The Lay's® Happiness Exhibit

Yesterday while I was on flickr, I found a flickr add that linked you to the “Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit.” This web site caught my attention, not because it was part of flickr, but, because I love the way this web site looks and works. The front page is laid out so simply, but is has a lot going on. I do find it interesting that they are partnered up with flickr. If you look in the lower right corner you will notice it says “Powered by flickr.”

I have been looking at a lot of web sites lately because I would like to upgrade my personal website and make it more functional or photography. My problem is that I am very technical and have a tendency to make things more complicated then it needs to be. I am trying to teach myself how to keep it simple (stupid). It is not as easy as it sounds for someone that is not artsy, but technical. So I keep looking and making notes and adding them to my list of web sites I  like. This sight has been added to my list because of it’s simplicity and that is was made with flash.

If you know how they built this site or have an expertise in this type of web design, I would be interested in hearing from you. Also, i would like any suggestions of clases I can take to learn how to make this type of site. You can place your comments and suggestions in the comment section below.

Now on with the Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit. When you look inside, you first notice that the images submitted are not by pro’s, but by the average point and shoot photographers. As you dig deeper you will find some very exceptional photos. It’s is easy to join and add photos. If you have a flickr account just go to the upper left corner of the frames, and you will see UPLOAD YOUR HAPPY PHOTOS and click on the Start Here. This will link you to your Yahoo or Flickr sign on. Sign-in and the follow the instructions to accept the API. Next when you go back to the Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit it will ask you to accept and a few other instructions to follow. When you are done you will be able to add images directly to the flickr group Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit flickr group or directly to the Lay’s® Happiness Exhibit.

If you don’t have a flickr sign-on you can follow the above instructions and create a new flickr account.

A friend of Thomas Hawk of Thomas Hawk Digital Connection has posted some great trip to increase your Flickr influence on the web and on the Flickr Social Media site. As a photographer, I have wanted to increase my exposure among Flickr circle. Since Flickr is one, if not the largest photography social media web site it should be a good place to my photography noticed.

With permission from Thomas Hawk I have reposted Thomas Hawks TOP 10 WAYS TO GET ATTENTION ON FLICKR .

“What is more pleasant than the benevolent notice other people take of us, what is more agreeable than their compassionate empathy? What inspires us more than addressing ears flushed with excitement, what captivates us more than exercising our own power of fascination? What is more thrilling than an entire hall of expectant eyes, what more overwhelming than applause surging up to us? What, lastly, equals the enchantment sparked off by the delighted attention we receive from those who profoundly delight ourselves? – Attention by other people is the most irresistible of drugs. To receive it outshines receiving any other kind of income. This is why glory surpasses power and why wealth is overshadowed by prominence.”

Caterina Fake, Co-founder of Flickr, 2005.

Over the course of the past 4 years, about every 2 years or so I’ve written a blog post that has been one of my most popular entitled “Top 10 Ways to Get Attention on Flickr.” It’s been a few years, Flickr’s changed a bit, and so I thought I’d take a bit of time today to outline some of the techniques that active power users use on Flickr to get more attention for themselves and their photos.

Fundamentally it comes down to a pretty simple equation:

quality photos + reciprocation² = attention.

But there are lots of other little tricks and tips, so let’s get right into them.

1. The order that you publish your photos in matters — alot. A lot of people will take 50 snapshots of that killer sunset on their vacation and then upload them at random to flickr. Some are better, some are worse. At Flickr, those that call you contact predominantly only see your last photo uploaded or your last 5 photos uploaded (depending on their settings) from the popular “your contact’s most recent uploads” page. The other 45 are effectively buried. Always upload what you feel are your best, strongest, etc. photographs as the last five and save the very last spot for the photo you want to pimp the most.

2. Explore, you whore. Explore is a section of Flickr where Flickr highlights what they feel are 500 interesting photos every day.

I used to have photos show up in Explore pretty much every week. Then Flickr staff blacklisted me from Explore (and their help forum) about 7 months or so ago after I wrote a blog post criticizing Flickr staff for nuking a popular group on Flickr that I administered. Payback’s a bitch, right?

After having photos regularly appear in Explore every week since it started, they capped my ass in there at 666 photos (cute, because I’m the devil, get it?). That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t consider Explore though. It’s probably the fastest way to get a lot of views on any of your photos. Whilst everyone bitches about how full of crappy photos Explore is, secretly you know you all love it when your photos show up there.

Flickr claims to have a “magic donkey” formula which picks the photos for Explore. This “magic donkey” is really just an excuse though to avoid transparency/accountability about Explore. In general, the more activity a photo has (activity = faves, comments, notes, blogged, etc.) the more likely it is to show up in Explore. By putting your best foot forward (see item 1) and by focusing on promoting a popular photo of yours on a given day, (see below) it just might get there.

3. Promote your photos outside of Flickr. What are you doing to promote your photos outside of Flickr? Some things are super, super easy and involve no active participation on your part other than setting something up. Popular content aggregators on the web allow you to publish your Flickr photos out of Flickr, with valuable links back to your photos on Flickr.

Have you configured Flickr Tab on your Facebookery page yet? Why not? It’s free and easy.

Have you signed up for Google Buzz yet? Google Buzz does a great job presenting your Flickr uploads and has a killer lightbox feature that allows people to see your photo BIG (if you allow it) on Google Buzz. I’m faving more Flickr photos that I’m finding on Google Buzz these days than from any other source. I fave more photos from Google Buzz than even Flickr itself.

Have you linked your stream to a FriendFeed account yet?

How about a photoblog? Anyone can set one of these up. They are so easy. And they have cool widgets that can do a lot of automated things for you. Check out the widget I’m using for my Flickr photos (to the right over there). It’s called Fidgetr. It automatically pulls in the six most recent photos from my “10 faves or more set” on Flickr, making sure fresh new photos are constantly being published to thomashawk.com. Don’t those large thumbnails rock!

4. Avoid watermarking, small-sized low-res photos, frames and other gimmicky crap. People don’t want to see this stuff. It’s a turn off. It pushes them away. Yes, yes, I know, you cry, but the thieves, the photo thieves, they all want to steal from me. GASP!

Get over it. You know what happens when people steal your stuff? Recently a friend of mine had an image of hers taken by a commercial entity. Do you know what we did? We contacted them, and after a little arm-twisting they paid her $700 for her photo. You know why? Because they had to. Because she could have sued them if not and probably gotten a lot more than $700 if she was inclined to put the time in it. Courts award statutory damages (not actual damages) for copyright theft. Trust me. If you like getting paid $700 for your photos, you WANT people to steal them. Put a big sign on the photo. “Steal Me, I Dare You.”

With tools like Tineye, it’s getting easier and easier and easier for you to find unauthorized commercial use of your photos on the web.

Sure, some dude is going to print up your big bouquet of sunflowers shot and hang it in his living room to impress his friends while they drink beer and watch football and you’ll never find out about that use. Trust me, that dude wouldn’t have paid for your photograph in the first place anyways.

As a byproduct, uploading full, glorious, high res, original photos to Flickr gives you one more backup of your precious photos in the cloud.

5. Moooooooooooo. Do you know about moo cards? Get some. They’re cheap — well, at least the little ones are cheap. Give them to everyone you can. When you are out and about and people talk to you about your photography say (in your best Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad voice possible) “Hey Yo, I’m slinging this camera, check me out here Yo,” and hand them a moo card. Trust me, it works.

6. Groups. Most groups on Flickr are a waste of time. Dead groups where photo whores dump billions of photos in pools that nobody sees. Your photos are quickly buried deep, deep, in the pool, never to be seen or heard from again. Avoid these groups. They typically have names like “Baskets! Show us all your photos of baskets!” or “You Say Tomato, I Say Tomato, show us all your photos of tomatoes!” Don’t just dump your photo into 30 random groups.

Instead pick a few meaningful groups and actually hang out there and interact with people. You might consider a local group for where you live. Or a photo critique group. Or whatever. But find a few active groups (meaning several new threads are engaged in a day) and participate. I belong to a number of groups on Flickr, but 95% of my Flickr group time is spent in the critique group DMU. (Note, DMU is uncensored and not for everyone. Remember above where I told you that Flickr nuked one of our groups? yep.)

7. Fave it Forward! Have you heard of Billy Wilson? Because if you haven’t, you will soon. Not to be confused with his second cousin and other Flickr legend Billy Warhol, Billy Wilson is the original Flickr fave machine! Billy has favorited more photos than anyone else on Flickr and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. Want to know what happens when you fave almost 200,000 photos on Flickr? Just check out Billy’s stream. How’s that for getting some attention?

Now, you don’t actually have to copy the Billy Wilson favoriting machine. He’s an original and that’s his gig. But. Don’t be stingy with your faves either. If you like something fave the hell out of it. You can start here at my “10 faves or more set” if you’d like. You have an unlimited amount of faves to give out on Flickr. People love getting faves. People reciprocate.

Be like Billy, fave it forward.

Same goes for comments too. If you like something say so. Maybe you can be the next “nice photo” guy. Or maybe you can be known as that super hot chick who writes deep, meaty, insightful, witty, quirky comments on people’s photos — especially then, you’ll be loved.

8. Tag for discovery. You know how people find many of your photos? Search. Don’t be “that guy” who tags the 300 most commonly used keywords to your photos no matter what they are. I don’t want to see that photo of your bikini clad girlfriend when I’m searching for puppy. Good boy.

But. Be descriptive. Be sure to tag the place the photo was taken. The subject matter. Anything relevant that people might use to search for your photo. Consider geotagging as well. The more discoverable your photos are, the more likely they’ll be seen on Flickr.

Oh, also keyword at the file level, not on Flickr itself. It’s much faster to keyword and geotag that way and also when Flickr ends up nuking your account (KABOOM!) you won’t lose all of those tags and geotags that you worked so hard on adding to your photos. When you tag/geotag at the file level, these tags/geotags are automatically populated at Flickr when you upload your photos. Read about my workflow here for more on that.

9. Are you allowing the search engines to index your photos? If you aren’t, you should be. You can check your settings on that here. I’d estimate that about 20% of the traffic to my own Flickr photos comes from search engines.

10. Certain subjects just get garner more attention. In general I’ve found that certain subjects tend to do better on Flickr than others. Your (and my) Egglestonian masterpiece of the sidewalk curb? Not so much.

But. Subjects that seem to garner a lot of attention. Attractive women (number one attention getter on Flickr, especially self portraits), motion or blur, silhouettes, images with stories in the description, some HDR, bokeh, abstract architectural photography, bridges, cityscapes, artwork by famed graffiti artist Banksy, you get the idea.

Also sometimes an interesting looking thumbnail will pull people in as well.

Well there you have it. 10 tips to get you more attention on Flickr. Use them in good health and with good company.

Disclaimer: remember my equation above? “quality photos + reciprocation² = attention” It doesn’t matter how much work you do optimizing the promotion of your photos if they suck. Find your voice. Make your style. Create your art. But put time, energy and pride in the work that you share. Make the world a more beautiful place with the amazing work that you are capable of creating. The best photos in the world have yet to be taken.

Oh, and one final way to get a lot of attention on Flickr? Write long blog posts about getting attention on Flickr. It works every time. 

You can find Thomas Hawk on Flickr here. You can find me on Flickr here.

Anyways, one of the thing that I have been working on is my tweets for twitter. I installed two WordPress plug-ins the past few days. The first is Tweetmeme. Tweetmeme is the little twitter retweet button you see at the bottom of each post. After reading a few blogs and articles that I found on Social Networking, I figured that I would get a little more active on Twitter. this is a good way for other blog readers, fans or whatever to tweet my blog post.

I also added another Twitter plug-in for WordPress that will tweet my post to my Twitter account with a Bit.ly URL. This is for those that aren’t reders of FishEye Studio blog, but are my Twitter Followers they too can enjoy what I have to say… right!

Next was Facebook. I found a Facebook plug-in that works similar to the Tweetmeme plug-in. This will also give readers the ability to a post for the FishEye Studio Blog on their Facebook page.

Next I am still working on trying to incorporate my blog into my web site. I would really like it to be seamless. I have been researching and researching for the past few weeks, I am making headway but it is slow going. I have tried to find a way to take my existing web site template that I made in Deamweaver CS4 and make that a WordPress theme. I also found a way to Integrating WordPress with Your Website this requires for me to move my WP-files to my blog folder on web site. I am a little nervous about moving these files, but I think this may be the easiest way to integrate.

If anyone has an easier way to make this happen I would love to hear it. you can leave your suggestions, comments, or ideas in the comments section below.

Thanks for stopping by…

East Bay/SF Photo Op – No Pants Subway Ride 2010

However the first round of the NFL Plays will be on TV, so I might not make it.

If you are looking for a great place to work on your photography technique or just take some fun great pictures, then take a day trip to your local Zoo.

My wife and I have been to our local Zoo a few times this year. We became members of the zoo in January. This allows us to get to the Zoo as often as we like for free. This week I have been to our local Zoo three times.

Our local Zoo is the Oakland Zoo. However, there are several local zoos’ to choose from in the Bay Area, but the Oakland Zoo is just a few miles from our house.

The Oakland Zoo is located East of I-580 in the Oakland Hills. It is a small Zoo with a lot to offer. It is small enough to tour the entire Zoo within a few hours, but large enough for you to see large predators and large game animals up close.

Some of the main attractions are the crowed pleasers like the Elephants, Lions, Tigers and Giraffes. Last year (2007) the Giraffe family had a new addition. However by the time we got off our butts to see the little guy, he wasn’t so little anymore.

Some of our favorite attractions are the Fox Faced Bats. My wife thinks they are the most interesting of all the exhibits. I like the Ring Tailed Lemurs. They are a fascinating little tribe. I also like the White-handed Gibbons. The young male swings in the trees with the greatest of ease.

This year the Oakland Zoo has introduced another Sun Bear. The Zoo has also acquired two rare lemurs, blue-eyed black lemurs. I haven’t seen them yet. According to the Zoo News it may be some time until they will be fully integrated with the Ring Tailed Lemurs.

The Oakland Zoo also offers a great place to take the kiddos and let them run-a-muck in the new children’s Zoo. No it’s a Zoo with children it… The children’s Zoo has kid friendly animas for them to interact with i.e. the Alligators. They’re kind of kid friendly. They’re cuddly in their own way… The Zoo does have a new petting Zoo, and other exhibits that appeal to the pint size patrons.

Go out and enjoy you local Zoo. Have fun and relax, just make sure you take your “Big Glass”. I have shot most of my images with my Nikon Nikkor 300mm f/4.0 with a 1.4x extender. It lets me get up close and personal with the big cats, without becoming part of the food chain.

It was a slow day at work today (Oct. 3). While I was sitting at my desk, I remembered a conversation I was having with Magellan. She asked me if I had ever used Wordle? I said that had not, but I knew what the program was…

While I was sitting at my desk I thought It would take a stab at Wordle. I thought it would be interesting to take all the tags that I have used in Flickr, Zoomr, SmugMug, Photosig and all the blogs I had contributed in the past year.

This is what I came up with, and I titled it “The Wordle Around Me”.

I did the blending of the two wordle.com pages in PS CS3 along with combining the shot Magellan took of me in Alcatraz Island, San Francisco. I did all the PS work on my flight from Oakland, CA to San Diego, CA

She obtained legal counsel. Cease and desist along with recompense letters were drawn up and sent to the offending company. The company Only-Dreenim did respond by removing the photographs from their website. However no monies had be paid to Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir for the photographs that had already been sold.

Only-Dreemin had explained that they paid a lot of money to the company that sold them the rights to the photographs. They continue to explain that they have tried to contact the company or individual, and discovered that they are no longer in business.

Since flickr’s site has allowed the offenders to download copyrighted work, I think flickr should also be held accountable for recompensing the photographer for the loss of property and legal fee’s that she has incurred.

mIsSiNg LiNk:
ePHOTOzine
Thomas Hawk

Last night I was reading my on line version of Popular Photography. The article I was reading was about a Flickr user and Photographer from Iceland. The article titled “Flickr Superstar Profiled in Times Magazine” talks briefly about her style of photography and how it is suited for the Flickr user. This article was inspired by another article written in the by VIRGINIA HEFFERNAN titled f l i c k r.

I was intrigued to see more of this so I decided to link over to her Flickr page _rebekka and poke around a little. What I found was an amazing amount of creativity and talent.

I am most impressed with the self-portraits. Rebekka’s self-portraits are not just the ordinary snap shots of her doing nothing. Her self-portraits are master pieces of expression and technical agility. She has perfected the use of multiple exposures to construct interesting self-portraits of herself. In some images she is seen in three different poses. At first you think she is a twin or triplet, but later realize from her comments it just her.

say WHAT??
Originally uploaded by _rebekka

However I do have some disappointing news. As I scrolled down the first page of her Flickr page I noticed that she had a post of a screen shot of iStockPhoto.com. I clicked on the image to reveal a brief story that stated the she had been ripped off. I have heard and been warned about this before, but I just thought it was photographers being paranoid and embellishing a little. This is the first instance where I was shown proof, and as my grandmother always said “the proof is in the pudding”.

Here is the proof and I think it is very funny about what she found on iStockPhoto.com

To see more of Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir work Click on the “MiSsInG lInK”
Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir – Website
Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir – Flickr
Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir – Wikipedia

To be continued…