Web Profiles

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Web Profiles
Celebrating Independence Day
Joe Farace  |  Sep 04, 2012  |  First Published: Jul 01, 2012  | 
This month marks the anniversary of a column that began in July 1999 as Website of the Month and has evolved into Web Profiles. Along the way, I’ve tried to include tips and trends to help readers improve their own web-based activities. Take Pinterest (http://pinterest.com), for example. It’s a virtual pinboard that lets you organize and share images, among other stuff, with people on the web. It’s like Twitter (www.twitter.com) for your photographs! I’m going to give it a try and so should you. In the meantime, I’ll continue to seek out new websites, to boldly go…sorry, I got carried away. I try to include at least one Shutterbug reader’s site in each episode but I can’t always tell that from your site, so click the Contact button on my website, www.joefarace.com, and tell me about it. You could find yourself featured in an upcoming column.
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Web Profiles
Changes In Attitude, Changes In Media; Even More Readers’ Websites
Joe Farace  |  Feb 01, 2010  | 

“With all of our running and all of our cunning, if we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.”—Jimmy Buffett

This issue will be on newsstands around the 12th day of the New Year and subscribers should see it a few days earlier, so it’s time to roll out my 2010 web plans, starting with my blog. It will become inactive or as Dennis Lehane put it “gone...

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Web Profiles
Creating A Photograph-A-Day Blog: A Visual Diary For The World To See
Joe Farace  |  Nov 27, 2012  |  First Published: Oct 01, 2012  | 
Last year I tried a picture-a-day project and was surprised how difficult it was, but also found that it was a great way to stimulate creativity. In 2013, I’ll begin a similar project, this time using Tumblr (www.tumblr.com) because it’s free and the simplest way I know to create a photoblog. To get you inspired, I’ve rounded up four different photo-a-day blogs to show the diverse ways these talented photographers created their sites and blogs. Give it a try because it forces you to think—every day—about making new photographs. And the best way to improve your skills is to practice, practice, practice.
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Web Profiles
Deck The Halls With Websites; Have An HDR Christmas
Joe Farace  |  Dec 01, 2010  | 

“Never say never, for if you live long enough, chances are you will not be able to abide by its restrictions.”—Gloria Swanson

In February I closed my blog and considered closing my Facebook and Flickr pages. Times change though, and several of my colleagues encouraged me to alter those plans, and if there’s anything more wonderful about the web it’s that...

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Web Profiles
Delicious Photography & Web Design; Having Your Cake And Eating It, Too
Joe Farace  |  May 01, 2006  | 

Photographing a cake can be art.
--Irving Penn

Although I am probably better known for eating cakes than photographing them, my late brother Michael Farace not only photographed cakes that were delicious examples of edible art, he baked them as well. You can see some of these delightful examples of sugar art in his book Cakes by Design, co-authored with...

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Web Profiles
Digital April Showers Across The Internet: Short Attention Span Theater
Joe Farace  |  May 21, 2013  |  First Published: Apr 01, 2013  | 
Nicholas Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, reports that a study of online retailing in 2006 found that a third of online shoppers with broadband connections abandoned a site if its pages took 4 seconds or longer to load; two-thirds quit when the delay reached 6 seconds. Recent studies by Google and Microsoft found that people abandon a site with a page loading delay of 250 milliseconds. If, as is becoming common in some photographers’ web design, there is a prelude before your real content launches or your server is slow, it does not bode well for increasing the number of visitors to your site.
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Web Profiles
Don't Worry, Be Happy; Sites Guaranteed To Make You Smile
Joe Farace  |  Jan 01, 2005  | 

"The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions..."--Ellen Glasgow

This month's Web Profiles introduces you to photographers from Canada and France, along with answers to a reader's question about protecting images displayed on the World Wide Web. You might be surprised at my answer, but then again, if...

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Web Profiles
Don’t Believe Everything You Read; “It Must Be True; I Saw It On The Internet.”
Joe Farace  |  Apr 01, 2006  | 

"The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf."
--Will Rogers

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki) is a popular, online, free encyclopedia whose authors are anonymous. John Seigenthaler Sr. was Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant during the early 1960s.

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Web Profiles
Down On The Farm; Scanning The Web, And (Another) Computer Cautionary Tale
Joe Farace  |  Mar 01, 2004  | 

"I Don't Like Spiders or Snakes..."
--Jim Stafford

First there were viruses, then spam, now web surfers have to combat parasites that can hijack their Internet...

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Web Profiles
Exploring Global Villages: Inspiring Images And Image-Makers
Joe Farace  |  Nov 23, 2011  |  First Published: Oct 01, 2011  | 
Barry Steven Greff’s photography is showcased in an elegantly designed website from FolioLink (www.foliolink.com). The site appears one way on my desktop computer and another, better I think, incarnation on my iPad, where captions and other information appear as well. Images are arranged in four portfolios and Atmosphere displays images representing the majesty of nature, especially his monochrome image of Niagara Falls photographed like you’ve never seen it before. It’s a quiet allegory of the power of nature vs. the insignificance of humankind. It’s one of his few images that have people and here they are infinitesimal in size compared to the roar—you can almost hear it while looking at the photograph—of the falls.
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Web Profiles
Film At 11; Emulsion Emotion
Joe Farace  |  Nov 01, 2010  | 

“Photography as a fad is well-nigh on its last legs, thanks principally to the bicycle craze.”—Alfred Stieglitz (1897)

In Brian Auer’s “10 Things I Hate About Film” (http://blog.epicedits.com/2008/07/15/10-things-i-hate-about-film) he states, “Film is a...

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Web Profiles
Fine Art Photographers On The Web: A Website Is ATwo-Way Street
Joe Farace  |  Sep 27, 2013  |  First Published: Aug 01, 2013  | 
During the year I look at thousands of websites, selecting the ones that eventually appear here, and one of the most problematic design aspects I see is the Contact page. Believe it or not, some websites don’t have one! More than once this year I found a photographer with huge amounts of talent and no way to contact them about appearing in Web Profiles. Some sites have requirements that all data, including a phone number, must be provided before contacting the photographer. If a potential client wants you to have their number, they will call you. I prefer not to have visitors jump through too many hoops to contact me but had to implement an “enter the text” form—Captcha, a free WordPress plug-in—because spam robots overflowed my mailbox. The bottom line is your bottom line and you should make it easy and convenient for clients to contact you.
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Fine Art Photography How ToPro TechniquesWeb Profiles
Fine Art Photography Around The Web: Falling Leaves Edition
Joe Farace  |  Dec 24, 2013  |  First Published: Nov 01, 2013  | 

Leaves haven’t started falling on Daisy Hill, but soon will be, and just as quickly the number of leaves needing to be raked reminds me of the thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of websites I’ve looked at and written about for Web Profiles over the years. The best are presented here but there are almost as many—maybe more—near misses that fail to make the grade because they lack focus. Not the pictures, mind you, but the purpose of having a site in the first place. While it may seem obvious to you it may not be to the person who lands on your homepage. Fall is a good time to reappraise and perhaps redesign your site for the New Year, giving it not just a new look but also a new purpose. Set a goal for your site and make sure that everything from the colors used to the words and images that appear go toward achieving that goal.

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Web Profiles
Fine Art Photography In Many Forms: A New Year’s Gift Of Inspiring Websites
Joe Farace  |  Mar 04, 2014  |  First Published: Jan 01, 2014  | 
In a previous column I offered a few ideas on creating Contact pages with built-in spam protection. Littleton, Colorado’s Tim Mosholder (www.mountainviewphoto.com) sent me a tip for WordPress users that lets you use an e-mail link that’s impervious to spambots. CryptX (http://wordpress.org/plugins/cryptx) is a free WordPress plug-in that automatically changes all e-mail links on your site’s pages by adding [at] and [dot]. For example, Tim’s e-mail is “info[at]mountainviewphoto[dot]com” and the link works when your clients click on it but spambots won’t see it.
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Web Profiles
Fine Art Photography Masters: Ultimately, It’s All About The Image...
Joe Farace  |  Oct 31, 2012  |  First Published: Sep 01, 2012  | 
This month I am privileged to present four of the best fine art photographers working in the country. Bill Schwab’s introspective classical images made on collodion plates, the sweeping majesty of Michael Kahn’s handmade silver gelatin prints, and Lane Wilson’s lush images show why they are masters of monochrome photography. Even Cole Thompson’s Blog-of-the-Month resonates with expertise and vision that is at once traditional yet as new as a sunrise. Join me as we take a look at their websites and blog, and prepare to be inspired.
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