Hockomock Digital Photographers

Hi everybody! It looks like I’m going to have some time on airplanes in the next couple of weeks, which means that I’ll be looking for something to do. One of the options is work, but that’s…..not ideal. I figure another option is writing up some new content for this blog. That sounds much more fun. I’d like to make it something that would be helpful for people (like this post hopefully was).  So in that vein, does anybody have a request?  I do have some “behind the scenes” shots from one of my sessions with my twins that I could use for a walkthrough, but I’m open to any other ideas.  And hopefully if there’s something that I don’t know, someone else can volunteer to write the entry!

Also, as I am a geek, I often peruse the relatively geeky website “Reddit”.  A few months ago, someone took the time to write up a photo class for the site.  You can find it here.  For beginners who have questions about some of the terminology thrown about in image study, or elsewhere, it’s a pretty handy resource.  Hope it’s helpful!

Folks have been asking for a way to visually identify each other. This is probably a good thing with all the new faces around. Having all of the new faces around is certainly a good thing!

So, as a start in this venture, we have added the ability to associate an avatar with your HDP  blog account; to do this we are using the Gravatar service.

To set up an avatar, point your favorite web browser to: http://en.gravatar.com/, click on the button labeled “Get Your Own Gravatar Today” and follow the instructions from there. Make sure to create your account suing the same email address as you used to set up your HDP blog account.

That’s it… once you have created your Gravatar, everything else gets handled automatically.

I know that these pictures are small… maybe too small… but it is a start. Let us know if this will be “good enough” or if we should plan on looking for another solution in the future.

For the moment, the avatars seem to only show up associated with comments (not with posts too)… I’m not sure if this can be changed, but I’ll look into it.

Dave,

One of the suggestions proposed by a member was to add avatars to the website. I didn’t think it would be too easy to do but thought (with Frank’s assistance) that it could be done on the blog. I looked over my profile and cannot find anything that would suggest I can add a self-portrait.

Any ideas???

It seems like a number of folks have been having trouble uploading photos and getting them added to their posts.

I believe that the trouble is the size of the images. Please re-size images to 500 pixels (or maybe 600 pixels) on the longest side. This is, in my view, large enough for viewing but small enough that images are easily transferred across the Internet.

Also the smaller the image the less likely it is that someone will “borrow” your image for use without your permission. certainly one can not make a very good print from a 500 pixel image.

Hopefully people will work though the learning curve and  keep posting on the blog.

Please do not hesitate to email me is you have problems or questions.

— Frank

Where is everybody??? Seems to be the 5 of us only. How are we going to get everyone comfortable with this?

One of the issues that we, as a group, need to think about as we evolve this blog are the “rules”.

Here is one example…

Clearly one use of this blog is to get critiques of one photographs.

Thus, we need to decide if, in addition to written comments, it is acceptable to download another’s image, tweak it in an editor and post it back in a comment.

If this is not acceptable as a default, we could try a system in which the default is “hands off” as far as tweaking goes unless the photographer explicitly says in the original post “tweaks are allowed”.

I look forward to hearing others thoughts on the matter!

Hey everybody, welcome to the HDP blog! This blog uses Wordpress to handle all of the posts/comments/photos/etc, so if you’ve used Wordpress before, you’ll be perfectly familiar with the setup. However, if you haven’t used it, I created a few quick videos to show you the ropes. Couple of quick notes:

• If you want to post anything (comments or full posts), you’ll need to create an account. Use the “Register” link on the right to setup your account. In order to prevent spam, however, your first comment on a post will be held for moderation. One of the moderators (currently me and Frank) will need to approve that first comment to authorize your account to post comments. Additionally, when you first create the account, it will only have privileges to comment on other people’s posts – if you want to create your own posts, an administrator will need to up your privileges.
• You can post photos from either your hard drive, or from the web. The videos below explain how.
• If you have any questions, send me an email and we can try to figure it out. I may or may not be at the next meeting, it will all depend on babies arrival date

How to create an account and comment on other people’s posts:

Basics of making your own post, and pulling in an image from another website:

More detail on making your own post, including uploading an image from your hard drive:

So we finally have a blog! Looking forward to see the interaction among HDP members.

Hockomock Joe