I thought we had an interesting ESIG. I've produced a few notes below on what we covered, with a couple of links you might want to follow.
We had three talks:
1. Malcolm talked us through his experience of using SmugMug as his web host, which he has found to be good. SmugMug has all the features we might expect to see. The initial set up was easy and took about an hour (with the help of Geoff Buckland). Like most web hosts SmugMug has a choice of design templates, can be organised around folders and galleries (which can be password protected), and can show images and also text pages. Importing images is very straight forward with 'drag and drop' uploads or even integration with Lightroom for example. It allows unlimited storage and provides extensive usage statistics, including ranking of most popular images.
The feature that surprised me was the ability for visitors to the site to comment on (blog) particular images. If Malcolm uploads an image by 8am, and it is blogged the same day, it will appear in the SmugMug 'Today's Popular Photos' and will remain there until 8am the next day. This generates massive visibility and drives visitors to the site. Malcolm gets around 35000 page views/month which is one or two more than I get!
There are four pricing plans and Malcolm has upgraded to the second level, 'Power', which costs $102/year, but Malcolm can arrange a referral discount of 20%.
You can see Malcolm's web site here https://malcolmjenkinsphotography.smugmug.com/, and the SmugMug site here https://www.smugmug.com/
2. We reviewed of selected images for the upcoming PAGB and Ware/Stevenage competitions
In this session we showed the 'long' shortlist for these competitions, which have been selected by the 'selection committee' (Torben, Colin, Peter S, and supported by Ali who will be taking over from Torben next year).
We had around 50 images drawn from an original set of approx 200. The purpose was to allow the group to see, discuss and 'score' the images and to compare what the group would have selected with what the selectors actually did select. Its not an easy task. We had some excellent images and its tough to compare a wildlife shots with a landscape or portrait. In the end there was a good, but not total agreement.
3. Steve is an active members of the Guild of Photographers (as also is Malcolm), and joined having researched other similar organisations. Steve chose The Guild because of its friendly and down to earth nature (unlike the arty farty RPS says Steve). The membership is a mix of professional and enthusiasts, is Northern based, and feels like a community that is easy to engage with. There are monthly competitions, three levels of qualifications that can be worked towards, a mentoring and advice programme, all of which Steve has taken part in and been successful.
See https://photoguild.co.uk/ and their discount page here https://photoguild.co.uk/join?referrer=2T8xCo. Rumour has it that there is a 50% discount for those over a certain age, so maybe worth making contact direct.
See also the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/The.Guild.of.Photographers/
Worth taking a look.
We had three talks:
1. Malcolm talked us through his experience of using SmugMug as his web host, which he has found to be good. SmugMug has all the features we might expect to see. The initial set up was easy and took about an hour (with the help of Geoff Buckland). Like most web hosts SmugMug has a choice of design templates, can be organised around folders and galleries (which can be password protected), and can show images and also text pages. Importing images is very straight forward with 'drag and drop' uploads or even integration with Lightroom for example. It allows unlimited storage and provides extensive usage statistics, including ranking of most popular images.
The feature that surprised me was the ability for visitors to the site to comment on (blog) particular images. If Malcolm uploads an image by 8am, and it is blogged the same day, it will appear in the SmugMug 'Today's Popular Photos' and will remain there until 8am the next day. This generates massive visibility and drives visitors to the site. Malcolm gets around 35000 page views/month which is one or two more than I get!
There are four pricing plans and Malcolm has upgraded to the second level, 'Power', which costs $102/year, but Malcolm can arrange a referral discount of 20%.
You can see Malcolm's web site here https://malcolmjenkinsphotography.smugmug.com/, and the SmugMug site here https://www.smugmug.com/
2. We reviewed of selected images for the upcoming PAGB and Ware/Stevenage competitions
In this session we showed the 'long' shortlist for these competitions, which have been selected by the 'selection committee' (Torben, Colin, Peter S, and supported by Ali who will be taking over from Torben next year).
We had around 50 images drawn from an original set of approx 200. The purpose was to allow the group to see, discuss and 'score' the images and to compare what the group would have selected with what the selectors actually did select. Its not an easy task. We had some excellent images and its tough to compare a wildlife shots with a landscape or portrait. In the end there was a good, but not total agreement.
3. Steve is an active members of the Guild of Photographers (as also is Malcolm), and joined having researched other similar organisations. Steve chose The Guild because of its friendly and down to earth nature (unlike the arty farty RPS says Steve). The membership is a mix of professional and enthusiasts, is Northern based, and feels like a community that is easy to engage with. There are monthly competitions, three levels of qualifications that can be worked towards, a mentoring and advice programme, all of which Steve has taken part in and been successful.
See https://photoguild.co.uk/ and their discount page here https://photoguild.co.uk/join?referrer=2T8xCo. Rumour has it that there is a 50% discount for those over a certain age, so maybe worth making contact direct.
See also the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/The.Guild.of.Photographers/
Worth taking a look.
