So maybe your Uptown church can’t afford fancy signage in the parking lot. This rather abstract, freehand drawing of the handicapped parking symbol gets the job done.
I am always looking for interesting photo subjects in Memphis, especially Downtown and Midtown. Any ideas? Email me – [email protected] or just leave a comment.
Panorama of Mississippi River flood crest at Memphis - May, 2011
Disaster sells, obviously
Four of the most read posts on Joe Spake’s Weblog in 2011 were directly related to this year’s record flooding on the Mississippi River from the Memphis perspective. Interestingly the 6th most read post, about the Memphis ice storm of 1994, was written in January of 2010, and has been read consistently ever since (Maybe I accidentally worked some SEO magic.) Here are the Joe Spake’s Weblog Top 10 for 2011:
4. Why I am not following you back on Twitter (June 19, 2011) – It seems that everyone wants to get involved in Twitter, but few want to put forth the effort to engage. Think back to how much Twitter has been in the news, or actually shaped news in 2011. The growth of the 140 character messaging system will continue.
The old saying “a picture’s worth 1000 words,” has held true through the ages, yet many small business don’t see the real value of publishing pictures of their products and services. Whether it’s a cleaning service, custom manufacturer, realtor, or provider of very specialized services, a picture of what you do, make or sell is almost always more appealing and memorable that a paragraph or more of descriptions.
Seeing what happens in a cotton gin is more interesting than reading about it
Flickr is the best online photo management and sharing application; and it’s free. You can also upload videos and manage them in the same way as your photos. Google has a long way to go with their photo system to catch up, but that’ a topic for another post. I will leave it to you to explore Flickr’s simple interface. You may even want to upgrade to the PRO version as you become a heavy user. You can even make all your images private, and still use all the great Flickr management tools.
For me, Flickr’s best feature is Sharing. Not only can you share individual pictures, galleries or slide shows to the major social media platforms but you can post directly to your blog/website, directly from Flickr. Simply link to your favorite blogging platform, Blogger, WordPress, etc. in the options, the locate a photo you want to add, and one click posts on the blog of your choice. I seldom have to do anything with my Memphis photoblog, except add keywords. Posts come straight from Flickr. Here’s an example photo post to this blog.
This quick screencast will give you an idea of how easy this process is.
Whether you are a business person or an individual proud of your photography, a photo blog is a very effective way to showcase your work and get your message out there in a visual medium; and Flickr makes the process a breeze.