# Starting a photo blog



## DSRay (May 22, 2013)

That's what the world is clambering for, another photo blog.

I don't believe that websites bring in business on their own, but I do believe they can provide potential clients with a taste of my work and hopefully reassure them I am able to create photographs on a professional level.  I also need to clean out this hard drive which is a job that I have been avoiding for a long time.  This particular hard drive has been in three computers now and it's time to go. I've decided that I will slowly work at sorting stuff out while posting to the blog over the next however long it takes.

I'm not intending to be real wordy or chatty, just the bare facts.

So check it out and if you want, let me know what you think.

Dwight Schofield | Architectural Photographer


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## Ilovemycam (May 22, 2013)

Nice work. Liked the Glass Ceiling. Liked the HDR. Not too garish. (But for my street HDR I like hyper real..garish.) I didn't read your blog. I like pix more than words.  But plenty of blogs with crap pix as well as words. So at least you got the goods. 

You want biz, send the clients some sample letter size prints. You can even spiral bind them together for a mini portfolio. Prints are easiest though. 

Good luck!


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## Designer (May 22, 2013)

Architectural photography is an interest of mine, so I'm glad you're showing your work.  My only criticism is the crops on the Marriot and the skylight are cutting off part of the interest.  

Thank you for sharing!


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## Ilovemycam (May 23, 2013)

Designer said:


> Architectural photography is an interest of mine, so I'm glad you're showing your work. My only criticism is the crops on the Marriot and the skylight are cutting off part of the interest.
> 
> Thank you for sharing!



Was wondering that as well with the building top cut off. I thought maybe it was to 'add tension' to the pix? The rest seemed OK with comp. 

If your cutoff building was a screw up, remove it. If it was an artistic statement, then maybe keep it. _But it may turn clients off._ 

I'm a street / doc photog, so I / we are used to cutoffs. The rule with street work is...if you come home with 75% to 85% of what your after, it can still be a success. The Glass Ceiling has a person in it. That makes it a 'street photo' for me. So cutoff does not bother me.

Another way to advertise is to hand print some photo cards for _special_ potential clients. I made a few last night. (As I said, I like the hyper real HDR for street work. I also printed some BW cards, but can't post them here due to censorship rules. I didn't send you guys a sharp pix cause the pole dancer has her boozies out. Hope it is fuzzy enuf for the censors!)







I don't like using one card, so I use as many images as I like for cards. I tell the potential client to pick which card _they_ like. The cards are kind of a pain to print out. (Really not that bad to print, it is just everything that is combined to produce them adds up to a lot of work.) So I will only give them out to special people I really want to shoot. Others will just get a plain paper card.

In my case, even though I will shoot people 100% for free and I will give them the highest quality prints up to 13 x 19 for free...I will most likely not get to shoot them...but I keep trying. 

It is just too hard in this day and age going up to strangers on the street and ask to get into their house to shoot them. People are too paranoid. And since photography is so easy for the masses nowadays, they don't value photography that much...even for free. But this fact does not hurt me that much, I will still get my pix. If people wont let me into their houses...I shoot people on the street. 

Your lucky your into shooting buildings, not much people hassles that way.


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## amolitor (May 23, 2013)

Too much technical detail, I think, for a blog aimed at attracting/convincing clients. I don't care if you used RAW or how many exposures of HDR you made.

The only photograph that strikes me as particularly good is the staircase with the sunlight. This one shows some vision, the ability to *see* and to place things into a frame fortuitously. The buildings, in general range from "poorly placed in the frame" up to a high of "technically sound but pretty pedestrian photograph of a building".

Where's your special sauce? Why would I hire YOU over someone else? How are you going to make my building look AWESOME?


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## DSRay (May 23, 2013)

Ilovemycam said:


> If your cutoff building was a screw up, remove it. If it was an artistic statement, then maybe keep it. _But it may turn clients off._  ... Your lucky your into shooting buildings, not much people hassles that way.



Trust me, I do not publish screw ups.  The crop was meant to engage, and it seems to have worked.  Nothing of any significance was omitted and simple shapes are easily completed by the eye which lends a level of involvement that a different crop would not have.  This applies to the cropped man walking out of the lower right frame.

You've never dealt with architects or realtors, have you?



amolitor said:


> Too much technical detail, I think, for a blog aimed at attracting/convincing clients. I don't care if you used RAW or how many exposures of HDR you made.
> 
> The only photograph that strikes me as particularly good is the staircase with the sunlight. This one shows some vision, the ability to *see* and to place things into a frame fortuitously. The buildings, in general range from "poorly placed in the frame" up to a high of "technically sound but pretty pedestrian photograph of a building".
> 
> Where's your special sauce? Why would I hire YOU over someone else? How are you going to make my building look AWESOME?



You're so kind.  Interestingly, my only photograph close to your style is the staircase.  Technical ability is also a part of the game, you can have all the *sight* you want but if you don't have the ability to translate it to a technically correct form, it's a moot point.

And please, I've got 5 photos posted so far, give me a break.


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## Derrel (May 23, 2013)

I stopped by and looked at it. You've got an elegant, simple interface, some easily-found categories, and a few photos up. Pictures are reasonably large, and I think that the film shot of the light shaft and wall and stairway railing is simply a lovely photo, very well-presented on the web. I wondered about the crop-off and the slight tilt in that one building, but at the same time, cropping the top of the tower a little bit does convey a sense of staggering height, at least to somebody with well-developed visual sensibilities. It doesn't seem "accidental" at all, to me.

I dunno, blogs are so varied in their styles, forms, content, approaches, and goals that it's often very difficult to tell exactly who the audience is, or what the goal or goals of a blog are--and that goes double for a brand-new blog like yours. It's early days, and the text reflects that. I can't tell who it was written for, or if the goal is to get clients, or just to showcase your photos in the new, modern-era "blog format" that so many people are involved with these days. I figure you'll make changes as you see fit, and as time passes there will be more subjects covered, more photos, more stories, more anecdotes, and so on. I wouldn't presume to give advice on such a new venture, since "what it is supposed to be" and "who it's supposed to engage" is really something I don't know about. Only the blogger does! Overall, I thought it was a great start. Clean, simple, big pictures, less-is-more kinda thing.


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## amolitor (May 23, 2013)

Ok, whatever, dude. Good luck!


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## Ilovemycam (May 23, 2013)

amolitor said:


> Too much technical detail, I think, for a blog aimed at attracting/convincing clients. I don't care if you used RAW or how many exposures of HDR you made.
> 
> The only photograph that strikes me as particularly good is the staircase with the sunlight. This one shows some vision, the ability to *see* and to place things into a frame fortuitously. The buildings, in general range from "poorly placed in the frame" up to a high of "technically sound but pretty pedestrian photograph of a building".
> 
> Where's your special sauce? Why would I hire YOU over someone else? How are you going to make my building look AWESOME?



Yes, if you are sticlty biz, the technical stuff may not be that interesting to clients. Although many photogs put technical things in their blog to attract other photogs. You know how it is nowadays..the photogs almost have to give workshops to survive.


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## Ilovemycam (May 23, 2013)

DSRay said:


> Ilovemycam said:
> 
> 
> > If your cutoff building was a screw up, remove it. If it was an artistic statement, then maybe keep it. _But it may turn clients off._ ... Your lucky your into shooting buildings, not much people hassles that way.
> ...



Well good, I didn' think the cutoff was a screwup, but you never know? Just be aware clients may be turned off. 

The staircase was my least favorite. The glass ceiling was my favorite. Second fav was a nice HDR you had. Cutoff building was near the bottom, maybe tied with the staircase.

How long have you been shooting? If your going pro you should have more than 5 good pix. Or is it a case of no time to post em? 

Most pro photogs have the portfolio for easy viewing and don't use a blog format for clients to have to sift through lots of articles to see the photos.


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