How To Find And Use Photos From Flickr

June 24, 2008 | 2 Comments

Photo by *Solar ikon*

We all know the effect and benefits of using photos in our blog, I have written about it earlier. In my previous article, I talked about using your own camera to take your own pictures. Many people don’t use photos found on the web because using it without the owner’s permission is an infringement of

copyright and you can be sued. This result in people having to pay for it or write to the owner for permission.

For many bloggers, getting permission or paying for it takes a long time before you can use the photos. People like to write the blog now, put in a few nice photos and move on. Today I’ll talk about how to find photos on Flickr and use it in your blog without infringement of copyright.

In Flickr there are many great looking photos. The website is growing more and more popular each day. So naturally the photo library will grow exponentially. Flickr is a good place to find nice photos and use them. In Flickr, photos are generally categorised into 6 different levels of copyright. Each level has different permissions for different uses. You can read and understand each of the level of copyright here. Actually you should have a good understanding of the types of license attached to the photos so you can be sure you are using the right ones for the right purpose.

To have the full permission to use the photos for commercial or non-commercial and also to edit the photos, it is best to look for photos with an Attribution License. You can use the photos with this license in anyway you want. How do you search for such photos? Follow the following steps:

1. Log into Flickr

2. Scroll to bottom of the page and click on Creative Commons. This should bring you to the page where photos are grouped under the 6 different licenses

3. Click on (See more) under the category of Attribution License. This will bring you to the page with all the photos that you can use for your blog with full permission from the owner.

4. Search for the photos you are looking for in the search box on top.

If you appreciate the beautiful photos and how it helps you in your blog or article or anything, then it is only good etiquette to acknowledge the photographer. Though it is not necessary if you got it from the Attribution License section, personally I think we should give credit where credit is due.

These photographers spend alot of time and effort to produce beautiful pictures for people to use for free, the least you can do is to show your appreciation by informing everyone that this beautiful picture is taken by so and so. How do you do this?

You can put in a caption with the photographer’s name and hyperlink to the photographer’s profile on Flickr. Yup, it fast and easy.

You can also go the extra mile and email the photographer and inform the person you are using it in your blog and invite the person to visit it. Then you can bring more traffic to your blog as well as make more friends. Being a photography enthusiasts myself, I do welcome people who appreciates my effort. After all, what is beauty if there is no one to behold…

So do explore Flickr and use photos to beautify your blog, your readers will appreciate it.

An Important Blogging Tool

June 5, 2008 | Leave a Comment

“A picture is worth a thousand words”

We know that people are drawn to photos because it’s nice to look at. If taken properly, it freezes everything at that point of time. Pictures also help people to visualise the moment or situation at that point of time. Regardless of how proficient are you in describing a scenario, nothing beats a photograph which does the same thing but with better effect.

How does this related to blogging? Blogging is about producing unique content which interests the publishers. Blog posts and pages contains a lot of written content as the blogger diligently writes his or her posts. It is good practise to include a bit of photos to help readers get a better picture of what you are saying. This makes the blog a more pleasant reading experience. It adds colour and ease the readers’ ability to visualise what the blogger is trying to describe.

Photos also help the readers to remember the experience, points or fact that the blogger is trying to make. People tend to remember pictures more than words. So by including relevant photos into your blog, whenever the readers see something similar, they’ll remember what they read in your blog.

Taking your own photos is the best way to make original photos that you don’t have to worry about infringing any copyright. There are many online sites with free photos so you can copy them if you want to. But I always prefer to take my own photos and ensure I am the only person in the world with that shot. This makes the photos even more original and unique. Also, each photographer will interpret differently the same scene, the photo reflect more of what each photographer sees. So if you want to describe something or an experience or to teach something, it is better to show pictures through your own eyes. This way the photos and your posts in the blog compliments each other better.

So how do I take my own pictures for my blog? Well first thing is, you need to have a digital camera. A digital camera is the most convenient way of taking a shot, download it and upload to your blog.

For blogging purpose, you don’t really need the latest high end digital camera. A normal 3 to 5 megapixel point and shoot digital camera is more than enough to take good photos for your blog. Its not necessary to put in large size photos because it takes too long to load up and your readers may get impatient and skip it. You don’t want that to happen.

There are also digital cameras with reasonable video recording capability. You may want to consider those models too since you can also record short clips for your blog. Again, you don’t need the latest high definition video camera to make videos for you blog.

Some hand phones or cellular phones comes with camera features. They may be good for you when you are just starting out. When you become more expert in taking photos, then you will want to upgrade to a digital camera. This is because the camera phone has very limited capability in taking various lighting situations. If you are happy with the quality of the phone camera, you can still stick to it.

There are many new terminology and setting which you need to be familiar to operate your digital camera properly. There is a cheap but good ebook which explains the various functions and adjustments you can do to your digital camera to take good photos. The ebook, Guide To Digital Photography is easy to read without getting into too much technicalities. Do buy it and start understanding your camera better and take good photos to enhance your blog. You readers will definitely appreciate your content more.