What am I doing?

One of the reasons for starting this blog was to document the learning process I am going through with digital photography and printing. I haven’t been doing much of that lately.

I haven’t been idle. I’ve been working (sporadically) on a few new things in various areas. I have been doing some black and white portraiture again (thanks Shazz, Trev and Russell) with mixed results. I am happy with the black and white look, but I am not getting the best out of the subjects or lighting yet. I need more practice.

I have also been experimenting with being more aggressive/adventurous with the ‘enhancing’ of images in Photoshop. I’ll talk more about those two things in future posts.

One issue I have been exploring is how to get my photos “out there” so I can get more feedback and therefore work to improve. It is hard working in a vacuum. You don’t really know how much you are improving and if you are moving in the right direction. I get very good feedback from friends and family, but I would like a wider exposure.
I set up the Interface photography website to showcase what I believe to be my best images of the moment. The plan is to update it regularly as I get new work up to standard. Getting people to come and see it is the next big issue.

The aim of the blog was primarily to document the digital photography learning process, take part in a dialog with other photographers as work progresses on new images, add bits and pieces about writing issues, etc. It has been successful in a limited way. I have been having fun writing about various bits and pieces and have enjoyed the comments from the folks who are reading it, but I haven’t been able to get a wider readership yet.

I began a photoblog partly to put up some work that I don’t think fits into my current website, and to experiment with linking to photoblog sites such as photoblogs.org. So far this has produced virtually nothing in terms of new visits.

I am now looking into displaying some work on Flickr. I am not happy about their terms and conditions, but there are a lot of good photographs there and some very interesting photographers to interact with.

The big question is how to get my photographs noticed. I am reading about tags, groups and other ways of being seen.

A work colleague of a friend is doing very well on Flickr. He is getting a lot of comments and reportedly offers of purchase. His work is often not to my taste, but go to Flickr and check out images from Ambientlight, a Geelong boy.I don’t think I will keep both the photoblog and a Flickr stream going, so eventually the least useful one will go.

The big challenge is to get a broader exposure for the photography and writing. I shall keep you informed of the progress.