[Farktographer]

Kestrana it’s a really interesting idea, and I’m sure a lot of photographers here would be interested in joining in.

[Farktographer]

I’ve got the server space and the bandwidth here at the house, so I’ve opted to set up my own website. That way my costs are minimal ($35/yr for the domain name + I have someone else handle the DNS since my ISP does something funny & I couldn’t get it to work reliably on my servers) and I don’t feel like I *have* to sell pics to pay for my hubris. Plus, I’ve got complete control over pricing, and more importantly my work. The other upside is that (I feel) it looks more professional (as in, I’m serious about it), but on the flip side, I’m wholly responsible for getting search engine indexing, marketing, etc. Facebook helps there either way, if you create an artist/business page and start getting your friends (that are so inclined) to follow you, then their friends will also see your work. Just don’t upload any of your work to that page – Facebook can use your art for marketing purposes under their TOS. Plus, they filter what people see on their wall to reduce information overload and one of the major factors that they use to determine whose posts get seen is how many external links they post. Plus, external (hot)links are a good way to invite traffic back to your own site.

Whatever you do, do NOT put anything up on art.com. If you look in the fine print, once you put something up there you can never, ever take it down. deviantart and some of the other places are better about that, but definitely read all the details of the TOS before you put up a single piece.

I’d also recommend ordering something through whatever outlet you’re considering before you commit, too. For example, there’s a HUGE difference in quality between shutterfly and mpix – from the quality of the paper down to the color correction of their printers. The key thing you want to look for in a print house is ‘archive quality’ – meaning under normal conditions the art should last 70+ years.

On the facebook note, my supervisor warned me about them being able to take your photos for their own use. After I heard that, I started making groupings of photos that I only post to facebook – I scale down the image and muck up the quality just a bit, so they could never blow it up and use it for anything larger than a normal computer screen. At least it guarantees they don’t get a high-quality version out of me.

[Farktographer]

I haven’t a clue regarding pricing and selling and whatnot, but for those without a reliable printing center near their house, I was told to use mpix to upload and buy photographs. I uploaded my photos for my niece’s birthday to shutterfly, but some people requested i upload to mpix because the quality of the photographs is supposed to be better. I’ve never seen the same print from the two locations side by side so I wouldn’t know, but mpix claims to be for the professional photographer.

[Farktographer]

Congratulations!!

[Farktographer]

Not sure how much conversion of your D50 you’re talking about, but have you tried the Nikon ViewNX? It’s what I use to make small adjustments before turning into .tiff files.

[Farktographer]

Thanks 🙂 I’m glad to be here and I’m learning a lot – (and the more I know, the more I know I don’t know, so that learning’s going to be increasing a LOT hah)

[Farktographer]

Well that’s why they have to do it. Cause I Said So.

Ba-dum KISH!

[Farktographer]

Some bees for this week…

This was a lucky draw by a friend of mine during a poker game. I guess I was lucky that I folded that hand right away so I could take photos of the group.

This was a favorite of mine and was a shoe-in for this contest until the last minute…it could pop up in a later contest

I also liked this one, but didn’t know if it fit into the contest as well as my other entries.

[Farktographer]

I don’t like the idea of prizes for all the reasons already stated. But I *love* the idea of the sidebar recognition.

Yeah, this.

Ditto to this ditto. Ditto squared?

[Farktographer]

CauseISaidSo I’m not sure of the legality of where we were shooting, but it’s somewhere a lot of locals go to shoot, so it’s just a known spot for it 😈

ravnostic, thanks for the tips. I’m more particular of the one without the white balance change, too…just looks prettier, hah. I’ve got some other hands ones for the contest later, but I’d definitely have to play with the light curves if I were to submit pic number two, I agree.

Kestrana – one of my roommates showed me Fark about 6 years ago while we were in a lab. I started following it periodically, then forgetting about it, then finding it again. I never made a handle or anything of that sort – I’d just browse the stories. This year I finally got a nice DSLR, and started getting really into photography (I had always taken a ton of pictures with my point and shoot, but the quality just wasn’t what I wanted so it never developed into anything serious). Then I saw fark one day when it had the photo contest – and I signed up the next week to participate 😛 It’s been a match 6 years in the making – I just needed the right timing to check the site and a decent camera.

[Farktographer]

Thanks, everyone. NoBigDeal, I agree – I personally like the startrails with the colder purple tinge to it. olavf, I’ll take that as a direct order from a mod, so YES, SIR!

[Farktographer]

My first thought is – it’d bring in a lot more farktographers and competition. We’ve been discussing how it looks like participation has been sliding down as of late (then again I’m pretty new so I don’t notice the difference), but offering a prize would definitely boost that, IMO.

However, we would absolutely lose the camaraderie that is shared in these events. When prizes are put on the line, people will take losses more personally. Some people may eventually jump ship when their photos never get voted in the top 10 (or wherever the prize spread is). Depending on the person, it could stop them from offering helpful tips to others because they don’t want to risk the *other* person winning *their* prize.

/ my 2 cents
// -1

[Farktographer]

CauseISaidSo – Thanks for the tips – I knew that thread had to be around somewhere but for some reason I couldn’t find it.

Rav – I like the two new shots, particularly the first one. That one is amazing!

[Farktographer]

So, um…I’m trying to post a gallery on here, and it’s not letting me put up pictures. Are there any tricks to this? I’m pasting in the HTML code from flickr i would use for the farktography contests…when I tried putting it in via img src, that didn’t work either. I feel like I’m missing the blatantly obvious.

[Farktographer]

Ditto to all these sentiments. I’m still 100% a beginner – just got my first DSLR camera this year during Christmas (as opposed to the point-and-shoot that had been literally falling apart on me for the better part of two years). Farktography has helped me see photographs in a whole new way. My friends make fun of me because I constantly look at things and say, “hey, that could make for a GREAT picture!” These assorted themes make sure I’m always thinking outside of the box – I probably never would have started playing with long exposures or astrophotography if not for this group.

Plus, we have wonderful photographers here, and I like picking at their brain (and pictures) to see what’s going through their head 😮

[Author]

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