Friday, August 19, 2011

Online output formats

Currently working on the output question - what are the ways you can show off your photos online? I have shot several events this fall/summer and my standard way of showing them to participants is to do a private set on Flickr and then distribute a Guest Pass link in whatever way I can (e.g email, facebook...). This allows me to at least in theory control who sees what and it also generates some interesting statistics. I often take shots when people are not aware that they are being photographed and I would not feel comfortable just exposing them freely to the world. Guest Passes can be quickly expired and then the door is firmly shut.

As I shoot events I often end up with a sequence of shots that tell a small contained story. I am now experimenting with framing several shots into one jpeg to emphasize this connection. The Print module in Lightroom seems to support this, but Im not sure if it is the most convenient way. Will try to show an example during the weekend.

What I would really like is something similar to the "Origami" setting in the ipad photo app, but a bit more dynamic. Havent found anything like it yet (a sort of mozaique-like layout). The only alternative I see right now is using Scribus to create a .pdf that could then be shown in an online pdf-viewer but that seems a bit overkill. Will try it though :)

A really nice alternative to Flickr could be 500 pixels, but it is more focused on creating an online portfolio with limited privacy options. They have a really inspiring 'Popular photos' section.