We just celebrated 61 years of our freedom. Yes, we have come a long way as a country. However there is even longer way to go. The freedom that we have mean that every person is free to do anything but in this country of huge disparities that freedom is . Yes, its governments responsibility to get this freedom made available to all by helping those who are at the bottom of economic ladder. However with various demands from various quarters government can only do a part of what is needed. Also considering how inefficient our government system is we cant even expect them to fulfill their part of the work.
That leaves us with a major chunk of the work to be done by each one of us. Luckily we have people around us who act as leaders and we just need to follow or at the least support them esp because they either dont have the political backing or worse would be working against an unjustified political will. By leaders I mean the NGOs who work for a specific cause of society. They dearly need our support and we cant afford to stay aloof in our world doing nothing about the existing divide of haves and have not's.
One such organization is Unnati of Bangalore. They are working on getting those young girls and guys training for 3 months and getting them placed just after that. All this they do for FREE. You can visit their site and see how you can help them. Also please pass this information to all your friends and such word of mouth would directly or indirectly help NGOs like Unnati substantially.
So what are you waiting for?
Saturday, 16 August 2008
Sunday, 15 June 2008
Best way to Share photos
Photography is one of my interests. When I say interest its something I spend some time (and money) on. I have got two cameras and I take a lot of photos. One of the basic need of humans is appreciation of work and basically its important when dealing with your interests. So how should I share my photos with my friends and people who share the same interest?
There are different modes you can share your photos. I could categorize them into two parts
1. Social networking sites
2. Photo management sites
(Some might get surprised to see social networking site. But I feel they do have a part to share in sharing photos esp. for those who are not too much into photography. Another case is when ... well .. given below)
Both obviously both have its merits and demerits. What are they? read on..
Social Networking sites..
Considering how busy we have become and how far we might find ourselves away from family, sharing photos almost get shared online through internet. With this being the case Social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace & Orkut are one of the good options. All of these provide you with the option to upload photos and hence provide an easy way to reach all your friends at one go. some of the sites also have the facility to notify the friends in your friends list (unless they have opted otherwise) when you upload photos which makes job even more easier. This is one of the easy ways to reach most of your friends.
Having said that it has its down sides. The biggest being the fact that (in most of these sites) you cant reach to those people who are not registered on that site. Who for example? my Mom. Also say 4-5 years down the line I think to take up photography as a profession but might find it tougher to use photos uploaded in these sites as your portfolio as I cant expect my prospective clients or bosses to to have their profiles created in these sites to view my portfolio. When both mom and probable boss have a problem seeing my best photos it means I might want to look elsewhere.
Social networking site is about keeping in touch with friends (and may be making new friends). So if you have an album in there people would like to see your snaps (i.e snaps where you are present) rather than snaps taken by you (well, in most cases). Calls like 'Dude, where are you in this photo?', 'Why did you take a snap of a tree?', 'Why do you take such crazy snaps?' will become common if people cant appreciate your photos. Normally, this not that your photos are not good but more so the case of you choosing a wrong target audience. Separating out your best snaps with photos which have yourself featured in it would help.
One of the problem I face after getting digital cameras is that I take a lot of photos. the numbers are too many to handle. this creates a problem of plenty and choosing which photo to upload becomes a tough task. This is very much the case when you are serious about your photography as you never want to bore your friends and (more so) your probable clients with boring snaps. So you would like to upload only the best. Having a separate place holder for your best snaps and your all share snaps would be ideal.
Photo Mangement sites :-
Thats when the photo management sites like Flickr comes into picture. There are loads of photo management sites which provide you with the option of uploading your photos. Some of the sites are Flickr, webshots, Photobucket to name a few. I will do a separate comparison of these site in my next article.
The main advantage of photo management websites over social networking sites is that these sites specialize in photo management. They give various option to upload and manage like size of the snap, privacy options, tools to upload and much more. The other main advantage is of people you find there. With the people and friends you find there you can rest assure that they would add value to your photography. More exposure you get being there more things you learn. JUst that you need to actively participate.
One of the downside of these sites is that beyond a point some of these sites charge you (yeah, yeah! I know nothing comes for free) to maintain your photos. For example you can join Flickr with your yahoo account. upload photos for free. But once you reach a cut off limit of 200 photos you need to think of upgrade i.e pay Flickr for a Pro account which will cost you 25$ a year. Or else every new photo you upload an old photo gets disappeared. Also the free account has many limitations like the number of sets you can create, stats for your account and things like that.
Once you get into sites like Flickr chasing numbers get into you (which is nothing new to we humans anyway). The things like who added your photo as favorite, who commented, added note and their numbers might drive you. As my brother puts it, "it should not end up being just comments and favs game". Be aware and ensure that good photography drive your actions in such sites rather than your need for attention and acceptance. I will cover this aspects more in my next article.
My Take on which one to go with is pretty simple. When possible, Take the best of both worlds. Crudely put upload all your me, me, me photos (photos where the only thing is always there is You) into your social networking site and all your best snaps can go into photo management site. Try to ensure that photo management site has only the photos taken by you.
Optionally, You can choose to create a separate album to upload your best snaps to your social networking site. Use features like rss feeds to pull in photos from your photo management site to your social network site. Finally, get those who are good in photography to use photo management site than social networking site in case they are still with the latter only.
The fact that photo management sites are filled with so many people ranging from high end professionals who take jaw dropping photos to people like me who are just above ordinary (or may be ordinary who knows :D) and the ordinary one might get overwhelmed with everything. the key is to keep the focus alive and do the basics.
One of the main basics include is to ensure you upload only the best snaps from your basket into these sites. Be extra critical in choosing them. More on next article on Flickr.
There are different modes you can share your photos. I could categorize them into two parts
1. Social networking sites
2. Photo management sites
(Some might get surprised to see social networking site. But I feel they do have a part to share in sharing photos esp. for those who are not too much into photography. Another case is when ... well .. given below)
Both obviously both have its merits and demerits. What are they? read on..
Social Networking sites..
Considering how busy we have become and how far we might find ourselves away from family, sharing photos almost get shared online through internet. With this being the case Social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace & Orkut are one of the good options. All of these provide you with the option to upload photos and hence provide an easy way to reach all your friends at one go. some of the sites also have the facility to notify the friends in your friends list (unless they have opted otherwise) when you upload photos which makes job even more easier. This is one of the easy ways to reach most of your friends.
Having said that it has its down sides. The biggest being the fact that (in most of these sites) you cant reach to those people who are not registered on that site. Who for example? my Mom. Also say 4-5 years down the line I think to take up photography as a profession but might find it tougher to use photos uploaded in these sites as your portfolio as I cant expect my prospective clients or bosses to to have their profiles created in these sites to view my portfolio. When both mom and probable boss have a problem seeing my best photos it means I might want to look elsewhere.
Social networking site is about keeping in touch with friends (and may be making new friends). So if you have an album in there people would like to see your snaps (i.e snaps where you are present) rather than snaps taken by you (well, in most cases). Calls like 'Dude, where are you in this photo?', 'Why did you take a snap of a tree?', 'Why do you take such crazy snaps?' will become common if people cant appreciate your photos. Normally, this not that your photos are not good but more so the case of you choosing a wrong target audience. Separating out your best snaps with photos which have yourself featured in it would help.
One of the problem I face after getting digital cameras is that I take a lot of photos. the numbers are too many to handle. this creates a problem of plenty and choosing which photo to upload becomes a tough task. This is very much the case when you are serious about your photography as you never want to bore your friends and (more so) your probable clients with boring snaps. So you would like to upload only the best. Having a separate place holder for your best snaps and your all share snaps would be ideal.
Photo Mangement sites :-
Thats when the photo management sites like Flickr comes into picture. There are loads of photo management sites which provide you with the option of uploading your photos. Some of the sites are Flickr, webshots, Photobucket to name a few. I will do a separate comparison of these site in my next article.
The main advantage of photo management websites over social networking sites is that these sites specialize in photo management. They give various option to upload and manage like size of the snap, privacy options, tools to upload and much more. The other main advantage is of people you find there. With the people and friends you find there you can rest assure that they would add value to your photography. More exposure you get being there more things you learn. JUst that you need to actively participate.
One of the downside of these sites is that beyond a point some of these sites charge you (yeah, yeah! I know nothing comes for free) to maintain your photos. For example you can join Flickr with your yahoo account. upload photos for free. But once you reach a cut off limit of 200 photos you need to think of upgrade i.e pay Flickr for a Pro account which will cost you 25$ a year. Or else every new photo you upload an old photo gets disappeared. Also the free account has many limitations like the number of sets you can create, stats for your account and things like that.
Once you get into sites like Flickr chasing numbers get into you (which is nothing new to we humans anyway). The things like who added your photo as favorite, who commented, added note and their numbers might drive you. As my brother puts it, "it should not end up being just comments and favs game". Be aware and ensure that good photography drive your actions in such sites rather than your need for attention and acceptance. I will cover this aspects more in my next article.
My Take on which one to go with is pretty simple. When possible, Take the best of both worlds. Crudely put upload all your me, me, me photos (photos where the only thing is always there is You) into your social networking site and all your best snaps can go into photo management site. Try to ensure that photo management site has only the photos taken by you.
Optionally, You can choose to create a separate album to upload your best snaps to your social networking site. Use features like rss feeds to pull in photos from your photo management site to your social network site. Finally, get those who are good in photography to use photo management site than social networking site in case they are still with the latter only.
The fact that photo management sites are filled with so many people ranging from high end professionals who take jaw dropping photos to people like me who are just above ordinary (or may be ordinary who knows :D) and the ordinary one might get overwhelmed with everything. the key is to keep the focus alive and do the basics.
One of the main basics include is to ensure you upload only the best snaps from your basket into these sites. Be extra critical in choosing them. More on next article on Flickr.
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