Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Here it is...

Okay, so I'm starting a new blog. I've been resisting this for a long time now, but I see everyone around me doing it. Call it peer pressure. Call it self aggrandizement. Call it whatever you wish. My own reasons for starting the blog are to be able to share both pictures and knowledge.

For my first blog post, I want to discuss a web site that I have called "home" for several years now. I have been actively involved in learning and in helping people learn about photography on a digital photography web site called DPChallenge. There are several things that I love about DPChallenge and are my main reasons for recommending the site:
  1. First and foremost are the "challenges". DPChallenge has at least a couple of challenges (aka photo contests) each week with varying topics. Basically, you are given one week to shoot a photo that fits the topic and submit it to the site. And then everyone has a chance to vote and/or comment on the images. This has a couple of benefits: The topic helps you to step outside of your box, to take a fresh look at a subject you may not normally think about photographing. The voting helps give you an overall sense of how well your image "communicates" with your intended audience. And the comments can be a wealth of knowledge as to what you did right or wrong.
  2. Besides images submitted to challenges, as a member on DPChallenge, you can post images to your portfolio and, there again, receive helpful comments on your images.
  3. Then there are the forums and the people. The DPChallenge crowd is overall a very friendly crowd. Perhaps, at times, a bit irreverent. But mostly in good fun. I find that posting a message on just about any topic (even off the topic of photography!) on one of DPChallenge's forums will often result in helpful responses within minutes.
  4. The best way to learn anything is by doing. And to that end, the challenges, portfolios and forums are a great way to learn and grow.
You can see my profile on DPChallenge here. But I welcome you to explore around the rest of DPC and see if you, too, might decide to call it "home".

1 comment:

Natalya said...

Great to see you've joined the blogging community! Looking forward to seeing how you get along, I'm sure you'll be sharing some fantastic photos with us :o)