Start a Photography Blog

Whether you make your living as a photojournalist or event photographer, or call yourself a serious amateur with a burgeoning gear collection, a blog makes a flexible, accessible image showcase. You'll spend more time setting up your online venue than on convincing yourself it can help you reach prospective clients or take the leap into pro status. Start an image selection that conveys the breadth of your work and plan your blog for maximum impact.

• Photographer-Friendly Template Features

  1. Understandably, most photographers want their images front and center on any online venue that features their work. To build a first-class showcase, start with a theme built for this purpose. Blogs rely on content management systems that separate the code that powers the site from its appearance. Look for -- or commission -- a template that includes a large image-display position at the top of the page, right below the navigation menu. In addition, you want a design that can incorporate a photo on every blog post. Take your time looking through rosters of themes, from the free options your CMS offers to paid premium alternatives. Even if you decide to hire a designer to create your theme, browsing prefabricated options gives you a chance to identify appearance ideas you like, such as decorative border options to frame your images and thumbnail galleries that serve as clickable links to full-sized images.

• Choosing Image Sizes

  1. Your camera yields photos many times the size you want for online use. If you upload high-resolution images and scale them down in your blog software, visitors must wait while big files download from the server. To optimize load times and minimize the amount of bandwidth you use, create and upload versions of your images at the dimensions and resolutions you actually need for online use. Upload representative image sizes through your blog's administrative panel and conduct a real-world test so you see how much monitor space your biggest files require and how long they take to finish downloading to your browser. Check your host provider's terms of service to verify any limits on the amount of bandwidth your account includes, whether you opt for a free blogging service or register a domain name so you can install and maintain your blog yourself.

• Protecting Your Work

  1. Unlike prints and digital portfolios that you display in a binder or on a computing device while you sit face to face with someone who wants to see your work, your blog becomes accessible to anyone with a Web browser, and that includes people who like your images enough to download your files. Some of them may try to pass off your work as theirs. Some may turn your photos into "free" screensavers. You can't put your images on the Web and still protect them against every form of copying, but you can watermark them with a clear designation of your name, the name of your business -- if you earn your living with your camera -- the address of your blog and a copyright notice. Add the watermark in an image-editing application that accepts layered compositions, placing the identifier across an area of significant image detail to make it difficult to remove or crop away.

• Making Connections and Sales

  1. Blogs and comments go hand in hand, giving the public an opportunity to rave about your beautiful photos -- or post utterly irrelevant links to sites you don't want associated with your work. To cut down on spam, you can require visitors to register before they post, implement a CAPTCHA-based system that presents an alphanumeric sequence each commenter must transcribe, hold all comments till you review them or pay to use a specialized comment system that includes advanced screening features. Some bloggers disable commenting altogether to avoid the risks and hassles it presents. Making sales of prints through your blog also can present some gotchas, such as the complexities of accepting credit card payments and dispensing digital or printed products in return. You'll find myriad options for e-commerce, ranging from the simple -- a business PayPal account, for example -- to a full-blown merchant system. Verify the fees you pay and the flexibility a system offers in fulfilling orders.

Posted in: Blogging