Saturday, July 31, 2010

New Images in the Gallery - July 31, 2010


The heat has finally let up and we've had some rain. The park and waterfront are finally coming back to life. It's been great to get out with the cameras again. What has been interesting is deciding which camera to take along. The E-510 is an excellent camera but it feels huge now that I have the E-P1. I'm beginning to think about the new 14-150mm lens for when I want a bit more reach. On the other hand, the 14-42mm is a great, compact lens and it makes me think about composition. Of course, the Slide is always with me. It's proven to be a great snapshot camera.

Noble Wolf Studio Gallery
Noble Wolf Studio Notebook
The Slide Report
Thinking In Images

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Getting on the web - the big footprint factor

I haven't posted much about web design lately. The fact is that it's easier than ever to get a site up and running on the web. The tools have evolved nicely and anyone with a few hours to spare can get a decent working website up and running without knowing much more than the FTP information - if that much. It's completely possible to design a website using a weblog these days. Most of them have page functions as well as post functions.

The thing is - is just having a single site enough? Is a single site dynamic enough? One thing search engines like is change. When a site changes search engines have something new to index. A static site can get boring real fast - unless your plan is to have a "calling card" site. The thing is that it can be time consuming to change the content on a regular basis on a static site. A single domain name may not be enough to attract attention these days.

You catch more fish with a net, not a single hook.

I have four domain names and four sites. Each site has a slightly different purpose but the rationale was to increase my "footprint" on the web. All sites link to each other and share content. If I were to combine the four sites into one site it would be a big, noisy, somewhat muddled thing. Updating would be time consuming and complicated. The main site is designed with RapidWeaver, an excellent and fast authoring tool. The others (such as this one) are designed with Google's Blogger, also excellent and fast. The Blogger sites are more text oriented and more "current events" oriented. The main site is updated biweekly since it's a gallery site. There's not much text there.

Since weblogs have RSS feeds they syndicate easily and quickly. I use Google's Feedburner for this. I could easily have the posts jump over to Twitter - if I wanted to - to further increase the footprint.

Personally, I haven't warmed up to Twitter. I may experiment with it at some point. I just haven't found a good enough reason. People keep telling me "it's cool!" but can't exactly explain why.

As the web continues to grow that one site may get lost in the digital cloud. It's time to think about increasing your web footprint. Adding a weblog is easy enough and it's a simple thing to make entries. Instead of a static "about" page, how about a weblog? A weblog makes sense for a "news page", too.

Give readers a reason to revisit your sites with current content. If you have a site, add a weblog. If you have one weblog, why not have a second or third?

Sunday, July 18, 2010

New Images in the Gallery - July 18, 2010


I added a few new images to the Gallery. Despite the heat wave and the damage to the park a few flowers managed to hold on. This sunflower was well over six feet tall!

Noble Wolf Studio Gallery
Noble Wolf Studio Notebook
The Slide Report
Thinking In Images

Sunday, July 11, 2010

New Images in the Gallery - July 11, 2010


After an incredibly hot week some flowers have managed to hang on. There's a few new images in the gallery showing nature in all its glory.

Noble Wolf Studio Gallery
Noble Wolf Studio Notebook
The Slide Report
Thinking In Images

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Life In A Day

Here's a great project: Life In A Day. I think it's brilliant, even if your footage hits the cutting room floor. People are capturing images like never before because it's so easy to do digitally. From cell phone video cameras to full blown video cameras, someone, somewhere is capturing moments of life. My E-P1 can capture video, so can my Slide. It's not like I don't have the cameras. I just have to think of something interesting and get back into video mode. It's been quite some time.

It doesn't matter if it's day to day whatever or story-boarded scenes, it's happening. Individually, each clip is important, but compiled it could be something quite special. The YouTube community is huge. A film like this could show that no matter who you are, no matter where you are, we're all living life the best we can.
Life In A Day is a historic global experiment to create a user-generated feature film shot in a single day. On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a glimpse of your life on camera. The most compelling and distinctive footage will be edited into a feature film, produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.

Sunday, July 4, 2010

New Images in the Gallery - July 4, 2010


The redesign for the Noble Wolf Studio Gallery website is done - finally. It's amazing how much has changed in less than a year. RapidWeaver and its huge range of plugins, themes and customizations make it a must have for the Mac web developer. Google updated Blogger and the new themes, add-ons and Feedburner make for a powerful combination. These programs allow me to concentrate on photography and writing. New images will be coming soon....

Noble Wolf Studio Gallery