (A format I know and love thanks to my job as a sysadmin) Honestly, I’m unsure why I didn’t do this years ago.
Worry not, stand-by items like my fonts will be up here very, very soon. In fact I’ve kind of been feeling the desire to make new fonts lately. So there may be some new things in that department up here soon! I think that’d be really awesome.
So with that – please don’t mind the dust. I’m re-arranging things and making it “pretty” and well, you know how that all goes. I’ll update more as soon as I get the place arranged all proper.
//lis.
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