The creation of a photography blog can be an excellent opportunity to show your photos and to explain its contents in great detail to Internet users. Any photographer who hopes one day to enter the business, or would simply like to have admirers, should think about creating a blog. Not only will this allow people to have easy access to their work, but it could also encourage them to take new pictures more often.
Create a photography blog
Think about your reasons for creating a blog
Are you thinking of creating a professional website in order to be able to sell photos? Or are you simply looking to share your achievements with others? This will make a big difference to the overall content of your blog, as there are different types of blogs depending on your needs. In general:
photography professionals should seriously think about having their own website (like www. NicksPhotos.com) to give a good image of their company. Most of the blogs such as Weebly or Wordpress allow you to have your own personal website and to market your photos.
Amateur photographers on the other hand are often successful on large-scale photo-sharing websites like Tumblr, where it's easy to sell your work to people who share your passion. They're free, easy to create and easy to administer.
Upload 5 to 10 photos as soon as you create your website
This allows people to see that you already have content as soon as you create it and will make them follow your blog. It also gives you the chance to see your template (the style of your blog) in action and make the necessary corrections so that it reflects what you want.
Once you have chosen your blog, type "free photo templates for ________" in the search engine bar, while filling in the blank space with Wordpress, Tumblr, etc. You can use them easily on your blog and most of them are customizable.
Make your photos a center of attraction
Your goal is to make sure that your fans' first impressions are of your photos and not of long descriptive texts, titles or purchase requests for certain works. To achieve this, you can:
choose and display 4 or 5 of your favourite photos at the top of the screen in a photomontage or as strips
place your most recent photos or posts in the center of your page
display on your home page a collection of all your posts (available on some blogs).
Add your most important contacts to your page
Usually this information is found in the "About" section, but you can always create a "Contact Me" page on most blog websites like Tumblr. This is very important in case someone wants to use your copyrights or rent your services for an event.
Remember to add a Creative Commons license. These free licenses let people know what they are allowed to do with your photos. You can choose from a wide range of solutions available, such as "Attribution" allowing anyone to use the work freely as long as they mention the author's name, "No commercial use" for non-commercial use, "Share Alike", "Zero" and others.
- Let users know if they will need to ask permission before reusing your work, if they cannot do so, or if they can only use your photos for non-profit purposes.
- Creative Commons has a very dynamic legal team that can also help you resolve disputes.
Choosing photos
Choose the theme
Having a theme for your blog makes it easier for people to find it, makes it easier to market it and significantly increases its chances of success. There are countless photography blogs out there, but being able to tell people what kind of photos they will see will help them find what they are looking for. This means that the content of your blog will be of interest to more than one person. The themes don't necessarily have to be complex. Sorting photos by type, such as "landscape", "portrait" and "urban life" is better than doing it under a random collection of photos.
Humans of New York is one of the most famous photography blogs on the planet, and the theme is curiously simple and natural.
Publish a photo every day
You must constantly add new photos if you want to have more audience and improve the blog. If you don't, someone else will provide them with new photos.
All blogs have a scheduling and planning feature. For example, you can take 20 photos on Sunday and schedule the blog so that it automatically publishes a certain number of photos each day for the whole week.
Add captions, anecdotes and personalities
The best blogs are inspired by the personality of the photographer. Let people know why you love taking pictures, what is the mysterious story that motivated you to become a photographer, what is the story that made you choose the blog theme, or what technical prowess you had to use to embellish your photos. There are many ways to do this. Just write down what interests you about the photos.
Remember to classify the views into "photo essays" or "collections"
This is the best way to attract people to your blog and improve your photography skills. Regularly set yourself specific goals. You can set yourself a goal of taking 10 black and white photos, a few portraits of your neighbourhood, photos taken on a hike, and then group all these goals into sub-folders. You can even create tabs for photos, so your fans can appreciate your many shooting talents. You can design a page or have a collection of nature photos in addition to your standard photos, or you can also try to illustrate your everyday life with 10 photos.
Avoid posting photos that tend to reduce the quality of your entire blog
Sometimes, some photos might have a strong emotional appeal to you, but it wouldn't be good to add photos that you missed, just because of your emotions or because you didn't post yesterday. People won't be as receptive to it as you are. Otherwise, you have to use your head and not your heart to select the pictures you will post on your blog. As an exception, you can explain how not to take a great shot or moment (such as a blurry image of a celebrity), but be sure to prove it with a good explanation!
- Avoid posting blurry images.
- Avoid posting dull images.
- Avoid posting poor quality images.
- Avoid publishing images that are not original. In fact, you want to differentiate yourself from others so that people follow your blog and not another.
Sign up for photo community websites. Meeting other photographers who share your vision is one of the great benefits of blogging. Be inspired by the work of other photographers and take the time to tell them what you think of the shots they've taken. Exchange information on social networks and get inspired by the work of others, if you find them particularly interesting. Not only will this increase your traffic, but it may lead you to collaborate with people and do other projects if you make friends with photographers in your circle.