For my purposes, I decided to used Flickr to create and manage my family’s photo archive. Now, as you know, one downside of Flickr is that users are only allowed to display the 200 most recent images/videos if they have a free account (which I do).

However, I was able to get around this, and actually make my archive much, much more functional, by creating a Flickr group as well. As you can see, the group currently has 400+ images in its pool, well over the 200 image limit of a free account.

Another major plus to using a Flickr group for your photo archive is the About/Group Description area. This area lets you write a description of your group with the option to include some html. It is the html that makes this so useful, as I can include links to tags for dates, locations, people, etc. Sure you could just search for tags with the search bar at the top, but that assumes you know which tags are in use. It also assumes that you know how to use the search bar (and will search for photos/tags within the group and not, say, in all of Flickr or in your own photostream) which is not a given when you are trying to share the archive with some less computer savvy relatives.

Lastly, you can’t tell, but I did not change the names of my images. They have been set to be numbered sequentially as they are scanned in. I then write the range of numbers on the envelop of the physical once they photos have been scanned and placed back in the envelop for storage. That way, if ever someone wants a print of a particular image, or for some reason needs a high-resolution scan, I can simply view the image number and find the proper envelop (they are being stored sequentially as I finish each one) to access the correct photograph.

More examples:

One of my favorite tools to play with was the grid spot. Unfortunately, now that I am out of school, I no longer have the access to the kits there, and I can’t afford my own kit. Luckily, there are some great DIY photoblogs out there, and more than a few ways to build your own grid for your strobe.

I ended up following a post on DIYPhotography.net which utilized corrugated plastic for the grid.

I ended up making two versions, one that was 3cm in length, and another that was 6cm in length. Though the light that was coming out of the grid was definitely more controlled, for some reason I could not achieve the nice circle shape seen in a test using a grid made from black straws. Instead, when shot against a wall, there was a definite rectangular pattern with half-circles coming out of each side. Below are the photos from both the 3 inch and 6 inch versions.

Other DIY grid tutorials:

cardboard
black straws
honeycomb grid

The honeycomb grid is actually an air straightener from a company called saxonpc. They have since realized that there is a market in the photo world for their product and sell grid kits.

Kelby lays out the steps to achieve the look as follows:

* Recovery = 100
* Fill Light = 100
* Blacks = Drag this slider to the right until photo looks balanced again, because setting the Fill Light at 100 will wash the photo out big time. In our example, I dragged it to 24
* Contrast = 100
* Clarity = 100
* Vibrance = 100
* Saturation = -81 (basically what I do here is drag the saturation all the way to the left, to -100 (which removes all color, making it a black and white image), and then I slowly drag back to the right until some of the color starts to return to the image.

This can be done in either Adobe Camera Raw, or in the develop section of Lightroom. He also recommends adding a vignette, under the lens correction settings, and softening the skin on the face with a Gaussian Blur and layer mask.

Here are a few that I did:

During my journalism education, I found that some of my most helpful and interesting classes were taken outside of the journalism building. For that reason, I have included some links to opencourseware classes related to photography and media. They may not teach you a new skill (some may, as with the Flash classes), but might help you to become a better, more informed journalist. There are, of course, some pros and cons to taking an open courseware class. Often you will not have access to a lecture (though some provide video) and you do not always have access to full course materials.

• Introduction to Photography and Related Media, Fall 2007 (MIT)
• Photography and Truth, Spring 2005 (MIT)
• Introduction to Media Studies, Fall 2005 (MIT)
• Sensing Place: Photography as Inquiry, Spring 2006 (MIT)
• History of Media and Technology, Spring 2005 (MIT)
• Media in Cultural Context, Spring 2007 (MIT)
• Producing Films for Social Change, Fall 2005 (Tufts)
• Understanding Online Interaction (Utah State)
• Interactive Multimedia Production (Utah State)
• Modern Art and Mass Culture Spring 2004 (MIT)
• Digital Anthropology, Spring 2003 (MIT)
• Power: Interpersonal, Organizational and Global Dimensions, Fall 2005 (MIT)
• American Dream: Exploring Class in the U.S., Spring 2007 (MIT)

You can search for more classes from the 200+ OCW members at the OpenCourseWare Consortium.

I thought I would post some links to a couple of slideshow apps I have been trying out. The above was made with Animoto. You can link it to your flickr account and choose from a selection of musical options. It then edits together a short music video for you (30 second pieces are free, anything more and there is a fee).

I have also been trying out slideoo (which I used for the post above), FotoViewr, and splashr.

Slideoo is a horizontal scrolling slideshow that reminded me a lot of the Vuvox collage app. You can move through it by clicking on either end, or by dragging a scroll bar on the bottom. Clicking on a photo will take you to its flickr photo page.

Fotoviewr has four different viewing styles, all of which look very good, and remind me of Cover Flow in iTunes. There is also a full screen option, but currently there is not an embed option for your blog or web page (supposedly coming soon).

splashr has 23 different viewing styles with the ability to embed. However, when embedding, the default width is 1000 px, which is too large for most blogs, and changing that size lowered the quality of the images in the slideshows.

I ran into trouble when I wanted to use html within a text box (which has the option to include a scroll bar). Without being able to add html into the text box, I can’t add a collection of videos or photo galleries that users can scroll through.

Still, for the ease of use, I can imagine all sorts of uses for promotion of videos, galleries and special sections.

The new site makes use of Robert Ellis’ Aperio theme. Ellis is also the designer behind a theme I previously used, Modio, and was the man behind the Upstart Blogger site, before he sold it for $14,500.

The Aperio theme is still in what Ellis calls a prototype stage, with limited support. While the main page is obviously very image-driven, the single post pages have extremely narrow columns (no room for images) and I found that I had to delete the sidebar in order to display my multimedia properly.

Uploading images for the main page is relatively simple, and photos are automatically cropped down when a post goes from the latest post slot (top left) to any of the other recent post slots which are half as wide. There is a spot for a seventh post on the main page, but I chose to put links there instead.

I had considered using the Monochrome Gallery theme I wrote about last week, with it’s featured categories, and prominent rotating recent posts, but it seemed more of a magazine-style theme than a simple portfolio.