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(Photo)Blogging Tips: Part Two

As this site has grown and my subscriber count has gone up, I’ve been feeling a little pressure to keep coming up with decent content. Not only to attract new readers, but to give my current readers a reason to stick around. I’ve been thinking a lot more about the act of ‘blogging’ than I had originally planned. I’m not used to this new pressure since all of my past blogs combined wouldn’t add up to my current subscriber count. And I have to tell you, I kinda like it. It’s a good kind of stress because I know that it’s this pressure that is pushing me to improve my photography. So, I wanted to post a follow-up article to my recent post (Photo)Blogging Tips.

In that article, I talked a lot about the act of blogging: the content, organizing your site, networking and marketing your site, etc. But, to have a successful photo blog, you still need good content. I mean, you can just do nothing but post a photo of yours every day. There’s nothing wrong with that. I see plenty of good sites that do precisely that and I still subscribe because I love seeing new, compelling images every day. But if you want to build more interaction and you want to increase the chances that your blog will be linked to, shared, and discussed, you’re going to need good content. But how? Even though digital photography is somewhat of a niche, it’s a huge niche. There probably isn’t too much you can write that hasn’t been written already.

Given that, I thought I’d share a few of my own thoughts on how I come up with topics to blog about. I hope you find them useful:

Visit other blogs’ archives

I’m sure everyone has a few top photo blogs that they always go back to because they always end up learning something new when they visit. Well, take a look through their archives and look for topics that haven’t been discussed for a while. There’s no reason you can’t revisit the topic. Of course, your content must be original. Don’t steal content. Ever. Just use it to find some new topics. One of my most popular articles, Reading Histograms certainly isn’t anything new. There are definitely other articles that discuss it at great length. But this is something I hadn’t seen in a while and it was something I wanted to learn, so I wrote an article. And since it hadn’t been discussed for a while, it gets a fairly high Google rank when searching for related terms.

Read comments and forums

When you’re out browsing the web looking for ideas, be sure to take the time to read the comments in the articles you’re looking at. Often, especially on more popular sites, there will be plenty of comments from readers who might have follow-up questions. This is a great way to, not only find new ideas, but to include content that the original article left out. For example, in the histograms article I just mentioned, I didn’t cover color histograms. A reader, Niels Henriksen pointed this out and wrote some great info in the comments. That’s a new blog post waiting to happen!

Stop blogging for the cool kids

As a fairly new amateur photographer, I sometimes get discouraged because I read so many awesome blogs written by photographers that are light years ahead of me in terms of technical know-how and talent. I often find myself thinking. “What could I possibly write that Photographer Joe Smith would find interesting?” Probably not a whole lot. But that’s no reason to get discouraged. Keep in mind that, no matter how new you are to photography, the fact that you’re blogging about it probably means that most people who own a camera don’t know as much as you do about photography. Write for them! And if you’re trying to grow your blog, instead of going for that one link from some kickass professional photographer (which may be difficult and discouraging), why not go for 100 links from less advanced photographers? And, before you know it, while you’re still looking up to the photography masters, a lot of other people might start thinking you’re one of the photographers they want to emulate!

Dig out your manuals

I hate reading manuals. When I get a new toy, I want to begin playing immediately. However, there is some really good info in your camera’s manual. A typical DSLR camera will have a ton of functions and options. Most people, especially beginning photographers, quickly get into a comfort zone where they probably only use up to 50% of their camera’s capability. So, from time to time, browse through your camera’s manual again. It is chock full of topics that you can dive into and blog about. For example, when was the last time you used the AI or AI Servo focus modes on your camera? I hardly ever use them. Well, take some time, read about it again, take some shots and blog about it. What worked? What didn’t? Any tips on how to use it that go beyond the manual? Of course, this is valid for any piece of complex photo equipment. I have a Canon Speedlite 580EXII. I love it. Do I use all of the functionality it has? Not even close. With all the different modes and options in your photo equipment, there are at least two blog posts waiting for me in each of my manuals.

Get hyper-technical

Often times, we take a lot of things for granted. For example, we know what ISO is and how to use it… We know that the higher the ISO number, the more sensitive the camera sensor is to light, thus allowing us to preserve shutter speed in lower light situations. But do we really know what ISO is? Where did ISO come from and what does it stand for? How does it really work? Why is it measured as 100, 200, 400, 800 instead of 1,2,3,4? Why does noise increase when I increase the ISO? A great example of this came from Antoine over at All Day I Dream About Photography. Based on a question from one of his readers, Antoine explored the relationship between ISO value and an image’s file size. This is something I just took for granted and never really thought about until I read the article. The great thing about these articles is: even if you don’t feel like you’re a master photographer, it doesn’t matter. These types of articles only require a little bit of research.

How do you come up with new content? Got any tips? Feel free to share them in the comments…

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