27 Resources to Open Up a Whole New Photography 2.0 World
A Guest Post by Josh Brown from InFashionMedia.
Ok, so you own a digital camera and you’ve taken more shots then you can count, and you’ve filled up more space on your hard drive than you have free.
You say you’re going to organize your files but you never quite get around to it, and you sure as hell never print out any images to put in an album or a frame.
The problem: your beautiful, thought-provoking work sits on your computer and never sees the light of day. It never gets admired, wins awards, brings joy or breaks hearts. And this really is a problem!
The solution: take advantage of the amazing sites/resources that the latest version of the web has to offer and enter the world of photography 2.0.
What can you do in photography 2.0?
1. Share your images
The best thing about the web today is that it’s focused on connecting and sharing. And sharing is caring! By putting your work in the public domain, you can get feedback, inspiration and ideas. There are hundreds of image sharing sites out there. Some of the more popular ones are:
2. Create a portfolio
If you want to be taken seriously as a photographer, you need to have a portfolio. Select your best images and showcase them through a portfolio site. A good idea is to share your images on one of the sites above and get some opinions on your work. Then, create your portfolio based on this feedback. Also, check out the portfolios of other photographers to see how they select and arrange their images. There are a plethora of portfolio building sites available, but the main ones are:
3. Make a slideshow
Turn your images into a slideshow with music, transitions, titles and effects. Photomontage videos are an engaging, entertaining way of presenting your images. They help you stand out from the crowd and get your images seen. You can create a slideshow at:
Then share it on:
4. Meet other photographers
Join a photography network and meet like-minded people. Share your experiences and learn from others – you might even make some new friends! Sign up to a photography specific network:
Or connect with photographers on general social networks:
5. Get inspired
The best artists always have a keen awareness of the work of others in their field. After all, you can’t push the boundaries without knowing them first! There is endless inspiration on the web, but some great places to begin are:
6. Start a blog
A blog let’s you bring all of this together. You can share your work (images and videos), your inspiration and your thoughts/ideas all in the one place. You can connect with other photographers by commenting on their blogs and by adding them to your blogroll, and you can join photography blogging communities. Check out these sites to get started:
Welcome to the wonderland of photography 2.0! Explore and enjoy.
About the Author: Josh Brown is the Editor of InFashionMedia.




30 Responses to “27 Resources to Open Up a Whole New Photography 2.0 World” - Add Yours
January 26th, 2010 at 6:34 am
Man I love this site. This information is great. Another great post.
January 26th, 2010 at 6:36 am
Another thought to this list I would add is: consolidate. Share with rhythm. Build your book into a collection of images that flow together instead of a random compilation of styles and subjects.
January 26th, 2010 at 6:58 am
Nice list. May I suggest SmugMug as a sharing/portfolio site as well? I use it, and it’s wonderful, even if you do have to pay a bit per year for all the pro features.
January 26th, 2010 at 7:19 am
Good post, some great ideas, portfolios in particular are a bit an unknown for me, I’ll go check ‘em out.
January 26th, 2010 at 8:17 am
Hi , I had a collection but due to my lack of preparation, i lost them to the realm of fond remembrance. As i
renew my offerings i will come and see you. —-Fond regards,——Doug Rosbury
January 26th, 2010 at 8:51 am
I would love an invite for ffffound! Does anyone have an invite?
Thanks,
January 26th, 2010 at 9:21 am
I’m a happy SmugMug user (switched from a pro account on Flickr). Well worth the extra cash to get the extra level of control over your images.
January 26th, 2010 at 9:47 am
shuttrr seems interesting, but it’s invite only, which is kind of a downer.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:07 am
Good information. I started a Project 365 in October 2009 in order to push my creativity and technique to the next level. I’ve done #1 at http://www.flickr.com/photos/darango and #6 at http://imagidiem.wordpress.com.
I get inspiration form a number of photoblogs that I subscribe to on Google Reader. See http://www.google.com/reader/bundle/user%2F03410337456574769956%2Fbundle%2Fphotoblog for the reader bundle.
January 26th, 2010 at 11:15 am
Aminus3 is a great photoblog host that has a very helpful community of photographers.
January 26th, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Hey guys, thanks for your comments! SmugMug does indeed look like another good option and I totally agree that a portfolio should have a running theme/style – or at least clearly defined categories.
If anyone wants a Shuttrr invite, get in touch with me on Twitter or email me at jb@infashionmedia.com
January 26th, 2010 at 8:01 pm
hey josh…what a great post…full of photographic nourishment for all!!!
January 26th, 2010 at 8:55 pm
My best inspirations are from: http://1x.com/
and of course flickr.
January 26th, 2010 at 10:06 pm
Good article and thanks for the tips. I’ll guess that it all comes about marketing and today we have to NextGen tools.
January 26th, 2010 at 10:11 pm
Great list! thanks for sharing this!
January 27th, 2010 at 12:14 am
Another great source is Jalbum (jalbum.net). No only does it have the ability to help you build your own album (with hundreds of different skins) you can also publish your own album either to a site of your choice or free to their own server. Jalbum is completely open source, although some of the user submitted skins do require a small fee.
January 27th, 2010 at 1:36 am
I’ve recently been playing with Microsoft Photo Story, a free download for Windows that creates video slideshows. It’s quite nice.
January 27th, 2010 at 6:49 am
Well laid out and practical and useful advice
January 27th, 2010 at 7:54 am
I agree with Joe, smugmug is well worth the money. It makes it very easy to share your photos with potential and existing clients.
January 28th, 2010 at 8:50 am
In addition to the on-line portfolio, you should think about making it into a book. You can use blurb/shutterfly/etc. to make something that you can actually hand to people to look at instead of just a URL. My wife is scrapbooking pictures from my project on my flickr page.
January 29th, 2010 at 3:09 am
Great Article. Thanks for the wonderful resources. I was the one who just filled hard drive space and was soon asking myself what is the point of taking pictures? I have started following some of the advice from this article…joining Twitter, flickr and starting a website/blog. I know have a reason for doing what I love and gives me reason and inspiration to try new things.
I haven’t tried these other suggestions since I didn’t know of them.
Again,
Thanks for this article.
Chris
January 29th, 2010 at 5:06 am
Hi there,
You forgot ipernity.com, which is a growing community of talented photographers, offering free storage and blog, to share pictures and more…
Best regards from French Riviera !
January 29th, 2010 at 7:08 am
Thanks Josh, just the push I need to get organized.
January 29th, 2010 at 9:52 am
Hi Josh,
Very useful and well thought out article. Thank you.
I also use the NAPP site (http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/) and the 24-limit portfolio.
My portfolio is at: http://www.photoshopuser.com/members/portfolios/members/manage
Thanks again for your list of resources and the comments section suggesting additional contact sites.
Conrad
Camp Sherman, Oregon
January 30th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
Thanks for the article. Very useful.
Microsoft provides 25GB of space with their skydrive account.. If you have a hotmail / windows live id, you can use it to login and upload your photos.
skydrive.live.com
February 6th, 2010 at 4:49 am
Great article. It inspires me a lot to organize and put up my photos somewhere. Just started a blog too.
Thanks!
February 10th, 2010 at 3:03 am
My understanding is that anything on facebook belongs to facebook…check their copyrights statement before you put your stuff there…
February 11th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
I could use the help of a good support group. My laptop now has approximately 14,000 high resolution jpegs. Virtually every photo I’ve taken in the past ten months. Obviously, only a small number of those are good, the rest will never make it off the hard drive. I read that David Greenfield Sanders has every frame he has ever shot on film and for some reason it got into my head that I should keep all of mine. I have crates of prints from the film days too. I keep promising myself I’ll go through them and delete or at least burn DVD’s, but for some reason I can’t seem to do it. At this point I’d need ten people and a warehouse full of DVD’s just to reclaim my hard drive. My filing system is crap, just folders with dates. It’s been my dirty little secret but the reality is I have a hell of a time finding anything. Anyone have any suggestions? Do we all keep every shot we take?
March 19th, 2010 at 12:22 pm
My problem is this – if I put my images on my blog, in my gallery on my flickr account, etc. Isn’t that kind of redundant? Will people roll their eyes and think – “yeah, that’s a good image but I saw it on her blog”? Is it okay to put your work in multiple places?
March 25th, 2010 at 12:08 am
Another great site is http://photo.net
I get a lot of inspiration from the community of photographers on this site.
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