Friday Happy Hour: How (Not) to Get More Likes on Facebook & More

The last week in April wrapped up with some exciting news in the PhotoShelter office: The Photo Assistant’s Handbook resonated with many more photographers than we could have imagined, especially Shawn Corrigan‘s list of “40+ Essential Items Every Photography Assistant Needs Now“. Plus, we were very excited to announce that master retoucher Amy Dresser will join Facebook, Christie’s, Lytro, and others as a featured speaker at Luminance 2012 – PhotoShelter’s conference this September in NYC.

But enough about us – here’s what we found in the rest of the photo and Internet community this week:

The Oatmeal: How (not) to get more likes on Facebook

Facebook has made some of us mildly obsessed with getting more “likes” for our Facebook Pages. So satirical comic connoisseur The Oatmeal posted a humorous “guide” on how to get more likes on Facebook – or rather, ways not to get more likes, such as blindly sending out messages to old friends and requesting that they like your Page. Because, in The Oatmeal’s words, you sound like this:

So how should you get more likes? “Put your energy into making things that are LIKEABLE,” they say. Instead, create things that are hilarious, sad, beautiful, interesting, inspiring, or simply awesome.” Amen to that.

Brad Mangin donates archival slides to The National Baseball Hall of Fame

Longtime PhotoShelter member and baseball stock photographer Brad Mangin completed a very special project this past winter: he sorted through his online archive of over 50,000 Major League Baseball photos and selected 2,386 original slides to donate to The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, NY. Brad has been photographing the MLB for 25 years and the Hall of Fame holds a special place in his heart – he made another donation back in 2002, making his total number of donated images over 4,000. Brad also gave the archivists trusted client download access to his PhotoShelter archive, meaning that they can download any image they want for the Museum’s needs. “Memories and Dreams”, the official magazine of the Museum, recently published a story about his donation.

To read the full story, check out Brad’s blog post here.

Time-lapse overview of Portland made with 300,000+ images

The team at Uncage the Soul took 308,829 separate photos of Portland over the course of 51 days in March and April. The result? A stunning 4-minute time-lapse video that was presented at TEDx Portland to a standing ovation. The team reports that each second of the video took roughly 3.8 hours to create. (via PetaPixel).

How to optimize your images for Google search

As a photographer with a website, it’s important to optimize your images for the web. Included in that is doing whatever possible to build the best SEO. HubSpot recently posted a general guide on how to optimize images for Google search. With that, here are a few tips on what to do so Google can index your images:

• Only use Google-supported image formats: BMP, GIP, JPEG, PNG, WebP, and SVG.
• Use descriptive keywords in your filenames and alt text.
• Provide context for your images in the surrounding text.
• Choose keyword-infused anchor text when linking to your images.

You can find out what more Google has to say about optimizing images for search in their blog post. And for photographers specifically, check out our free SEO For Photographers Guide + Bootcamp, with a comprehensive overview of SEO and 4-week email course with additional content and guidance.

Google+ Photography Prize

This past winter, Google+ held its first photography contest in conjunction with the Saatchi Gallery in London. The contest was specifically for students, and users submitted content by creating a gallery on their Google+ Page and sharing it with a hashtag related to the contest. Over 20,000 students from 146 countries submitted work, and the final winner was 24-year-old Swedish student Viktor Johansson for his sports photography image.

You can see the full list of winners and their photos here.

Sean Gilligan’s behind the scenes Forbes magazine shoot

After attending the “What Photo Buyers Want” webinar with Forbes‘ Senior Photo Editor Michele Hadlow (“Killer Portraiture is King“), NYC commercial photographer Sean Gilligan was inspired to share a behind the scenes look at a shoot he did for Forbes back in the day. Although Sean has shot for Forbes more recently, he shared a photograph from his archive of Robert Mitchell, an investor in the business of yellow cake uranium. What makes Sean’s blog post so awesome is that he breaks down every decision he made for that shoot – from researching the local diner as a location to bringing his grandmother’s retro porcelain dining set as a prop.

Sean also offers 7 tips on how to deliver to clients like Michele:

• Do your homework about the publication you are shooting for and your subject.
• Don’t just do typical work that you think they expect.
• Show your willingness to experiment & let your creative voice come through.
• Show variety.
• Take a chance.
• Deliver an image, which captures how fascinating the subject really is.
• If you have genuine enthusiasm & interest in your subject, it will come through in your image.

Video interview with top photo agent Frank Meo

TWiT Network is known for their videos and podcasts covering everything from computers to the Internet to personal technology. Their show, TWiT Photo, focuses on the obvious and last week they interviewed New York City photo agent Frank Meo on how to select the right agent for you, portfolio tips, and the bottom line of what it costs. Frank founded The Photo Closer, an NYC-based team of advisers that work to help photographers in their career development. Frank has been in the business for over 25 years, so be sure to check out his insightful tips.

Meridith Kohut’s photos of life inside a brothel in Cartagena

PhotoShelter member and New York Times photographer Meridith Kohut had work featured in a NY Times slideshow this week. Her images, titled “Life Inside a Brothel in Cartagena“, depict the women who live and work in the Angeles Bar Club in Cartagena, Colombia. “Cartagena has a thriving and legal prostitution business, much of it oriented toward foreign tourists,” says Meridith. In response to the recent scandal with U.S. Secret Service, Meridith says: “Many here are perplexed over why the Americans have made such a fuss over something as unremarkable, in local eyes, as a man taking a woman to a hotel room, and paying for sex.”

Art Wolfe’s 2012 seminar tour

Drawing from a 36-year career, renowned nature photographer Art Wolfe is now teaming up with Calumet Photo in 2012 to bring the Art of Composition lecture series to new cities. For years Art has been traveling the world leading seminars and tours to help photographers develop both their technique and outlook on photography. The goal of this new lecture series is to change the way you see, giving you a new outlook on life and photography. For more information on locations and dates, check out Art’s workshop website.