Posted by Bloggeries in Photography
Bloggeries is going to look at a personal Sandro photo blog. This blog is being used by 20 year old Sandro to showcase his work, talent, and passion for the field of photography. You can find a wide range of photography on this blog including cars, landscapes, portraits, and a number of creative expressions through the use of photography. Sandro uses 3 different cameras for his work, all Canon products, which you can find more about on his About page. Sandro does not just take photos, he writes about them as well, and has an interest in the field. His blog contains displays of his work, reviews of photography products, and even profiles of well known artists. If you would like to see some of Sandro’s photographic creations, and read about his interest, check out some of his most recent bloggeries: Smart Car, Canon EOS 450 D/Rebel Xsi, Trams in Budapest, Edward Steichen, Yousef Karsh, Bicycle, International Airports, and my personal favorite, Geometry.
Navigation on the blog is very simple. Bloggeries are right marginalized and there is a left navigation bar that starts off as one navigation system, and is divided into two navigation bars towards the bottom of the blog page. Bloggeries are in black text on white background and headlines are highlighted in blue. The overall appearance of the blog is very simple and clean, and this lends the reader to focus more on the artistry in the pictures rather than the blog template. In the left navigation system there is a bridal photo which serves as a blog header with the headline “My Photo Blog”. Also in this left bar you will find AdSense, and Sandro’s portfolio which includes Cars, Conceptual, Landscapes, Portraits, and Slideshow. The navigation bar then includes a box of random photos and a tag cloud before it divides into the two navigation systems. In the left navigation system at the bottom, you will find the Archives Menu, Categories Menu, and Copyright information. Categories for this blog include events, Famous Photographers, News, Personal Journal, Photo Stories, Published Photos, Reviews, and an Uncategorized section. In the Right navigation bar you will find an Inside Menu that will take you to pages of photos with categories such as cars, portraits, and the like. You will also find here the About page, blog Meta info, and Feeds information if you would like to subscribe to the feed.
I give this blog a 4/5, as it is very well done and scores well on all accounts. As mentioned, the appearance of the blog is clean and attractive and nicely laid out for the reader. Navigation is done well also, with an organized template that allows the reader to go exactly where they want to go. The only suggestion I would make at this point is perhaps a Recent Posts menu so the reader can see what activity has been recent in the blog. There are however no navigation issues on this blog as it is very well organized. The blog scores well for content also, each bloggery is written with a strong personal voice that shows the passion Sandro has for his art, and this adds meaning to each of the pictures he displays for his reader. Activity is the only area where I would suggest some changes for Sandro as currently there is no clear consistency with activity. I am seeing bloggeries coming in every other day or with a few weeks in between. If he would like more traffic and a consistent readership, regular posting would serve him well. As this blog grows, I think Sandro will do very well with it, as it is a beautiful portfolio of some very good talent and give him the audience he clearly deserves.
-Chrissie
Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews, Photography
If you have any interest in photography, go see TornButtons.com a “collection of experimental series using traditional and alternative processes including pinhole and polaroid”. In other words, this site is anything and everything you want to know about digital photography. Despite the fact that this site is relatively new (it has only been around since January 2007) it contains quite a large spread of information on digital photography how to’s and 101’s. Recent posts include “Picture Perfect Photos”, “Digital Single Lens Reflux”, “Macro Digital Photography”, “Perfect Shots”, “Basics of Digital Photography”, and so much more. If you dig a little bit, you will also find a wealth of information on how to get the perfect wedding shot, and behind the scenes of fashion photography. This site is extremely informative and could be very useful to the potential photography buff, but the fact that it is not very old is not well hidden.
Navigation on this site is very simple, and that is probably because there is very little to navigate. The posts are left marginalized, and there is a right sided navigation bar. In the right-handed bar is a series of AdSense that is graphically incorporated into the theme of the blog. There is also a list of categories, currently only containing one link “Uncategorized”. It is in the Uncategorized link that you will find the total of 29 posts that are on the site since its birth in January. The right sided navigation bar also has an about page that is currently still in its Word Press default mode. In this bar you will also find a photography feed, as well as a link to comments that exist on the blog should there be any. To spice this section up a little bit I would recommend adding some recent posts links as well as setting up some categories for readers to have easier access to specific information. (i.e. weddings, fashion, lighting, etc.) For a photography site however, it does market itself very well in terms of the photography on site. The pictures are clear, relevant, and give each post meaning.
I’m going to give this site a 3.1 because it is well done but could use some touching up. I reckon that if the owner increased the posting activity as well as selecting a more search engine optimized name for each post he could increase his pageviews and hopefully readership. That aside the advertising is alittle much, I recommend the owner puts the menu up top and if they choose to have adsense put it in a less intrusive location. I do however like how the adsense is integrated into the top and bottom (footer and header). I think the ads down the side would be best as text ads underneath each post because currently they are clustered at the top then leave a blank column for most of the blog. Another HUGE factor to this blog is Uncategorized category listings!! If there is one thing the author should take from this review is to make suitable categories that are searached on technorati and use them. Putting all these posts in uncategorized is not a wise idea and by simply using proper categorization the blog would look nicer, serve as a better resource and begin getting blog search engine traffic. Good work and if they make these simple changes it will improve the owners bottom line; guaranteed!
-Rob
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