Web Profiles

I’m often asked how photographers can have their website appear in this column, so I decided to offer some advice that even if it doesn’t get you featured in Web Profiles will improve the quality of your site.

Don’t use Flash. It may be fun, but why spend time and money to limit the number of people who can view it? Using Flash means literally millions of iPhone and iPad users can’t see your site.

Avoid the temptation to fill the site with graphics that compete with your photographs. First impressions count and you want visitors to focus on your images.

"But when television is bad, nothing is worse...a vast wasteland."--Newton Minow

In his now famous speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, the FCC's Minow may have quoted Edward Estlin Cummings but he was on-target in addressing the state of television in 1961. I have to wonder what he would think about the visual and aural...

It’s hard for me to believe that it’s November already. As I write this, the trees and plants on Daisy Hill are still in full bloom but this column gives me an opportunity to thank a few people who have helped me over this year. Thanks to Tim Fiedler (www.dracophoto.com) who is responsible for the redesign and implementation of my car photography website and blog (www.joefaraceshootscars.com). He also implemented my movie blog (www.ihatepopcorn.com) with an assist from Ralph Nelson (www.ralphnelson.com) who designed the header. Thanks also to Kevin Elliott (www.digitalmd.net), the computer guru who keeps my systems running. And finally I am thankful for the continuing friendship of my pal Barry Staver who started having monthly breakfasts with me 20 years ago ostensibly to share Photoshop tips but has evolved into much more than that.

"When sorrows come they come not single spies, but in battalions."--Shakespeare

Like many Microsoft Windows users, I spend far too much time keeping my computer healthy. In the April 2005 issue, I introduced you to browser options other than Internet Explorer and while those programs are less prone to security problems, spyware continues to plague...

The new year is a good time for a creative rebirth, so instead of trotting out all of those same old New Year’s resolutions why not try something to help you grow as a photographer? A few years ago I created an online gallery called “2011 Photo of the Day,” which was one of the hardest things I ever tried yet at the same time was rewarding because the commitment forced me to make a new image every day, even when I didn’t feel like it. Last October I introduced you to four photographers and their individual approaches to producing a photograph-a-day blog. If you missed it, you can read it on Shutterbug’s website. This year, I resolved to try a photo-a-day project in 2012 using the free Tumblr (www.tumblr.com) platform so there’s no excuse that you can’t do the same thing. If you follow me on Tumblr (http://joefarace.tumblr.com), I’ll follow you back so we can see how each of us does during the year.

"I'm not sure blogs are necessarily the best place to get a pulse on anything. People want to blog for a variety of reasons, and that may or may not be representative." --Steve Ballmer

Like it or not, Mr. Ballmer, blogging is a fact of life in this millennium. I'm always surprised by how many photographers' websites also have blogs. It...

The Internet is so big, so powerful and pointless that for some people it is a complete substitute for life.--Andrew Brown

Recently Adobe's CEO Bruce Chizen announced that all their applications would move online within 10 years. The same day I saw a headline that "Comcast Blocks Some Internet Traffic," referring to the nation's second largest...