photo credit: Zoramite

Blogging about photography and photo blogging are great ways to improve yourself as a photographer, give back to the community, make new friends and contacts, and express yourself. Not every photographer is interested in starting a blog, but I’m sure there are a few of you out there.

Epic Edits is getting to be an “old man” in the blogosphere (over 3 years running!), but I’ve recently launched a new blog (FeelingNegative.com) and I was reminded of all the things that new bloggers have to deal with. As I prepared this new blog for entry into the Web, I found myself making decisions based on my experience here at Epic Edits. Some of these decisions are not so obvious to folks with no prior blogging experience, so I’ve written down a few thoughts to consider if you’re planning to start a photography blog or photo blog.

HAVE A CONCEPT

Start 3 months before launch.

• Identify some specific audience that you can relate to.
• Find untapped opportunities and niches.
• Blog about what you know and shoot.
• Blog about what you want to learn.

That last point is a big deal. Teaching others about photography or displaying your work to a growing audience will force you to learn and grow at an accelerated rate.

PLAN PROFUSELY

Start 2.5 months before launch.

• Identify your overall site message or theme.
• Think of possible site names that fit your theme.
• Choose a blogging platform: Wordpress.org, Wordpress.com, Drupal, Blogger, etc.
• Look for possible themes and styles (but don’t pick one yet).
• Determine a posting frequency that you can keep up with.

Again, the last point is important. Blogging takes a lot of time on a regular schedule, so don’t assume that you can hit 3 posts per day with 1 hour of work. Just be realistic.

OUTLINE THE STRUCTURE

Start 2 months before launch.

• Lay out 3-5 main topics/genres (should be vastly unique).
• Use sub-topics to further separate content.
• List several theoretical post topics/titles for each category.
• Evaluate the outline and refine the structure.

Getting the site structure is key — you don’t want to be reorganizing a bunch of posts or photos a year down the road because you failed to plan ahead. Of course, leave yourself room to expand the categories and sub-categories.

TECHNICAL STUFF

Start 1.5 months before launch.

• Set up your platform and theme.
• Find and install useful plugins and widgets (depending on platform).
• Do some customization… graphics, colors, etc.

If you’re not familiar with blogging platforms, this might take some time to figure out. In that case, keep it simple and choose a platform that works for you. Otherwise, use what you know!

WRITE, WRITE, WRITE

Start 1 month before launch.

• Write 2-3 articles for each main category (so about 10 total).
• Proof, edit, and improve your articles.
• Test your platform, theme, and plugins with the articles you’ve written.

After you write the articles, check out your site and make sure things are displaying correctly and linking up the way they should. You should be just about finished tweaking the site at this point.

START THE SOCIAL ENGINES

Start .5 months before launch.

• Get on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, etc. Find 2 or 3 that you like.
• Leave out site links if you want to launch the site on a specific date.
• Connect with other bloggers and photographers in your niche.
• Invite a few friends to get the site going on launch date.

Social media can be a great source for spreading the word, but use these communities as a sincere participant — pure self-promo is considered spamming in many circles.

PRE-LAUNCH ANNOUNCEMENT

Start 1 week before launch.

• Post 5+ of your pre-written articles, pull remaining into draft for post-launch.
• Make the site viewable to the public (if you were using an “under construction” plugin).
• Contact friends and fellow bloggers for a preview (and tell them the launch date).
• Take a break! You’ve put in a bunch of work, so take a breather before things kick off.

If you’ve done your homework and spent the time to make a few contacts in the blogospere, you should have a few friends willing to give a hand with the launch party. Just don’t push too hard for promotion and try to connect with other bloggers and photographers on your level. The “big dogs” get a lot of “check out my new site” emails every day, so don’t expect them to act on every single one (they’re not being rude, they’re just trying to keep up with their own affairs).

LAUNCH ANNOUNCEMENT

This is the big day!

• Make it official and mention your new baby every chance you get!
• Remind the previewers that today is the big day for you.
• Watch for comments and stats — this is the exciting part of early blogging, so enjoy it.

Site launches are always different than what you expect, so don’t expect anything and just enjoy the ride. You might get a flood of visitors and you might get a dozen. Just stick with the plan and the word will get out eventually as long as you have something interesting to say or show.

POST-LAUNCH

Weeks after launch.

• Publish on pre-set schedule and try to stick with it.
• Seek promo opportunities: guest blogging, links in social profiles, etc.
• Announce your social extensions on the blog so new visitors can connect with you.
• Accept feedback on your work and make an effort to improve your blog.
• Refine your schedule, focus, and intent. Keep an open mind to change.

It can take months to grow into a new blog, so don’t give up after two weeks if you don’t have 5,000 visitors and 50 comments per day. Your blog will grow at a rate proportional to the effort you put into it, but even the best bloggers started at the bottom and worked their way up.

FIND YOUR GROOVE

Months after launch.

• Split your time between writing, interacting, and promoting.
• Reach out to other niche bloggers with links and mentions from your site.
• Give, give, give… and take very little. Blogging is about giving, not taking.
• Re-evaluate the plan frequently, make sure you’re on track with your goals and ambitions.

Blogging is like playing the stock market — you have your ups and downs. Sometimes it’s your fault, sometimes it’s just how things go. Get into a groove and find your place among the community. Get to know your readers and other bloggers in your niche.

HAVE FUN WITH IT

Blogging and photo-blogging is a rewarding experience if you have the right attitude. Give it some time, share your knowledge and your artwork, participate, build the community, and have fun with it.

Anybody out there thinking of starting up a new photography blog, photo blog, or personal blog? How about the new bloggers on the block? Where are you guys? Throw out some links in the comments if you just started a blog within the last few months. And for you seasoned bloggers, what other tips do you have for starting a blog?

You probably always hear people talk about backing up right? Well something happened to me recently that I figured I’d share in hopes that anyone not backing up, will start to.

The Night Before My Trip to Dubai
It all started last week. I taught at Gulf Photo Plus in Dubai. The night before I left I did as I always do every night – backed up my Mac with Super Duper (it creates a bootable backup of my entire drive). I have it on an auto backup setting so at some point during the night a backup is created on to a Western Digital MyBook drive. However, since I was also traveling to teach, I always make a backup of the backup to travel with me. That way, if something happens to my computer I have a bootable backup that I can plug into any laptop and still go on teaching. At this point, everything was fine.

My Flight to Dubai (where things went terribly wrong)
First we flew to Atlanta to catch the 15 hour flight to Dubai. At the Atlanta airport I grabbed my laptop to send a quick email only to find it started into a blank gray screen. I tried every key combo I knew to start in single user, safe, whatever mode that I could think of – nothing! Then I called our IT guy (Paul) and asked what he thought. The outlook was bleak, but he asked if I had a backup and to try to boot from that. So I did. Things started booting and then froze and I got an error about my backup drive being corrupt. Ugh! Oh yeah, all of this was happening as they were boarding my flight.

On the Plane
So now I’m on the plane heading over the Atlantic Ocean and trying everything I could to figure this out (with no internet access by the way). After about an hour I lost all hope. My computer would only show a gray screen and wouldn’t boot into my backup drive. I started to weep and quickly took advantage of Delta’s free beer and wine offer on international flights

Day 1 in Dubai
Once I arrived I went up to the rooftop bar to hang out with some of the other instructors. I met David Nightingale there for the first time. As I told him my story, he immediately said let’s go check this out and spent about an hour with me trying to figure things out (seriously, this guy barely knew me and was helping me out). Again, no luck. My backup drive wouldn’t even mount to his computer. Double Ugh!

Day 2 in Dubai (my birthday by the way)
After Mohamed Somji, the guy who basically runs GPP, found out of my computer problems, he had someone take me to a computer repair store that he knew of (and one that specialized in Apple computers). I wasn’t there for 5 minutes when they diagnosed that my laptop’s hard drive had crashed. They were able to put a new drive in and have me up and running in less than 2 hours from start to finish (not bad huh?).

But just having a working computer was the least of my problems. I had to teach like 6 classes at GPP and all of them were on my previous hard drive (and backup drive). My photos were safe of course because they’re on a separate drive. But all of my outlines, materials, Lightroom library and everything else were gone.

So I called RC Concepcion at work and asked if he’d run to my house to get the other backup drive. He did and called me later to say that the drive wasn’t working. Triple Ugh!!! After some troubleshooting he realized the power supply was bad and luckily we had another one. Folks, I know this sounds crazy but all of these things were working 24 hours before this. I swear! Anyway, RC and Paul (our IT guy) tried a few things to get me the files I needed but ended up FedEx’ing me my backup drive (I also have a Time Capsule running at home so I knew I had yet another backup in case something happened to the drive in transit).

Day 3
Still no drive. Checked online and my drive was due to arrive the next day (which is when classes started).

Day 4
I went out sightseeing in the morning. Came back and about 1 hour before my class, the drive arrived at the hotel. I attached it to the laptop, restarted and booted from the drive and I was right back to where I was the night before I left for Dubai.

The Rest of the Trip
The rest of the trip went great. I had to continue to boot from my hard drive as the cable that was sent with it was USB and I couldn’t do the laptop hard drive swap (in the amount of time I had) without firewire. No sweat though. All I wanted was the stuff on my drive. I didn’t care where it came from.

Today
Today everything is good. I got back from the trip and was able to transfer everything from my backup drive at home to my laptop drive. It’s as if nothing ever happened. I did do one quick photo shoot the morning I left but I borrowed a camera and CF card from Brad Moore at the office. I deleted the files, but Brad had not reformatted or used the card and was able to use SanDisk RescuePro to recover the photos off the card so I literally lost nothing in this whole ordeal (aside from many hours of sleep and my sanity for a few days).

Moral of the Story
Backup your computer and anything else that’s important. When you’re done backing up, backup again. And heck, while you’re at it, back up one more time just to be sure. If you travel, and having the stuff on your computer is vital to you (as it is for me), then don’t just rely on the backup you travel with. You never know what can happen (as I painfully found out). Your computer bag could be stolen for all you know along with your backup drive. I know I can always find another computer to use, but if my backup druve was gone I wouldn’t have all of the important files that I needed to work with.

Thanks for reading. I hope you either a) feel the need to reevaluate and double check your backup process or, b) feel reakkt really sorry for me