89 My Gallery - More on the Outline

Remember, we established our website goals ... here.

One of those goals was to educate. Another was to provide a fun place to visit. By linking my website to my blogsite on the frontpage, I make it easy for folks who enjoy either or both to get from one to the other quickly.  And all they have to remember is my name ... www.glengoffin.com ;D

One day I will likely migrate my blog to my own hosting service but that is difficult to rationalize when Blogger is free and ooooh so powerful!

88 Creating Your Gallery - The Landing Zone

Welcome back. OK, now that we've decided on our goals for our website, let's start designing it.

Site Outline

With your goals clearly in mind, it is now important to create the outline for your website. These are the bones on which you will add the flesh.  Here, before you dive in, you need to map out the web pages; creating the directory, if you will.

87 Creating My Photo Gallery - Part 1

Every photographer needs a gallery.   Art is meant to be shared and appreciated.

As you all know, Cisco Kid, he was a friend of mine.  But Flickr ... not so much.   However, for those that like it, it is a great (read "free") choice.  Just resist the pandering.  That's my only big beef.

Regular readers here know that I've chosen Smugmug as my hosting service for Glen Goffin Photography.    For the past many weeks I've been learning the in's and out's of Smugmug.  I thought I would share some of what I've learned in case it helps.

71 Content is King - Glen's Plan to Usurp the Throne

I've been pondering whether this meteor impact crater I call a blog is actually worth the electrons it takes to store it ... or is this just another dead-end eddy current leading unwary floaters to a circling, swampy, stagnating side-pool of uselessness.

In the Kingdom of the Blogosphere, I am the secret, unwanted love-child of the room-keep and the stable-hand. How dare I think I might actually contribute anything of worth in a land of such mighty intellect and creativity!? Bahhh ... preposterous!!

I suppose the thing to do is to take a tally of my contributions -

1. Pretty photographs score: 3/10

2. Educational content score: -3/10 (this blog will actually cause you to lose brain cells)

3. Interesting facts score: -5/10 (never met a fact I didn't twist into senselessness)

4. Laughs, snorts, giggles, smirks score: 5/10 (it's my blog, I can give myself any score I want!)

Net Total = 0

I guess I won't win any awards but at least it's break-even!

ok ... well, I'll never be king but maybe stable-hand isn't all that bad after all :)

The image at the top is a simple picture of the concrete at the El Convento hotel. The original couldn't be more boring but with some intense PP-ing, this is what popped out. I like the intense texture and the diagonals. The picture just above is a close-up of the fence at the Basilica. I just like that shot.

Peace,

Glen

67 Yes, I'm Smugging

No, not "smuggling". Unless you consider it smuggling when I hide my ignorance, carry it across international borders and peddle it off as expertise. Hmmm ... good thing there are no dogs that can sniff that one out.

Wow, I have so much nonsense to share. Where do I start?

Let's start with Smugmug. As you all know, I'm no big fan of Flickr. It's great for some folks. It's just not for me. Mutual adoration fests and popularity contests are ... well ... just NOT my gig. I've posted on that before.

Soooo ... where to post my galleries?

I figure even babies are smart enough to crawl before they walk (though they don't do so well when chewing gum). And I can outrun a baby anyday. So my first step was to use Blogger for this twisted carnage I call a blog. It's easy, powerful and ... ummm ... free. Now, my second step is to use a turn-key gallery hosting service. One day (insert fantasy sequence and harp music here), I'll actually author everything myself and have a first-class site like Kathleen's (check it out for yourselves). Hopefully by then I'll also have a handful of decent pictures to show, too.

The two gallery hosting sites I see most often are PBase and Smugmug and, after rigorous investigation ... ok, I never even tried PBase ... I signed up for a year of SM mostly just based on how cool it looked.

A few of my initial reactions -

1. The commercial aspects (online selling) are important to me. Unfortunately, it seems pretty constrained so far at least at the "Power" level. I'm not sure but I think the way it works is that they sell prints and I get a small cut of the profits. At 19 cents a print ... hmmm ... I think I'll break even sometime next ... well ... never. Honestly, I think they capitalize on the fact that those who buy the most prints of a photograph are the photographer, his family and his friends. Smart ... but cheesy.

2. It's not immediately obvious but they fully support CSS customization. I'm looking forward to using that.

3. They (Smug) seem to be very sensitive to the copyrights of the creators. That is really important to me. A general respect for the work and talent of the photographers. There are mechanisms to disable various ways that internet thieves steal images. This, for me, is one if the key reasons for using a turn-key gallery hosting service since I'm still naive to all the different ways that works can be stolen ... but I know there are a lot of them.

These two images are from Old San Juan. There are sculptures sprinkled all throughout the old city. They are all whimsical and fun and have such a distinctive vibe. They've become iconic symbols of the city. This one is particularly fun. The glasses that someone placed on the bird are perfect!

Peace and joy,
Glen

66 A Guy and his 85mm in Old San Juan

Whew!! Last week we were in Old San Juan. I had every intention of writing a post or two from there but was having too much stinking fun shooting! And then there was the post work on all those pics ... and the setup of my new smugmug gallery (here) ... and ... well ... I'm lazy ... and ... well ... here we are.

In the last post, I ranted about the merits of going prime. I put it to the test last week because I brought only one lens with me ... my trusty 85mm.

Admittedly, it was free-form shooting. No rules, no constraints ... just shoot what interests me. But it involved all types of shots - indoor, outdoor, people, buildings, animals, landscapes ...

Verdict: I agree with myself! Prime makes for prime shooting.

Take the picture above. This most unfriendly kitty was quite aloof with me. I feared she was going to bolt so I remained a few steps away. No matter how many "here kitty, kitty"s I gave her, she would NOT look at me. The best I got was, "Talk to the paw". Maybe she's tired of all the paparazzi.

With a zoom, it would have been my tendency to pull in tighter and fill the frame with more kitty and less sidewalk. With the 85mm at this distance there was a bunch of open frame. I decided to put those cool cobblestones up front and use DoF to isolate the subject. A zoom lens wouldn't have given me the blur-power (f/1.2) that my prime gives me. All-in-all, a better shot than I would've taken with a zoom.

Note, too, that the amazingly huge f/1.2 aperture produces such a hair-thin DoF that just the slight turn of this kitty's head moved her eyes out of the plane of focus. Wow! Be warned. I should've used f/2.0.

More kitty pics and OSJ pics to come. Here is another example of framing I wouldn't have chosen with a zoom.

Love and peace,
Glen