Photocritic photography blog

There’s web galleries, there’s your mum’s photo printer, and then there is this…

One of the most beautiful ways of presenting photographs has to be getting your photos transferred onto canvas. The cool thing is that you can get quite creative what you do on a canvas - just ask Rembrandt & co!

There are a lot of companies out there who are offering the service these days, but I recently stumbled across one that stands out from the crowd with its snazzy Web 2.0 interface and its glorious prints. Read the rest of the article »

You’re working as a photographer, you take fantastic photos, and you’ve even got a pretty sweet website to show off your work… So why is your web server just sitting around in the corner, smoking a fag and nipping at a cup of coffee? Why aren’t the buyers running the door off its hinges, and, come to think of it, where are your damn groupies, already?

The internet is a cold and heartless place, and the biggest source of traffic to any website should be coming from search engines (Photocritic, for example, gets about 70% of its traffic from search engines. Mind you, it’s mostly people looking for pictures of nude women. Go figure.)

Luckily, there are quite a few things you can do as a photographer to make your site really zing in the search engines - and for the sake of making a nice round figure (and, of course, so the Digg and Reddit crowds will love it like a kitten loves tuna fish) - here’s a lovely top-10 list to get you started! Read the rest of the article »

Have you ever thought about having your photos in a photo gallery? I have, and it’s bloody nerve-wrecking. Whether your work is displayed for sale in a pub, for the sake of art in a gallery, or whether you just printed off a picture and your mum stuck it on the fridge with a magnet, it opens it up to a whole different type of scrutiny than if you post your images, say, on DeviantArt.

Why? Because this time, it’s real, flesh-and-blood people who look at your photos, not strangers with a broadband connection and a dinky laptop.

Having your photos on display for real strips away all the excuses. It can no longer be their monitor. It will no longer be that they are looking at things out of context… It’s all you.

I’m a passionate believer in the idea that you should display your photos - and so is my good friend Bobby Friske, who shares his first experience of a gallery showing, and the lessons he learned in the process… Read the rest of the article »

There are dozens of ways of presenting your photographs, but ultimately, we all want to distribute our photos in as classy a way as possible. Moo is an unusual printing company that might just be able to help.

It’s very easy to explain what Moo is - it’s web 2.0 meets photography meets printing. What isn’t as easy to explain, however, is why people go completely bonkers about Moo’s products. It helps that it’s great quality at bargain-basement prices, of course, but there’s also other things at play - a little something that the Big Brother generation would call the X Factor… Read the rest of the article »

By now, there are a hundred ways of displaying and selling your art on-line. We’ve looked at a few solutions in the past (Including the rather impressive one-man-band FotoViva I wrote about a while back), but I recently found a new one, Red Bubble, which seems to really resound positively with me.

Using a user interface that reminds me a little bit of JPG Magazine (i.e extremely Web 2.0: Simple but pretty and functional), Red Bubble doesn’t pitch itself initially as a photo sales site. Instead, it’s an online art gallery where you can upload - and sell - your artwork. Read the rest of the article »

In our newest instalment of the photo critique series, I’m taking a look at a series of black and white photographs taken by Kevin Bost. In the process, I’ll be exploring why Black and White photography still has a valid place in today’s colourful society… Read the rest of the article »

Photo frames are an easy way to add some gusto to your images. The future of this particular business, of course, is digital photography frames. You just upload some of your favourite photos to the frame, and then the frame cycles through the photos for you. If the frame is cleverly enough disguised and lit, it looks like a perfectly normal frame, with the only difference that the photo changes before your very eyes! Read the rest of the article »

In a recent photo critique, I went off on one about the aspect ratios I prefer, when I look at photos. But have you ever thought about why you would prefer a particular image ratio? Is there a rule about what size photos should be, and if so - who decides the rules?

I’m just sharing my own thoughts here, but I’d love to hear your opinions on the matter as well!

Read the rest of the article »

If you’re willing to think out of the box, there are plenty of un-can-ny ideas you can put into life - like the cheeky idea by Photojojo, which can be summarised into ’stick your photos on a can’. It’s a damn fine idea, though, and the results are guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of all who see it. Read the rest of the article »

Displaying photos is becoming a strenuous task. With services such as Photobox, you can print your photos cheaply, but who wants a stack of paper anymore? Alternatively, you could go the digital photo frame route, but the price of these devices is a bit silly, for what it is.

Unless… Well, the answer is in the head-line, really. Why not make your own? Read the rest of the article »