Tag Archives: Canon 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6

Connect

Hi everybody,

You may have noticed that over the last few weeks I have not been uploading an awful lot of my own work to this site and the related FaceBook page. And there is a reason for that. Apalled by the self centredness of many pages and accounts in the hunt for likes and follows, … I decided to contribute more to other sites and to share some more of other people’s work. One of these contributions was my contribution to Wild Eye’s weekly behind the frame post, which by the way generated a perfect example as per how not to provide feedback (yet more about that soon).  As I mentioned before, it’s all about giving and taking, a post that created some nice exchange in the recent past, coincidentally (or maybe not) with Marcelle Robbins whom also contributed to last week’s behind the frame post. Which brings me to another aspect, which has been raised many times before: it’s not about the amount of connections you have, yet about the quality of your connections, since those are the connections that give you the boost to keep on going.

Point is of course that all these interactions take time and that you have to weigh your time investment properly. For that reason it is important to have your social media linked. A great way of doing this from your FaceBook account is with Tradablebits. You may have noticed the new Twitter link and the RSS blog feed at the top of my FB page, great stuff and all for free, or at least, there are 4 aps you can install for free, well worth checking out.

I’ve also been creating a Google+ account, have contributed to several G+ themes (FYI today is African Tuesday and the shot in this post was my first contribution to that theme) and created a theme myself: Wild Kenya a visual ode to Kenya, it’s wildlife, landscapes and people and a way of sharing great shots from Kenya. More about Google+ in one of my next blog posts. All going well, the next one going live will be a guest post.

Canon 350D, 55mm, f/5.6, 1/800 ISO 200

And all that being said, in the near future I will keep on uploading stuff here, yet I will also work on trying to get some return on time investment, by adding an online shop to the site, creating a shutterstock account, trying to get some work to the newspapers (you may have noticed my cheetah shots in the Daily Mail), getting some nice business cards, …

And guess what: without it being the goal, giving back to the community by commenting on people’s posts and by sharing their work has actually earned me more likes and follows than I would have ever reached by just focusing on my own work, … think about it!

Warm regards,

Guy

 

With the earth as our witness

Dear all,

The year’s end is always a busy time, reviewing, reporting, planning, … On top of that I’ve just been out for a week of non photography related work to Zambia, hence the fact I’ve not been in a position to stick to my intention to come up with a post per week.

That doesn’t mean I havn’t been busy with my photography, on the contrary. I sold off my old and trusted 350D (now that my second hand 5D arrived, the 350 became superfluous, more about the 5D in one of my next posts). I’ve been uploading pictures to the Wild Eye gallery, where 2 shots are doing really well, and some others following closely. I’ve been exchanging a bit about the site and based on that I decided to minimize the number of categories in the portolio’s to allow for more easy viewing of our pictures, after all, that is what this site is all about. I’ve also been developing my 500px portfolio in an attempt to create some more visibility for my work.

Talking about 500px, I started to upload some pictures now 3 weeks ago. At first I thought you would get traffic and votes for your pictures straight away, yet that is not at all the case. Didn’t get how the others actually managed to get so much traffic. What I learned from it is that you should actually not start with your best pictures, yet first you should put some of your work up, enough to create interest, then you have to start commenting on people’s work and start following some of the people whose work you like. By doing so, people will also watch your work and start following you, and that is what you need. Once you have some followers, you can add more work, your followers will then see your pictures as soon as you post them, and if they like them, your picture will make it to the upcoming and favorite category. Quick votes, shortly after your upload are key in the 500px scoring algorithm, explained here.

Here’s my most appreciated picture from 500px.

Canon 350D, Canon 75-300 @ 150mm, 1/100, f/5.6, ISO 1600

And that actually brings me to what I originally wanted to write about, this stunning place, Mt Nyiragongo, on the rim of which I proposed Sietske to marry me, with Mother Earth as our witness, … yet that will now become another story.

Canon 350D, Canon 18-55 @ 18mm, 1/250, f/10, ISO 400

And before I forget, most importantly, last WE, Sietske’s mom was visiting and we were out along Lake Naivasha and in Lake Nakuru NP. Pictures will follow soon.

All the best,

Guy