What makes a good Photography Blog....?

Photography blogs do indeed seem quite common these days. As I have said here before, it seems a natural path for the keen amateur/professional photographer to take, to have their own platform to display their images and I think (obviously) they are wonderful things. I very much enjoy visiting photography blogs, seeing all the new photos people have uploaded and thoughts they have shared. I do though seem to have formed fairly strong opinions recently on what makes a good photography blog/blogger and rather than just keep them to myself, thought I would share them all today. So I'm going to look at it in reverse, i.e what I don't like about photography blogs. Please bear in mind that the following list is just my humble opinion. It's one of the great things about having a photography blog. These are not cast in stone rules and are certainly not meant to criticise anyone in particular. I'm very happy though for everyone to share their thoughts or comment on anything I have said.

So here it goes, in no particular order, these are things I think do not make a good photography blog:

* No interactivity by the blogger whatsoever - This is one that seems to have grated me a little recently. It's not that I want a full thank you and critique of my thoughts if I leave them on your page, but to say nothing to anyone who has posted is just ridiculous. I'm particularly referring to 'celebrity photographers' (which of course is only used within photography circles - most people do not know any photographers they can name, which is a good thing), some of them are lucky to get even 1 comment and still they do not acknowledge that comment. I have been 1 of 2 or 3 people to share my thoughts on a particular blog that has interested me, and the author chooses not to respond to these thoughts. It's actually quite illogical to me. You are never too big not to respond to people commenting on your site. The best photography bloggers do acknowledge comments and respond to thoughts shared.

* Infrequent posting - Yes I know, we are all very busy and nearly all of us have commitments outside the photography world. I know it isn't easy. I promise 3 blogs a week and struggle sometimes to find the inspiration to post. So I do understand the other commitments. But the problem you have to face is, if you do not post for a long time, people are going to stop checking your site for content. If you are going to be away for a while, you may as well just let people know, rather than just leave us guessing what's happened. And yes I do worry.....

* Lack of variety - I am working on this one myself. Rarely does someone post great photo after great photo, so it pays to have other thoughts and concepts to share. How about a video you like? Or a slideshow you have created? Or a blog about the latest photography rumours/releases? Again, I am working on all this like the rest of you, I have just come to realise that the best blogs, have something a bit more to offer than just photos.

* Routine comments - Now this one I know might be a bit controversial. I have to get it off my chest though and for good reason. Because I think it hinders you as a photographer rather than helps you progress. What I mean is there are many blogs out there that have the 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine philosophy'. Now of course I am not saying do not share your thoughts or interact with other bloggers. It's great that these micro communities build up and comment on each other's pictures, but again I refuse to believe you like every single picture a particular person posts. If you just comment on people's posts because they comment on yours, you are not really being honest. I'm only saying this is as I said because it's like the 'American Idol' false belief mentality. As long as people who like you, are telling you are really good, you are deluding yourself and won't become any better. I think there is an unwritten rule with my blogger friends that we comment on pictures we particularly like and that way, we know if it's 'a good one' or not. If I get more than a few comments, I know it's probably a genuinely good picture. I'd like to balance this up by saying I rarely look at a photo and think 'I don't like that'. But if you are going to comment regularly on someone's blog, then you should say what you like and what could be improved (some people are good at that) but I rarely see that.

* Having an agenda against a certain photographer/photography company - This is the last but certainly not least element. Again this one you see mainly in the 'celebrity photographer' arena. I'd love to point out examples but then that might seem to be having an agenda of my own. Needless to say there are well-known photographers who have written huge rants about what they think of another photographer's recent actions/efforts and to me it is as unprofessional as you can get. Over criticising one photo company or site, shows to me you have connections or money coming in from opposite sources as well. Again, I'm not saying don't have an opinion, we are all indeed entitled to it, but there is a difference between sharing your thoughts and looking like a petulant 15 year old whose girlfriend left him. Don't make it personal.....

So those are some of my thoughts. Having written this, I will probably think of many more but very happy anyway to hear your thoughts on what makes a good photography blog.

Today's picture is taken from Hever Castle in Kent, at the magnificent lake within it's grounds.

Graceful Grebes

When I was in my teens, I was hugely interested in the natural world and spent many hours watching wildlife documentaries. As a result, I would often wander about in British countryside, hoping to spot some creatures or birds of some kind. This is how my original interest in photography began all those years ago, but obviously had no idea what it would take to get fantastic animal pictures. The necessary equipment then would have been well beyond my financial grasp.

Years later, when I found a new passion for photography, I started to get re-excited about the idea of getting great wildlife pictures. Having owned a DSLR's now for over 2 years makes me realise though how difficult and expensive those shots are. Before I got my D90 in 2010, I bought a Panasonic FZ38 which although was a point and shoot camera, had a ridiculously large zoom on it that went to 500mm. To afford such a luxury on DSLR (and the noticeable difference in quality that would give) would at it's very basic set you back £1000 and standardly many times that. I still have the passion for wildlife photography but know that there has to be hard work in other areas of photography before the day I can get the really close shots I desire.

The birds you see in this picture are Great Crested Grebes, which I pictured within the grounds of Hever Castle. They are famous for having an elaborate and graceful courtship display prior to mating and this is what this couple were doing. This isn't the pinnacle of the display, which involves them presenting 'gifts' to each other but I think I kind of scared them off while standing there taking pictures. Oh well, when I have that huge zoom range, I won't need to bother them again!

A Beautiful Path

Well that's what I remember thinking while I was there anyway! I don't have much time on my hand to write today but here is a new photo as always on a Tuesday. Haven't missed a blog day yet and though sometimes I push myself for time (like today), the photos keep coming. Like the last 2 photos, this one also comes from within the grounds of Hever Castle (I just realised that now and will change that on Thursday!). I've said it on this blog before but Hever really is a stunning place and well worth a visit. The castle is superb but for me the highlight are the magnificent gardens. This path and these flowers are part of that magnificence.

The Castle Hever

It seems a bit of a 'safe' picture to go for today but nonetheless here is a closeup HDR picture of Hever Castle. I was working on a different picture for a little while but feel like I hit a 'wall' with that one. I'm sure other photographers know what I mean, you process a picture for so long but still can't quite find that something missing from the picture. So rather than post a picture I'm not entirely happy with, I put it to one side to come back to at a later date. More on that should I find that missing something and post that picture! This obviously did not quite pose so many processing headaches, though it took me a while to correct some imbalances with the different areas of the sky. It's an HDR from 2 exposures (0, -2) and processed in Lightroom, Photoshop and Viveza 2.

Gods in Gardens

Some pictures just lend themselves to HDR and I think this is one of them. Perhaps it is the stone scenery but I didn't feel like I had to wrestle with the sliders much in Photomatix to get the look I wanted here. This was taken a few weeks ago while visiting Hever Castle in Kent. It is another feature of the magnificent gardens they have at Hever. This was taken with my D90 and though I have a D700 now, there are still plenty more pictures to come from the last month or so of my D90.

I took 3 bracketed shots for this picture and made some slight adjustments to the RAW images before saving them as TIFF files and merging them in Photomatix. Although as I said this to me is quite a natural looking HDR, I still added some filters in Nik Color Efex to give it a slightly soft and desaturated look (beyond just moving the saturation slider to the left in Lightroom).

I have no idea by the way whether this is a Roman or Greek god that is being represented here but I would guess some kind of Roman one. Just a quick joke before I go; I don't want to be remembered in some grandiose way after I die, I would just like the word 'Humble' written on my statue....(sorry!).

HDR Waterfall

I was going to write a post today about the new camera I have bought, which is a Nikon D700. I had it all planned out that I would post my first picture from my new camera today and write a blog about why I came to the decision to buy this camera (and perhaps more importantly why I didn't buy the newly released D800). However, for the 2 days I have owned the D700, the weather in England has reverted to type and it has been absolutely miserable. I'm obviously not going to take my new camera out in the rain and haven't felt inspired to capture anything anyway. I'm hoping to capture some pictures of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations over the bank holiday weekend (if the weather clears up), so maybe that D700 post will be raring to go on Tuesday. We shall all see!

Instead, I offer you today a picture of this waterfall (hey they don't have to be big!) that I pictured within the grounds of Hever Castle. And yes it is in glorious HDR! You don't see many of them?! I was quite impressed with myself (you don't have to be) to get this shot, as it was taken handheld and auto-bracketed using 3 exposures. I'm glad the waterfall isn't too smooth, as I like the little flowing details you can see and the light gleaming off the water as well. Used a little Nik Color Efex Pro magic to get the final touches, as well as the usual processing in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Tudor England

I like to think that historical pictures are one of my specialities in the photographic and HDR worlds and it certainly is my ambition to use my imagination to present scenes from our past. Opportunities I have had in the past such as attending civil war battle reenactments are certainly a way that I can capture a bit of historical magic and I'm constantly looking for other ideas to present history in photographic form. HDR processing helps enormously as well because for me it has always been the artistic look HDR can give to photos rather than 'capturing the entire light range' that makes HDR so special. It really helps give pictures an extra dimension and although of course I love standard photography, HDR provides more opportunities I feel to create an artistic look.

The location in today's picture is again within the grounds of Hever Castle, with the focus of this one being the Tudor Village that lies behind the castle. Now this part of Hever Castle does not actually date back to the Tudor period (1485 - 1603 for the historian buffs like me) but was created in the 20th century to house extra guests that would be staying at Hever Castle. You're not allowed to walk round it either, nowadays I believe it is specially reserved for weddings and other events. Therefore, I got this picture while stood by the castle, whilst looking towards the Tudor Village. I found it quite intriguing that there was a boy who was in and out of this boat by the village and felt this would look good as part of the picture. I'm sure he works for the castle but luckily was not wearing any kind of uniform that would look out of place in this picture.

Processing wise, this is an HDR picture taken from 3 shots and after a lot of painstaking work, I merged in a texture from a rock that I also pictured from within the grounds of Hever Castle. In the final image I did think about going a bit lighter on the texture but then I lost the authentic historical look of the buildings, which I was not prepared to sacrifice, therefore I kept the strong texture look in.

An English Summer Scene

You probably wouldn't know it but this is another picture from my day spent at Hever Castle last week. I mentioned the other day that as well as the castle, Hever has some spectacular landscape surrounding it and I hope this picture demonstrates that. I was very lucky to visit on a beautiful sunny day (hey, I live in England!) but the weather was my inspiration to go on this particular day. The bright weather made it quite difficult to capture some HDR pictures but it was still a fantastic opportunity to capture some great scenes of the English summer time.

This isn't an HDR photo but a single exposure processed in Lightroom and then Nik Color Efex Pro using the Glamour Glow filter. I wanted it to represent the English countryside in the summer but I dialled back the vibrance of the colours as my original version I felt was a bit too green. So this way I hope to have given it a more artistic look which is the aim of most of my pictures.

Hever Castle

Finally something from a new place on this blog! In fact, this photo is a bit of a change in more than just being somewhere new but in actually looking more like a real photograph. I spent all of yesterday's glorious sunshine at Hever Castle in Kent and whilst the sunshine was very welcome, the blanket bright blue sky did not really lend itself to taking HDR pictures. So it was back to my photography roots with the intention of just capturing a single shot fantastic landscape, which for this scene I wouldn't have done any other way. I will perhaps be a bit more creative with this scene in the future, like making it look a bit historical with a filter or texture maybe but with over 500 photos to go through, I'm pretty happy with this for just being back at the computer for a couple of hours.

So this is Hever Castle in Kent, a place I have wanted to visit for a couple of years now. Hever Castle is best known for being the childhood home of Henry VIII's second wife Anne Boleyn. She lived here from soon after her birth (circa 1501 believed to be in Norfolk) to around perhaps the time she was made Queen in 1533, with a 6 year gap in the middle (circa 1516-1522) during which she lived in France. She was 1 of 2 of Henry's wives to have been beheaded, the unfortunate victim in a conspiracy to replace her as Queen (almost certainly because she had been unable to provide Henry with a son). As I intend to post many more pictures from around Hever Castle in the near future, I won't go into a complete biography of Anne Boleyn now but naturally she is fondly remembered at Hever.

You can walk round inside Hever Castle, where you will quickly learn it's not really a castle at all but a large country manor house. It can be toured inside in half hour but what really makes Hever special are the gardens and landscape surrounding the castle. There are beautiful statues, fountains, streams, lakes, mazes, waterfalls...it really does go on. It's a fantastic place for the photographer and I highly recommend it. It was a fantastic opportunity to try some creative shots within the grounds of Hever Castle and as I said, will post many more of them in the near future.