iPhones.

This picture below is one of my favorite pictures I've taken this semester. Guess what's different about it... Wait for it. I took this picture with my iPhone! These days there are professional photographers that take pictures with their iPhones. I didn't use any fancy apps or anything but I know there are lenses you can get and all kinds of camera apps. SO cool. I do have a really nice camera that I love, but I can see that in the future, people are gonna just be using their iPhones as professional photography.  

TIme of Day.

I have been practicing taking pictures in different types of lighting. It's interesting to me how taking a picture of the same thing, just a different time of day will give you a completely different picture. This picture was at sun set. I love how the light shines through the little holes in the leaves. If you want things to look like they are glowing, take the picture just before sunset.   

Portraits.

Three of my favorite portraits.

Texture.

Cool trick! If you want to get a picture where you can see the texture super super good, make sure that the light is coming from the side. In these two pictures, it was in the morning and the sun was coming up so it wasn't directly above the tires. I also made sure to position myself so the sun was hitting the tires sideways.

Content.

This semester, as I've been trying to learn how to use my camera and learn a lot about photography, I think I've learned a lot about the content of my pictures! I've learned a lot about what makes photographs interesting to people and what people like about curtain photographs. The picture below is a self-portrait that I set up and then had one of my friends take. This is a classic self-portrait done in a studio. Don't get me wrong. This is a great picture. However, this photograph is very plain. It doesn't tell anything about me or who I am. When I showed this picture to people, I definitely didn't get the feed back that I wanted. This picture, I guess, kinda reminds me of those old fashioned photographs they took of people when they have to hold super still for forever. Today, pictures like this just don't cut it. We have the means and technology to take pictures everywhere we are. We can take fun pictures in seconds, instead of hours.

The next picture that I took is a lot more expressive. This picture kind of tells a little story. People loved this picture so much more than the other one. It probably isn't' the best picture of me... but I think it's a lot more interesting for people to look at.

Sweet Photography Website

http://camerasim.com/camera-simulator/

All right. This website is awesome. For those of you learning how to take good pictures, this is the perfect site for you. This site simulates exactly what a picture would look like based on the settings you set it to. You can change the aperture, shutter speed and ISO and it will show you what the picture will look like. I've been learning a lot about photography this semester and really messing around with my camera. If I have any questions at all about how to take pictures a curtain way, I can just go to this website and it will clarify.

Video

On Wednesday a videographer came to talk to our class about using video in our marketing. Tons of super cool stuff. Apparently it's the new thing. We talked about how video is more likely to be clicked on out of everything in a list of search options. People love video. They would rather watch someone tell them about something than read about it. Make sense. Video is super overwhelming for me to think about because I always think of all the fancy equipment and professionals. But in class we talked about how video can be super easy and should be used for everything. Professional videos can be made on my iPhone! There's a link below to a YouTube video I found that talks about making video on your iPhone. Cool Stuff! I didn't know my iPhone was so cool.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edzWTw0Yp_U 

 

SEO: How to Help Your Website Become a Top Search Result

How to help your website become a top search result:

Have both branded and non-branded content on your site. Branded content is the usual content you would expect to be on a company website such as information about the brand and company. Prices for products and shipping and contact information are usually included as well.

Non-branded information is information about your industry and what you do, but not about your brand in particular. People can find tips, tricks and information without feeling like they are being sold to. This is a good way to get people interested in using your site first and then interested in buying. Your site will also show up higher in the search results because you are offering more helpful information. Have expert information on your site. Have guest bloggers or a professional interview. Post tutorials and things that benefit the customer. Things like this raise credibility and worth to the viewers of your content.

Start participating in the community. Enhancing your website will do a lot for your SEO, but it won’t do everything. Participating in community events or other things that are usually televised or reported will also increase SEO. Actively using social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ can be important as well.  

This website had some awesome tips as well! Check it out. 

http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/08/5-tips-naturally-good-at-seo.html

Search Engine Optimization

What’s search engine optimization?

I have heard people briefly talking about search engine optimization in classes before, but I never understand what it was. For those of you that are in the same boat I was here you go. Search engine optimization is changing and making adjustments to your website so it ranks higher in web searches on engines such as Google, Bing, AOL, Ask and Yahoo. For example, when I search for leather purses…

Having your company show up in one of the top search options gives you a lot of credibility. It means that Google pretty much decided that your company or your webpage has the best information on this topic. In the above picture, the search results that are in yellow are paid for. The next search results are companies that have made search engine optimization a priority so they can be one of those top results.

Next post: How to help your website become a top search result.

Picture Journal Day 13

Yogurt and Special K. My favorite snack!!

Picture Journal Day 12

Flowers are all over our apartment! Everyone got flowers this week! Plus we have some left over from the wedding! But. This one was my absolute favorite out of all of them. I just love the color and it just seems so perfect.

Picture Journal Day 11

My roommate/best friend just got married, and one of the few things she left behind in our apartment were these roses. They are dying and they look really sad. They just look super lonely and are the last thing left on the desk.

Picture Journal Day 10

This was another drive by picture. I was driving by this church and they had a cross on top of this stand thing. The sun was right behind it and I really wanted to try to make the sun look cool. I took a ton of pictures with the sun in the back and this is the one I liked the most.

Picture Journal Day 9

I was driving by this park so I stopped to take some pictures. There was no one there, and it was cold and everything looked kind of abandon. A lot different than during the summer when there are children running around everywhere and playing on the merry-go-round.

Picture Journal Day 8

At the lacrosse fields! This was while I was at practice and the sun was going down.

Picture Journal Day 7

Provo, Utah! It was really hard to get these pictures of the valley and the fall colors because when I was taking these pictures the sun was super bright and right in front in of me. I adjusted the shutter speed so it was really fast and that helped a lot!

Picture Journal Day 6

I love using the zoom lens because I like the shallow depth of field in this picture.

Picture Journal Day 5

Playing in the leaves with my friends!

Picture Journal Day 4

My best friends wedding!!! Table center pieces. So cute! It was hard to take this picture because of the lighting, but after taking a bunch, I finally got a good one!

Picture Journal Day 3

Caramel Apples! My roommates and I made caramel apples for fall! This was the Oreo one. Probably the best out of all of them.

Picture Journal Day 2

I picked this picture to represent day 2 because this was the day that I went out and took a ton of portrait pictures. I love this picture because this wasn't posed at all. While we were getting set up for the next pictures we were going to take, I caught a few of Michelle watching the other girls. Something that I have learned about portrait photography is that sometimes the best pictures are the pictures that aren't planned.

Picture Journal Day 1

This is my beautiful roommate and best friend Michelle. I chose this picture to represent day 1 because  this day was dedicated to her. She gets married on Saturday, and so our lacrosse team had a surprise bridal shower for her instead of practice! This is her wearing the 'Bride-to-be' sash and jewelry we made her!

Perks.

I learned something new about Klout this week! Klout, the site that calculates your social media influence, has this new feature called Perks. It’s the coolest thing ever. Basically, companies that get involved with Klout can see people that are influential in specific topics. Then, they offer ‘Perks’ for people that are influential in their type of business. For example, a snowboarding company could see that someone is very influential and talks about snow sports online a lot. They might send that person a Perk, like a free pass to a ski resort or free gear, in hopes that that person will tweet or post a status about. They know that that person can drive traffic to their site or store.

Companies can tell who is influential in what topics because of something called +K. On everyone’s Klout page, there is a list of topics that they might be influential in. Next to each topic is a +K button.  It looks something like this picture below. 

I know Julie is a really good photographer and very influential and involved in this topic, so I gave her a +K in photography. When you give you someone a +K it’s basically vouching for your friend that they are influential in a specific topic. Getting a lot of +Ks in a certain topic can increase the amount of Perks you receive!

I got my first Perk this week!!! It was for 15 dollars off sporting event tickets on the website ScoreBig. Super excited to go to a Utah Jazz game!

 

Klout.

What's Klout?! Just my new obsession. The first day in my social media class everyone was buzzing about this weird thing called Klout. I figured out what it was and now I'm hooked! Klout measures your social media influence by giving you a number between 1 and 100. You connect Klout to your Facebook, Twitter and whatever other social media sites you use and it determines your score based on how people interact with you. How many likes you have, how many friends and followers you have and how many people re-tweet or share your statuses are all considered before spitting out your final score. I've really been trying to make my score higher and guess what?!... Today my score went up to 50! That's the highest mine has been for the whole two weeks that I've had Klout! Yes, I might have started with a score of 14, but I've been learning how and when and what to post about so I can get people involved.

What is the point of even having a Klout score or caring what it is? For me, Klout is really important because I'm studying advertising. I'm going to be using social media for campaigns and advertising for companies that I work for. When I am interviewing for jobs, I want to be able to show that I have a good social media influence. I want to show that I know how to get people involved and that I know what is effective online.

Depth of Field.

I had no idea there were so many things you could do with a camera! Until, of course, I started actually taking the time to learn! There are literally hundreds of settings and lenses and filters and things that make a photograph look the way it does. There is a lot to learn!

SO, to start out the semester, I created photographs with shallow and great depth of field. For those of you that don't know, a shallow depth of field is when you are close to a subject and it's in focus and the background is all blurred. Great depth of field is when an entire scene is completely in focus. Here is my shallow depth of field pic.

This is my gorgeous roommate Michaeline. *Favorite tip: "If you get to pick who you take pictures of, make sure they are attractive people. They make for better pictures." Good thing all of my roommates are super cute! They will make the perfect models!

Last Saturday we went out to this abandon swing set in the middle of Rexburg and took pictures. In order to keep her face in focus and the background blurry, I used my macro lens with a large f stop and focused on her eyes. This picture was taken in the middle of the day, probably around 3 or 4. I took the picture in the shade so there weren't super hard shadows on her face. The wind was also blowing a little bit so that made the perfect hair-blowing-model-effect. There was actually a piece of hair that was blowing across her face so I took it to Photoshop to fix it up.

Photoshop is another project in itself! There are also hundreds of things you can do in Photoshop, but for this assignment I just learned a simple, basic editing tool called the healing brush tool. I was surprised at how easy it was! All you do is click on the color of her face that you want to use to cover up the hair and then drag the tool over the hair and it's gone!