Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Oooops

I've had so many ideas for what to post here next that it's paralyzed me from posting anything at all (and when I'm not posting, I'm hardly looking at anyone else's stuff, so there's catching up to do). Before something requiring much effort, here's shots from a Sunday morning and the next Sunday morning, of at least the third car I know of to crash on this block in my neighborhood...at least the second to crash into a building.

I'll also confess that I have a very strong urge on the blog to not post anything new until the previous post gets comments. I'll make exceptions if something's timely (like around election day) and I need to post new material, but otherwise I keep waiting. I finally gave up on the architecture cruise post--I do know people read it (I don't check stats here) because they joined the groups I mentioned...but it's been about a month since any new comments here. You can see why I'm so dependent on Flickr, it's always active!

But then, I see interesting posts on others' blogs all the time with no comments, and think "Why hasn't anyone commented?" Sorry I'm not more active on other blogs...it's all but hopeless if they aren't Blogger; I like the ease of signing in to post here and easily posting on other Blogger ones. Anyway...I've been rethinking what I want to do here; I'd like to turn it into more of a photoblog (sometimes with stories, sometimes without) even though: 1) I'm at 13% of my space for images here and have no idea what happens after that (a yearly fee?). 2) I have to rotate photos in iPhoto first, then upload all vertical photos from one directory and all horizontal ones from another. 3) There's no drag-and-drop function for rearranging photos, just cutting and pasting html blocks, having to remember "move the 5th one from the top to the 2nd from the bottom." 4) I can't post photos next to each other (can I?). In other words, I loathe the work that goes into putting photos here, but I want to post much more, making this much more interactive for all of us. (UPDATE: Okay, now I know how to put things directly into Picasa and put them here. Still not as easy as using Flickr, but should help with some of the problems mentioned. Thanks, Noah...)

8 comments:

Noah said...

You can post photos next to each other, like so (it only took me a little while to figure it out):
http://nvaughn.blogspot.com/2008/10/this-house-is-dark-and-moist.html
All of my blog photos are currently hosted with Picasa, and I still have plenty of space left--I don't upload via the blogger 'write a post' thing, I upload directly to Picasa and then from there get the html crap, like you would if you hosted photos on flickr. I'm not sure if I'm making sense here (I'm bad at explaining computer stuff that I don't understand much myself), or if I spelled 'Picasa' correctly. And now that you have a comment here, you have to write another post. HA!

k of c said...

Actually, it's occurred to me for a while that you're doing things differently, since your photos/site look different/better...I just never asked.

Hey, I was planning on doing another post today/tonight anyway!

Matt Maldre said...

hooray for comments. We all like some comment luv.

You are like a car-crash-into-building magnet. I've never seen a car crash into a building in my hood, but they certainly like to crash into fences. There's been at least two that I can think of that has happened on Lawrence within a block from my apartment.

I'm still trying to figure out how I want to make my own photo site. I like flickr a lot, so I rely on that for the majority of my photo posting. But if you want more traffic (and hopefully more comments), here's a little thing that I do.

If I have a story or something, I'll post the long story on my blog. And then I'll put a brief little sentence or two describing the photo on flickr. But then all the photos in the set have a little footer with a link that says something about "to find out what happened to this XYZ subject, go to ABClalala.com to read more."

And then naturally the blog post has the flickr images on there as well. An example of this is http://www.spudart.org/blogs/randomthoughts_comments/4808_0_3_0_C/

Honestly, I haven't found that it gives me that much more comments. I've even tried a little facebook action too. And I've been surprised at how many more comments I get on facebook for some of my status messages. I guess it's like your blogger log-in thing. People like to use where they are logged-in.

Eric Allix Rogers said...

I'll second Spudart. I use Flickr to host all my blog images now. When I have time to do so, I put links to the relevant blog posts in the captions on Flickr, and that is good for traffic, but I don't consistently. I'm trying to be better about it.

I also write all my posts in Ecto (http://illuminex.com/ecto/), which costs a little under $20 and makes most things involving pictures easier (it has a "Flickr Helper" that makes putting in pictures a WYSIWYG operation for the most part).

I suspect you don't get many comments for the same reasons you don't make many: a lot of your readership is, like you, out and about doing things, taking photos, and writing about it all too!

Anonymous said...

I feel your pain. Most of the time I think I'm talking to myself.

Matt Maldre said...

I just came across this today:
iPhoto to Flickr Mirroring Utility Updated.

Jennifer said...

Most of the time I AM talking to myself. Somehow those are the posts that attract the most attention.

By the way, are you still looking for keychains with your name on them?

Matt Maldre said...

Who's looking for keychains with his/her name on them? This makes me very curious. I was looking for blank keychains that you can put photos in. I'd like to shoot buildings under construction, and then come back like, a couple years later and hang a keychain with the old photo in it. I think oriental.com was selling them. Actually, come to think of it. I should have a box of them stored somewhere! lol.