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Sites Underway.
Friday,
May 11, 2012 - Tampa Bay Photography and Design Blog Post by Chris Passinault
New
Blog Will Replace My Dedicated Domain Blogs. Plans.
This
is the first official post on my official blog as a professional photographer
and designer,
and I’m glad to finally get this started on my brand new, state
of the art marketing and support web site for my photography and design
company, Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Bay Photography and Design, of all place.
This web site has been around seven years in the making, with a lot
of experience gained writing and coding a lot of web sites. This new
blog section, which is for me to opine about all things photography
and design-wise, and has nothing to do with my business, officially,
although I will be writing a lot about my clients (with their written
permission, of course), and about the work that I do (also with the
written permission of all who are directly involved), is about four
years in the making, and it will completely replace the aging Tampa
Photographer Blog, Tampa Photography Blog, and the newer Tampa Designer
Blog. I have two more dedicated domain blogs, too, which are blog sites
under a keyword-rich domain name, but since they are not at all cost-effective
to do anymore, I will be getting rid of all but one. The one dedicated
domain blog that I will keep online will be for archival purposes, since
it is over 500 pages in size, and that is the Tampa Film Blog. The Tampa
Film Blog will be removed from the old Tampa Bay Film site network,
and all new blog posts for that blog will be directly on an overhauled
Tampa Bay Film site. I guess that you could say that my era of dedicated
domain blogs (which at least one competitor, a Tampa Bay photography
company, copied, and there are others, too, which we have noticed) is
over, and from now on, all blogs will be done on the sites that they
are directly affiliated with.
That’s not to say that this is an official Aurora PhotoArts business
blog. It isn’t. My company, Aurora PhotoArts Tampa Bay Photography
and Design, is hosting this bloig, but it is all mine, and the opinions
expressed herein, as far as this blog section of the site, are all mine,
and mine alone. If you want official Aurora PhotoArts news, we have
a NEWS section, as well as an UPDATES section for site updates (I combined
this with the site update log, too, for those who need to know). I’m
also retaining the old ALERTS section, too, for old clients that we
have lost contact with and whom we are trying to get in touch with.
All of those sections, and the rest of the Aurora PhotoArts site, is
all Aurora PhotoArts, and it is all about marketing services and supporting
clients (client support is a huge priority right now, by the way, as
well as social media integration, which should be up and running soon).
This blog, though, is all me, and Aurora PhotoArts, nor my clients or
anyone else, have anything to do with it. At all.
I will be combining all of my older dedicated domain blogs here on this
blog. I will be posting
anedotes from my shoots, and from my work as a photographer, which was
what the Tampa Photographer Blog was supposed to be for. These adventures
will also contain behind-the-scenes videos, video interviews, and testimonial
videos (the interviews and the testimonials crossing over to the business
support sections of this site, by the way). My clients swear by me,
and I’ve had a lot of word-of-mouth referrals over the years;
they love my work, and I love working with each and everyone of them.
I will also be blogging about the Tampa Bay photography services industry,
which is what I used to do on the Tampa Photography Blog. Of course,
I’m also a designer, so what I’ve been writing about on
the Tampa Designer Blog regarding design and web design work that I
do will also be posted in this new blog. The Tampa Designer Blog, and
the others, will be taken offline eventually (again, the Tampa Film
Blog being the exception). So, there you go. One ginormous super blog,
all for you, my readers and clients.
You’re welcome.
I would have posted when I brought this new Mosaic Class site, which
is the main web site for Aurora PhotoArts, online back on May 6, five
days ago, but I had a lot going on. So, this is my first blog post on
here, and I will not be looking back at any of my old blog sites. Right
now, I am writing a lot to get the main sections of this site up and
running, and I was slowed somewhat this morning in those efforts because
I had to crank up Photoshop CS 2 and work on the main image for the
site. I will be writing the rest of the base content tonight, and will
then start to work on editing picture and thumbnail graphic sets for
the site. After that, I have 10 pages of content to write
for the 40+ pages (do the math and that is a healthy paragraph of content,
at the least, for each page of the portfolio core) of the main featured
portfolio core, which is those 40 thumbnails that you see above. Once
the main portfolio core is up, as far as the initial 40 featured and
10 hardwired portfolio image pages, I will then be able to re-route
both TampaLooks.Com and AuroraPhotoArts.Com to this new web site. Right
now, they are forwarded to my old Venus Class marketing site, which
is hosted under an old operating domain name. This new Mosaic Class
site, and its also-new operating domain name, which was purchased the
same day that the site went online, will replace the old site.
Once the site is up to speed and my two main marketing domains are routed
to it, it will take another month, at least, for it to get up to full
speed, as a lot of new sections and portfolio pictures need to be added.
During that time, however, I will be taking my time updating this web
site, because work on the sister sites of this main site will begin,
starting with Tampa Model Testing, the marketing and support site of
the Aurora PhotoArts Espy model testing program, which began back in
2003, and is now back as a dramatically improved program. Espy will
be the way for aspiring models in Tampa Bay and in Florida to start
their modeling careers! There will be more, too, but rest assured that
over 50% of my web site updates will be on this site for a while, especially
when the other sites will not be nearly as big as this one will be.
Well, they will be
smaller because they do not have to be big, as they are annex support
sites of Aurora PhotoArts, each dealing with a specific target market.
Oh, and there will not be a lot of linking going on between the sites,
either, as there doesn’t need to be any of that, especially as
each site will stand-alone with a ton of relevant, well-organized content.
On the subject of the other sites, well, I was slowed down this week
working on this site because I did some research on a new class of web
site, the Gallery Class site, which would have been used for those other
sites. For a while, it looked like there would only be one Mosaic Class
site, right here, and no more made for Aurora PhotoArts (and for a while
not even that, as I considered dumping this and opting for the more
flexible Gallery Class site for all of the sites). Well, that crisis
is over, because the amount of work is the same, and the Mosaic Class
site simply looks better. As of now, I am planning on building and deploying
an additional 23 Mosaic Class sites, formatted like this one, for Aurora
PhotoArts, for a total of 24 built and deployed by next year (and, possibly,
as many as 36 by 2014). Not only does this site look good, but although
the sites will not heavily link to each other, I also want some general
site continuity, for navigation purposes, between the Aurora PhotoArts
site. Thus, you are looking at a new class of web site which is destined
to become the most numerous in my web site portfolio.
I have plans for my photography career, too. I am preparing to buy a
lot of polo shirts (with
collars, for my camera-strap-weary-and-heat/sweat-rashed neck!) with
my new Aurora PhotoArts logo on them. The shirts will be dark blue and
gray, and the logos will be white. They will also be cotton, which is
great for the heat and the sweat of location photography work! Ah, to
see the look of other photographers when they see me and my people with
our cool shirts on as we crash their public meet-ups; the message that
we will send will be that they need to step up their game and actually
become serious about their work, and eventually, real professionals.
Also, regarding photography itself, it is no secret that I am a damn
good natural light photographer, and that I shoot location most of the
time (I have studio shots which are really good, but I don’t like
to market with them because the set-up was turn-keyed by one of my photographer
friends, with me having absolutely no input into the lighting, and it
is not really indicative of what I can, and will, be doing in the studio).
Well, in the next year or two, I will be opening up my first photography
and design studio in Riverview, Florida (south of Brandon, in the Tampa
Bay area), and my headshot photography and model testing work will be
done using a studio set. My modeling portfolio work, however, will always
be primarily on location, because regardless of what gear I am using,
or what I have available, I would never recommend that a modeling portfolio
be shot in a studio.
What this means, of course, is all-new gear for me. This will include
a new speedlight for event
photography work, as I will be producing a lot of events in the Tampa
Bay area soon, reflectors, diffusion panels, portable pop-up dressing
and camera equipment rooms, a ring flash (which I’ve always wanted),
and portable lighting which I can use on location shoots. The portable
lighting will be important, too, because it will open up a whole new
world of possibilities with my compositions and lighting on location,
and I will no longer have to be dependent upon what the natural light
is doing on location. I’ve simply become annoyed at all of the
so-called photographers out there who have been wowing people with shots
that pop because of on-location lighting, which camouflage their lack
of experience, creativity, and their flawed composition. It’s
time that I bring it, and show them what can be done with that gear,
supported by a foundation of strong compositions and photography work.
I will also need that gear to go after photography markets which I have
not traditionally worked before.
Some things to think about, and for some photographers out there, to
worry about. I’m coming
after your business, and I will give your clients what you’ve
never been able to give them. There are a few photographers out there
who I am directly gunning for, such as Rick, Jeff, and Robert, and I
will be working hard to put you in your proper place, which is out of
business altogether; some people, in my opinion, have no business doing
photography in any form, as they give our industry a bad name and hurt
the people who they work with. That work will not be under my Aurora
PhotoArts brand, however, for their high-risk markets that they have
been working, as I am starting a second photography company for that.
I can take these guys, as I am already a better photographer, and that’s
something that they already know. Soon, with new equipment enabling
me to show work that is at my experience and skill level, everyone else
will know, too.
Oh, and going back to equipment, I will soon be retiring my Canon camera.
It’s been a solid camera for me, but it is not the best that I
could be using (cameras and equipment do not make the photographer,
however, and good equipment is no substitute for skill and experience.
I never criticize anyone for the gear that they use, and instead evaluate
them solely on their work as a photographer. I am not a equipment snob,
like some no-talent photographers out there like to be). I was planning
on buying a new 50D as a stop-gap, but now I am simply going to buy
another camera like my existing one to use as a backup, and will be
buying a brand new Canon 5D Mark II soon. Just remember that, with new
equipment, that I will be doing a lot more photography work, especially
with the updates that my portfolio will need for what is coming.
And, with that, it is back to work for me! Have a great weekend, everyone!
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