Blogging is a great way to advertise your skills as a photographer. Why make a photo blog? For starters, it is an avenue for you to share your photos and your experiences. It can also be greatly advantageous if you are looking to get hired for photo projects. Acting like a portfolio, it can show potential clients not just your best photographs but also your vision behind creating them. Having a photo blog can be a great boost in confidence if people leave comments about your posts and you can interact with online visitors and share opinions and lessons learned.
Have a focus – before creating a blog, it would be best to have an objective to keep yourself focused and to make it easier for the readers to know what your blog is all about. Random writing is good to a certain extent since you have the freedom to write and show photos about anything you like with no thought of how your posts all will relate to each other. The downside is that readers may find your blog too vague and you might not have regular readers unless your photos are spectacular. Photography is such a broad topic and there are lots of areas in which to specialize.
Blog hosts, Free or Paid? – There are a lot of blog hosts which offer free accounts such as WordPress, Blogger, and Aminus3. If you are not too particular with site customization, these are usually enough to provide you a platform with which to show your photos and share your insights. However, if you want to have more control over the look and features of your blog site, you might need to pay a minimal fee.
Keep it clean – to make your photos stand out, a clean and uncluttered layout and design is best. The page background is like a frame or a border for your photos to be placed against. Some like the page backgrounds to be light colored or white, while others prefer it dark or black. It is really a matter of preference; one is not better than the other, as long as the background for the shots show them off to their best advantage and not detracts from them.
Photo blog vs. blog with photos – a photo blog is simply a website that focuses on photographs. If you are making a photo blog, text should be kept at a minimum. After all, the pictures should not need extensive explanation. A short description or caption would do. However, your posts may be photo reviews, How To articles, or how your day went and although these all can show your photos, they are not primarily considered a photo blog but rather, a blog with photos.
Posting Frequency – the popularity of your photo blog also depends hugely on how often you update it. If you post irregularly and few and far between, even the most loyal follower will get bored and stop visiting your blog. If you post too often, such a ten times a day, your blog might suffer from information overload and that can also be a turn-off. Create a steady stream of posts spaced just right to keep your followers hooked and yet wanting for more. Needless to say, it is good practice to show a few of your best photos at a time, rather than a lot of mediocre ones.
Create awareness – now that you have your blog all set up with a steady stream of photos, spread the word around to make people aware of its existence. Some visitors may stumble upon your site by accident while others may visit because they heard about it from other related blogs. Others will be people you know such as family and friends who are just curious to see what you are up to. If you are in the photography business, or at least are looking for short term photo jobs, tap into everyone you know by way of social networking sites. This is a convenient way to promote your capabilities as a photographer, as well as show them your blog with the use of a link. Another method is to visit other photo blogs and leave comments. Not only will you get to appreciate other photographers’ expertise and creativity, but you can make them curious and they, in turn, will most probably check out your own blog.
Tags: photo blog self-promotion, photo blog tips, photo blogging tips
