This week’s challenge comes as a suggestion from PhotoZone via Peter Olding.

Backgrounds are important to a photograph. Why not find a good background first, then wait for something to happen in front of it.

Simple enough. Or is it? A perfect example might be Henri Cartier-Bresson’s famous Hyères:

Hyères, Henri Cartier-Bresson

Usual rules apply! Good luck!

That’s “Search Engine Optimisation”.

It’s one of those terms that’s bandied about and none of us (read “me, last week”) have a clue what it’s all about. I’ve been paying lots of money for Google AdWords lately, and my site has been pretty much unlisted on the ‘natural’ listings of google. Last week I attended an SEO seminar and miraculously (or through a lot of hard work), my site now typically appears on the first page of the google listings.

There’s nothing sneaky about it – it’s just a case of building your site properly. Gone are the days when you plastered your site with white-on-white text full of keywords. Search engines detect that nowadays. You pretty much have to do it properly.

The chap who taught us was from Studio-40 in Loughborough. He presented everything in a most understandable way (for me and my tech background at any rate). So, I’d highly recommend doing a little SEO unless you’re a Leicestershire photographer in which case SEO is rubbish and I wouldn’t do any at all if I were you. That’s right. Absolutely rubbish and not worth the effort.

Did my cunning plan to fend off local competition work?

The results are now in for Tuesday Challenge #34. It looks like changing the day has helped. Hurrah!

Thanks to everyone who entered.

There’s a new challenge coming soon…

Hostage negotiator Dr James Alvarez, talking about the couple assumed to have been kidnapped by Somali pirates:

He said being white, it will be assumed the Chandlers, from Tunbridge Wells, are rich.

“These guys don’t understand about mortgages and having to pay rent and, of course, comparatively, the hostages will be wealthy from their point of view,” Dr Alvarez added.

I would have thought the fact they were swanning around the Indian Ocean in their yacht would suggest they’re rich.

I really hope they have a safe return but I can see why pirates may think they were good pickings.

This might be a good opportunity to have a rant about the news, too. May have been kidnapped. Ransom would have to be paid. The news so far is that a couple have gone missing. That’s it. Anything else is conjecture, as beautifully conveyed in “How To Get Ahead In Advertising”

Businessman 1: (reading the newspaper) One discovered naked in the kitchen…breasts smeared with peanut butter. The police took away a bag containing 15 grams of cannabis resin… it may also contain a quantity of heroin.
Bagley: Or a pork pie.
Businessman 1: I beg your pardon.
Bagley: I said the bag may also have contained a pork pie.
Businessman 1: I hardly see a pork pie’s got anything to do with it.
Bagley: Alright then, what about a large turnip. It might also have contained a big turnip.
Priest: The bag was full of drugs.
Bagley: Nonsense.
Priest: The bag was full of drugs, it says so.
Bagley: The bag could’ve been full of anything. Pork pies, turnips, oven parts… it’s the oldest trick in the book.
Priest: What book?
Bagley: The distortion of truth by association book. The word is “may.” You all believe heroin was in the bag because cannabis resin was in the bag. The bag may have contained heroin, but the chances are 100 to 1 certain that it didn’t.

An extract found in the bright yellow curry spice turmeric can kill off cancer cells, scientists have shown.

Woohoo! What great news!

Full story at BBC News

Although, I’m not sure the caption “The yellow spice gives curries their bright colour” is accurate. It’s more likely that some carcinogenic artificial food colouring does that job. Everyone knows that a proper curry may taste divine, but should look like a bowl of brown gack!

WTF?

Dream Husband?

I say, WTF?

Did a great photoshoot with some lovely people today. I had the perfect shot of my dreams set up. The limitation – bringing us neatly to the Tuesday Challenge – is that my key light managed to become busted, requiring a quick on-the-fly swap after seeing this result…

The result of a busted key light.

This week the theme is Limitations.

In a recent interview, Terry Gilliam said that he aspires to mediocrity. It’s the limitations that make his work stand out. For example, on Monty Python’s holy grail, he wanted the knights riding around on beautiful horses. However, the budget limitations put a stop to that and we were left with the famous coconuts.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to come up with the most fantastic idea. What would you shoot if time, money and skills were no issue? Then work within your limitations to realise your dream. See what unique surprises occur.

New rules apply. They’re just like the old rules, but with different times.

Yeah – it’s going ok, y’know.

I went to a seminar last night which was very very useful – actually, I think it was very very very useful. Yes, that’s better. Talking all about marketing and web optimisation and conversion and other things like that. It’s been the bit I’ve struggled with most while setting up as a midlands wedding photographer (see what I did there?). Actually, I don’t just do weddings – I’m also pretty good at portrait photography in Loughborough (see what I did again?).

Apparantly, personal referrals and links on the net are worth far more than you’d ever know. So, for example, if I knew a freelance illustrator, I could probably do him a favour by putting a link from my blog. If I did happen to know one, that is.

Anyway – the enquiries have started to pick up. The last month when I didn’t bill anything was June (a long time ago now). I’ve stopped having to buy new things for every job I take. I think the momentum has begun to pick up. It’s been a hell of a struggle, and had we not been in the middle of a recession and had there been computer jobs available, I might have given up and gone back to do one. But I read a fascinating piece about profession and apathy and struggle the other day…

The article suggested that the difference between an amateur and a professional is that when the amateur tires of something, they can give it up. What makes the professional a true professional is working through those bad times. Knowing their ultimate goal – being the best they can at what they do – they work through difficulties, struggle, and come out of the other end stronger. An amateur musician says “I can’t be bothered to practise today”. A professional can’t be bothered some days, but does it anyway. Consider Gene Kelly in “Singin’ in the Rain”. When he shot that famous scene, dancing in the rain, he was being drenched by freezing water, with stinky milk added to make it visible to the cameras, and had a massive dose of the ‘flu. But he was a professional.

let’s get the ball rolling with a giraffe…

giraffe