CHAPTER 6 Photo Blog Heaven Y ou’ve probably heard about blogging—online journaling in which all kinds of people are engaged. Along with social networking, it’s the thing to be doing on the Internet. And starting a blog has never been easier. A blog (short for weblog) started out as a personal diary online, but the size and scope of these online platforms has grown to include marketing, promotion, and selling of ideas, products, and services. Photography blogs are abundant on the web. Some are simple personal sites that illustrate travels and everyday affairs, and others are elaborate magazines, filled with articles and tips about photography and camera equipment. Blogs usually consist of entries or posts that include text information and photographs (though some include only one or the other). Today, blogs link to a number of different sites automatically (with the addition of HTML code to the blog template), so that many things a blogger does on a site are announced on his blog. Starting a Photo Blog with Blogger Blogger.com is a good hosting site for a couple of reasons. First, it’s free. Second, you can make money off your site with Google ads and other third-party advertising companies, or you can choose to have no ads at all. (Blogger only offers free blog-hosting plans; other blog platforms have a choice of free and paying platforms.) Third and final is that Blogger allows you to upload as many photos as you want on any given day (unlike Fotolog.com, whose free plan only allows one photo a day). Figure 6.1 shows an avatar (illustrated heading) for my blog, Digital Traveler, and one post on Blogger. 92 ■ Photo Blog Heaven Figure 6.1 You can start a free blog with Blogger and other blog-hosting sites. Because this is a quick and easy book, you want to create a quick and easy blog. At Blogger, all you have to do is follow these steps: 1. Click on Create a Blog at Blogger.com. 2. Create a Google account or sign in if you already have one. 3. The next page will be Name Your Blog. Type in the title of your blog. (There’s a 29-character limit.) 4. Type in your blog address, which is in the format nameyoutypehere.blogspot.com and becomes the URL your blog will have after you publish it. 5. Check the URL availability. Someone may have taken the URL you want to create. If they have, Blogger will give you some optional choices to click on for a new URL. 6. Type in the word verification (a code, usually characters and/or numbers given to you, that you retype in a text box). 7. Click on the Continue button at the bottom right of the window. 8. Choose a template by scrolling through the bunch that appears and then clicking on one. 9. A page will appear, telling you that your blog has been created. Click on Start Blogging. The next window that appears will look like a word processing document. As a matter of fact, it works like one, too. Move your cursor over each of the buttons, and a tag will appear, telling you what to do. Type in something and add a JPEG image and then click Publish Post. Finally, you’ll get a note in the next window giving you an option to View Blog. Go ahead and click on it. If you want to add another post, click on New Post in the top-right window. The last thing to know about Blogger is that you can view and add HTML code in a blog’s template. This comes in handy if you want to change the layout of your blog and/or add advertising content. Photo Blog Heaven ■ 93 GUARDING YOUR PHOTOS Take a look at the protester in Figure 6.2.Then think about these questions. 1. Who owns the photo? 2. Who can use the photo? 3. Does Blogger (Google) have any interest in this photo if you put it on their site? 4. What are the stipulations for use of this photo? 5. What would you have to do to protect the photo from others using it? 94 ■ Photo Blog Heaven As far as who owns your photos when you post them on a blog, the answer to that would be that you do, even if you don’t state that the photo is copyrighted. “All major nations follow the Berne Copyright Convention. For example, in the USA, almost everything created privately and originally after April 1, 1989 is copyrighted and protected whether it has a notice or not.”This is known as the Berne Copyright Convention.Thanks to http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html for this information. These questions I posed are some that come to mind when you post a photo on Blogger or Flickr. First,Yahoo!, the owner of Flickr, states that it “does not claim ownership of Content you submit or make available.” Most social networking and blog hosting sites have this type of statement in their Terms of Service, so you don’t have to worry about them taking your photos. If you get to a site where you are unsure, read the fine print—the Terms of Service.The same thing goes for someone using your photo for a print or an online publication. Don’t sign something that gives them your rights to the photo, regardless of whether you get paid for it. As for having other people take your photos, Flickr says it best:“Respect the copyright of others.This means don’t steal photographs that other people have taken and pass them off as your own. (That’s what favorites are for.)” Figure 6.2 Picture of man at protest march. Starting a Blog with Images and Text on WordPress Another excellent alternative for bloggers is WordPress.com (see Figure 6.3), a free blog hosting service that has a bit more on its interface for making new blog posts than Blogger does. The most important difference between the two popular blog hosting sites is that you can make money with ads on Blogger, while you aren’t permitted to on WordPress. Both blog platforms let you click and drag around widgets as part of organizing the layout of your blog. A widget can be anything from a display of your Flickr photos in the sidebar of your blog to monthly archive links of past blog posts. Photo Blog Heaven ■ 95 This implies that you’re free to link to others’ photos, but you’re not free to borrow them. If you want to use a photo, ask the owner for permission. I remember when an editor of a family magazine asked to use a picture I had taken of young Buddhist monks in a classroom. She had found the picture in my Better Photo gallery (which is public). I had to say no. It’s not because I’m mean; it was because in the back of my mind I had plans for that photo. It ended up on the cover of my book, 101 Quick and Easy Secrets to Create Winning Photographs. Figure 6.3 WordPress blogs can have a sleek three-column design. . heading) for my blog, Digital Traveler, and one post on Blogger. 92 ■ Photo Blog Heaven Figure 6.1 You can start a free blog with Blogger and other blog-hosting sites. Because this is a quick and easy. thing goes for someone using your photo for a print or an online publication. Don’t sign something that gives them your rights to the photo, regardless of whether you get paid for it. As for having. be Name Your Blog. Type in the title of your blog. (There’s a 29-character limit.) 4. Type in your blog address, which is in the format nameyoutypehere.blogspot.com and becomes the URL your blog