Pictures speak a thousand words, right?
At a time when people lead busy lives and don’t want to read through a long blog post, why not make life a little bit simpler for your readers by including pictures?
For instance, how does this sand sculpture make you feel? What are the eyes looking at, how is the mouth shaped, why are the cheeks bulging?
I shot this photograph last summer at the eighth annual Hampton Beach Master Sand Sculpting Competition. I felt captivated by this icon of an “angry sun,” the sign indicated, named such because of global warming.
The sun spoke to me–and I uploaded the photo to my Flickr account. [Source]
My one-year-old baby is a Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS. Among its features are 8.3 megapixels, face tracking technology, and image stabilization with a 3x optical zoom. It’s small enough, resembling the size and weight of my BlackBerry, that I stick the camera in my pocket for target practice.
Once the photos are in my camera’s memory, then what? I could upload it to my computer but who would see them? I could print and frame some, but that only works if you come over. Some people upload photos to Facebook–but I find Flickr much friendlier for its tagging and sharing capabilities.
In this sense, Flickr is a social networking site. Once you create an account, you can share photos with your friends and the world. There’s even an internal mail system. I bet you didn’t know that, did you?
Flickr is to photographs what YouTube is to videos.
Have a look. Click here and view my photostream. I usually upload new camera photos every few weeks, and add non-photos (web screen shots, etc) on occasion, too. About two hours ago, I added another batch of some 30 shots, taken over the past month.
Want to see the idealist.org job fair I stopped by last week, a photo of me from mid-February, the oodles of marketing material in the local Chamber of Commerce, or my Subaru covered in snow? Click the links and you can see them.
Do you see how my photos have titles, descriptions, and/or tags? That makes it easy and intuitive for someone, anyone, you, to search my photostream and find something suitable.
But don’t limit your photo clicking to me.
Zenotri shoots elephant sex at a zoo, Licht experiments with microphotography with drops of water, Red~Star finds lip-locked seagulls, and crystalchroma shows us a road sign warning cars about elderly people crossing the street.
Don’t you agree your blog would be more pleasing to the eye if you included a picture or two? Aren’t you more inclined to read someone else’s blog, a website, even a newspaper article–if a picture is attached?
Pictures DO speak a thousand words.
STOP! Do not use ANY Flickr photograph in your blog.
Many photographers do not allow you to display their photos. It has to do with copyright.
But there are workarounds, and Skellie explains the best reasons to use Flickr images and how to know whether a photo is able to be used. More on that in my next blog post…
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
I agree! I love Flickr and the more photos on your blog the better it is. I took the same shot as you did last summer. Use it as a graphic of a frustrated real estate seller.
Monika´s last blog post..We’ve been Posh’d
So, I see.. a New Hampshirian!
Good stuff. Pictures rule. Make blog posts way more interesting. I always use Flickr images that are okayed via the Creative Commons license. I use this URL for Flickr photo search that allows fair use (with attribution).
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0/
Jason Baer´s last blog post..Are You A Shaq or A Penelope?
Aren’t you limiting your searches that way? What if something has 1.0 or 3.0 licensing? I typically run an advanced search and tick the CC box at the bottom.
I don’t know which is better, but I do know from experience that literally browsing Flickr for images is much more productive than using blog plugins.
Indeed, a picture is worth a 1,000 words, Ari, especially if the picture is relevant to the article.
People should take care to use only relevant images in their posts because irrelevant images have the opposite effect – they confuse people, detracting from the valuable content of the article. The good news is that it’s not hard to find relevant images. It just takes a little time and effort.
Photos can boost blog posts much like they do magazine articles. They break up the page and add interest.
Thanks for your post Ari. This sparked an idea or two for me.
I heartily agree, photos and other images help break up long strings of copy, making things easier to read, and serve to illustrate the story, augmenting the meaning of the words themselves. I blogged about this awhile back in “A picture is worth a thousand words, more or less” where I also included some other suggestions on choosing photos.
Readers new to Flickr may also be interested in:
From HTML tables to Flickr: How do you archive your photographs? and Flickr: Tags, Groups, Interestingness and Social Networking.
Also if you find a photo on Flickr that carries a full copyright, it’s worth asking the photographer if it might be possible to use. I’ve received many requests for photos, and if they’re asking for a non-commercial use with proper attribution I usually grant permission.
Heidi Cool´s last blog post..Seeing is believing: measuring SEO and visualizing results with Wordle Word Clouds
Not to sound like I’m advertising, but there’s a simple solution for me, for grabbing Flickr photography for blog posts, Zemanta. Since people can mark their photos as licensed under various of the Creative Commons licenses, Zemanta will show me the CC’d pics which I can include in my blog posts. It doesn’t always suggest appropriate pics, but works 7/10 times.
Of course, for those who are unwilling to use something like that, vetting individual photos for license information still works, since Flickr will show if a photo is CC licensed or not.
Chris Charabaruk´s last blog post..Blellow: Microblogging done better
Great post. You are right. Pics are critical. I spend almost as much time finding just the right pic as I do writing. I’m not sure this is a best practice, but it’s a fact. Also, thanks for including Skellie’s link about use rights. This is critical and something people need to pay more attention too.
Jeff Shuey´s last blog post..TARP Me Up
Flickr is a great service for photographs. I have had two of mine used on an online travel site, and one used in an online article about ferrets.
For the most part, people are ok with you using their photos, so long as you ask beforehand and offer to include some kind of credit with the photo. I have found some great images that way.
Plus, you can generate some traffic. I have photos that I link to the specific blog entry they go with, so if they come across it on Flickr, they can follow it to my site.
~ Kristi
Kikolani´s last blog post..Fetching Friday – Design, Blogging Resources & More
Love Flickr for grabbing different images for my blog posts. I did use Zemanta (as suggested by Chris Charabaruk) but just found it too unwieldy.
I like the PhotoDropper plug-in:
http://www.photodropper.com/
Creative Commons, link to original image and easy-as-pie to use. Bit like me, really
Kelly: Very true for relevance vs irrelevance. Also, just because YOU think it’s relevant doesn’t mean someone else does.
Chris: Thanks for reminding me about Zemanta. Personally, I’m not a huge fan. I know folks like it, and while I’ve tried it in the past and some of my posts appear in “related posts” pingbacks, the application is too bulky for me. David Bradley wrote a mini review and guide of Zemanta a few days ago.
Jeff: I spend a lot of time finding the right photo, too; searching under different keywords until I’m happy. If I give a half-ass job finding a photo, why would you like it?
Kristi: I hadn’t thought about asking “all rights reserved” owners for permission to use their content. Thanks for the tip! Also, I’ve recently started, for Flickr photos I use, linking the applicable blog post URL on the wall of those photos, which bring in comments, such as comment #1 on the next post!
Danny: We should chat about PhotoDropper. I activated that a few days ago, poked around, but felt it too constrained. Maybe you have some tips.
Yes, I always ask. Most people I have contacted so far, even with the “all rights reserved” setting on their photos, have been happy to oblige with proper credits.
Kikolani´s last blog post..Fountain Park in Fountain Hills, Arizona
hm.. really like it ))
I just started using Facebook and Twitter, and now I guess that Flickr is the way to now share my pictures. I am starting to wonder if I really want myself “out there” as much as technology makes it possible. I do need just a LITTLE privacy in my life. Just my 2 cents.
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