Yumiko Lost in the Dunes

This is of Yumiko (my wife) in the Mesquite Sand Dunes of Death Valley. We just got back Monday night and I've finally started processing some of the photos. It's a pretty awesome place. Some of the photos I got here are my favorite I've taken so far. It seems this time of year is really good to go since it's not too hot. It was hot mid to upper 80's but was nothing extreme like in the summer. We were a little bummed that the flowers weren't blooming very well this year. Maybe next time.

The Mesquite Sand Dunes seen in this photo is where a lot of Starwars was filmed. Some of the first one where R2D2 and C3PO were lost, and some of Return of the Jedi. I couldn't stop thinking about the sand monster in Return of the Jedi that Bobofett fell into. I forget what it's called. I always thought it was amazing that Bobo Fett was killed by a blind Han Solo. Either Han Solo is truely that awesome, or Bobo Fett just sucks. Haven't decided which one to go with.

Today's Photo

Yumiko Lost in the DesertThese are the mesquite sand dunes of Death Valley. The same dunes a lot of Starwars was filmed at.

Venice Beach Pier - Blue Infinity

This shot is another one from the night I went to Venice Beach. I go to Venice a lot, it's kind of my get away beach, but the other night I went there specifically to take photos. Might do it again this week sometime since my auto mechanic is down there for my wife's Saab. We'll see.

I've been really shooting more photos with a 2:1 or even 3:1 crop in mind. This was one of them. It's not cropped here but I did crop it for my Google+ page. It looks better cropped in my opinion but I figured I wouldn't crop it for my smugmug portfolio page because someone can just crop it on checkout to suit their needs. I've usually only been forcing a crop when there is something in the image I'm not happy with. It's one of those tough decisions us photographers have to make especially when not shooting Medium Format.

And yes, I use Google+. Not sure what kind of future it has since it seem my followers are going inactive faster than I can get new ones as of late. Seems only to be really useful for those photographers Google blesses into their recommended system where they get 4 million followers in a year, essentially advertising thier presents. The rest of us have to go around and add everyone we see, or engaging in their posts hoping they will follow back and engage in our posts. The interesting thing about Google though, is your friends of G+ who do Google searches will see your blog posts that hit those keywords before anyone else. So if your a blogger that Google's blessed you into the system and you have 4 million followers that could triple your sites traffic over night and make your site instantly rank over everyone else. Lucky them. That's why it's always good to participlate in all the new stuff that's out there because you never know what will happen. The world and success all revolves around getting lucky. 

Blue Infinity at the Venice Beach Pier

I used my new LIght Craft ND 500 for this shot.

Venice Beach Infinity, Long exposure at the Venice Beach Pier. The light was very magical as it defused through the clouds.

Into the Sun

If you've noticed by browsing around my site you see I shoot a lot of travel photography. I don't try to be a travel blog but inevitably that seems to be what's happening. The reason for this is because I work a lot at my day job. It's usually a 10 hour day but for only ten months out of the year. So during the two months when I'm off I try to get as far away from L.A. as possible. Not because I hate L.A. but just because I want to see other places. So as I develop my photography and continue to learn and grow with the craft I end up with a lot of strange photos from all over the world.

When I have free time around town I like to take photos that are more of my interest. More often than not it's beach photography. I grew up with the beach so it just seems right.

This photo is from the Venice Beach Pier. This is where I've been surfing since I moved up to L.A. six years ago. It's not the best surf spot but I know how to find free parking and it's never crowded. And now I love shooting there too. I got a few more nice ones from this location I'll post soon.

Into the Sun at the Venice Beach Pier

Into The SunThis photo is a long exposure of the Venice Beach Pier during sunset. I love the Venice beach pier because nobody is ever around. Makes shooting there comfortable and easy. This is also my local surf spot. It's not the best wave but usually there aren't many people out. The waves were actually really good when I took this. I was kind of wishing I went surfing instead of shooting. But now I'm glad I shot instead.Check out more of my Beach Photography

Beneath the Venice Beach Pier

There is a certain style of photography that I've always been attracted to. Not like sexually or anything, well maybe. A little. . . Just Kidding. Anyway, it's known as Long Exposure Photography and it creates this effect where the water and clouds all look really smooth and milky. See, now you know why I'm attracted to it. 

To do this style of photography I've learned you really just need to get a massive ND filter. Just raging! And only ND filter powerful enough to do this that I knew of (and was of good quality) was the Lee Big Stopper. But this filter is always on back order. Always! And if you're anything like me, I can only buy camera gear on impulse. So I wasn't going to wait around no 6 months while I wait for the mail man to come by with that raging Big Stopper. So instead of waiting and spending an additional $150 dollars on mounts I decided to impulsively order the Light Craft Workshop ND500 MC+H.R.C 82mm. It's not 10 stops like the Lee ND but 9 is good enough for now. Actually one more stop would have been nice since I end up at around a 30 second exposure and an f19-f22 in mid day sun. I'd prefer to be at an f16 or lower but at least with this ND filter I can still see through my viewfinder to frame the shot. Barely, but it can be done. And if I want to go darker I could always screw on another ND.

Since I just got this Light Craft Workshop ND filter I'm going to test it out a bit more and then write up a better review. A real review. But so far it seems to be a great alternative to the Lee Big Stopper and I'm actually glad I bought this instead. Screw on filters are just more convenient and it only costs $100 bucks.

Here is my first photo from my first attempts using this thing. 

Today's Long Exposure Photo

This was taken with a 30 second shutter at an f19 and an ISO of 100. This is the Venice Beach Pier in Los Angeles California. 

Beneath The Venice PierThis photo is a long exposure beneath Venice Beach Pier. I finally lucked out on a day when the weather was doing something interesting. This was the first day I used a new massive ND filter, and I'll be writing about it soon on my blog.Check out Alik Griffin Photography

Behind the Niagara Falls

This show is taken from the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. It's from when I was in Canada a year and a half ago. Never posted this one for some reason.

If you look close down next to the falls is a little group of tourists all wearing yellow raincoats on an observation deck. I always love when there are people in epic landscapes like this one because they help give you a real sense of scale to just how big the Niagara Falls really are. What's really amazing is back in the 1960's a boy went over the falls wearing nothing but a life jacket and swimming trunks and somehow miraculously survived.

Today's Photo

Under the Niagara FallsThis photo is taken on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. If you look close, down next to the falls there is a little patch of tourists wearing yellow raincoats watching the falls. Kind of gives you a sense of just how big the Niagara Falls are. See more of my Photography at AlikGriffin.com

3 Must Know Tips for Photographers using Smugmug Pro

If you’re a photographer you’ve probably heard of Smugmug and know how great of a service it is. It’s pricey but pays for itself quickly. Mine did after only a few months. So here are some really cool SEO (search engine optimization) tricks you can do with Smugmug to help enhance your blog and increase those photography print sales.

1. Use can use Smugmug to embed your photos directly into your blog

This is great because it takes page load off your web server and increases your page load time which Google likes. This is because the photo is distributed from Smugmug's global content delivery network making your photos load super quick.

Here’s a cool trick on how you can embed

With Smugmug's share feature you can get a link which gives you access to embed links for your blog.

Smugmug Pro Get A Link Feature

Then you have several options to allow you to use your photo for Forums, Embeds, Feeds etc. I'm going to cover the 'embeddable links' tab for now since this topic is about using Smugmug to distribute your photos on your blog.

Now you have three default sizes to choose from. Small, Medium and Large. 

Smugmug Pro Embed Size Options

You simply click the copy button then you can paste the code into your blog. You'll need to use either the html edit mode or the plain text editor mode on your blog to get it to display correctly. 

How to Change the Embed Size with Smugmug Pro

If these sizes aren't the droids you're looking for, there is a very simple technique to customize the size of your photo. After you paste the code, look for your image source line. It looks something like this

"<img src="http://alikgriffin.smugmug.com/Portfolio/AlikGriffin/i-cCvk4QK/0/L/AlikGriffin-California-San-Diego-Solana-Beach-Low-Sunset-L.jpg" 

This is an example using the Large Setting so where going to replace where you see the "L" with the appropriate dimensions we want for our site. For my blog I like to use 900x600, so I replace the 'L' with '900x600' so now it looks something like this:

"<img src="http://alikgriffin.smugmug.com/Portfolio/AlikGriffin/i-cCvk4QK/0/900x600/AlikGriffin-California-San-Diego-Solana-Beach-Low-Sunset-900x600.jpg" 

This will now fetch this photo size from Smugmug at this dimension. 

2. Using the Buy Link

In the same 'Get A Link' window there is a 'Photo Links' Tab and down at the very bottom there is a 'Buy Link.'

Smugmug Pro Buy Link

You can use this url as the hyperlink on your photo or on text next to your photo to drive people directly to the buy page on your Smugmug account. The benefits of this are pretty obvious. Less clicks to get someone to your sales page is always a plus, otherwise on the default Smugmug layout the 'Buy' button isn't the most obvious feature on the page and can be easily missed. 

Smugmug Pro Buy Photo

3. Use Smugmug for Backlinks

One really cool thing about Smugmug is that it's page description is editable HTML. It's basically a Web 2.0 Blog built around pictures. So you can throw in all that good stuff, like h1 and bold tags as well as a links back to your site using Anchor Text which all help SEO (search engine optimization). It also allows you to sculpt the authority of your site by building your keywords into your descriptions and then linking back to your main site. Meaning, if your anchor text <a href="http://alikgriffin.com">HDR Photography at AlikGriffin.com</a>, google will now read this link back to my site an associate it with HDR Photography.

So then you can build some of your backlinks to your Smugmug account instead of your main site and then both sites will benefit and be well indexed into Google's system.

Editable HTML

Smugmug + Your Blog + Pintrest

One other really cool thing about this ability to edit caption on Smugmug, is when you embed your photo on your blog, this caption will show up as the photo's 'alt text' and 'title.' So when someone is on your blog and pins the image to Pintrest, the Pintrest description defaults to the Smugmug's photo caption that you built to have all your great keywords. So then all those keywords related to your photo get pinned and repinned and indexed by Google. Now you might be saying, "but pintrest links are all nofollow so they won't pass that magical link juice stuff." This is true, they may not pass link juice but they will tell google what your site and what your photos are about. 

You can check out My Pintrest Page and see how I've been utilizing it with my Photography and Blog. 

The Importants of One-Way Linking and the Nofollow tag

If you're going to take complete advantage of this, make sure that any link on your blog that links back to Smugmug includes a rel="nofollow." That way your site will not pass link juice back to Smugmug. Link juice as I mentioned earlier is magical Google substance that gets passed from one site to another to help a site get page rank. If you link two sites together it can cancel out this effect.

You can add a nofollow by editing this text on a link on your blog: 

<a href="http://alikgriffin.smugmug.com/Portfolio/AlikGriffin/...

And turning it into this:

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://alikgriffin.smugmug.com/Portfolio/AlikGriffin/...

This is obviously just one very small step in marketing your site and driving up those photo sales. But every little thing is important and every detail makes a difference over time. As a photographer trying to make a living with fine art photography it's important to really understand how Google works and make sure your site is properly built to maximize search reults.

Hopefully this tip will help those of you using Smugmug Pro and I will continue to post new tips and techniques on SEO for you photographers as I go. My site is still young and I will try to post all the great successus and failures I make as I go.

You can also check out my Smugmug Pro account to see how I've been doing things on there and don't forget to check out my other Photography Tips. It's all still in the works since my site is still fairly young and my time is limited but there will be great stuff to come.

Low Sunset at Solana Beach

This beach sunset photo is from Solana Beach which is in San Diego California. This is one of the coolest beach cities in North County San Diego in my opinion. It's just a different vibe than Oceanside, or La Jolla or Pacific Beach. 

This sunset was interesting the night of this photo. There were some unique clouds but only off in the distance which created very cool negative space in the skies. 

Today's Beach Photo

Solana Beach SunsetThis beach photo was taken in Solana Beach in San Diego California. The angle of the clouds were very unique that night, and the use of negative space in the sky made for an interesting perspective of this sunset. See more of my Beach Photography at AlikGriffin.com

Ave of the Stars

A night HDR photo of Avenue of the Stars in Century City. This runs right by the Westfield mall. A cool mall that's not too crowded it's kind of 'my mall' since it's only a few miles from my house. Century City is in Los Angeles if you were wondering. In the UCLA, West Los Angeles, Westwood area.  

This photo I had fun with. Many many blending layers mixed and matched in photoshop combined with an HDR effect. Came out kind of Matrixy sort of. Night HDR photography really isn't any different than regular HDR except you have to do a bit more blending of layers and noise reduction with some sharpening. I used my Find Edges Sharpening Technique. You can find a tutorial at that link if your into that sort of thing. 

Today's Night HDR Photo - Ave of The Stars, Century City

Avenue of the Stars - Century CityThis runs right by the Westfield Mall in century city. It's a night HDR photo of the street Avenue of the Stars See more of my HDR Photography at AlikGriffin.com

The Niagara Falls Canadian Side

The Niagara Falls Canadian Side

Last few days I've been going back to some of my old photo collections that I never processed. I'm always behind on my photography since it's not my full time job so there are great shots that get left behind. I haven't done any traveling in a few months so it's great to be able to play catchup. This one is from 2011. That's how far back my getting behind goes.

I actually really  hope to go back to Toronoto Canada one of these days. There is so much to see and so much to do. Plus that's one of the coolest cities I've ever been to. Go Canada!

To get that crisp look you see in this photo I used this software called Color Efex Pro. It's got a filter called Detail Extractor that helps pull out all the micro detail. It's really nice for enhancing landscape photography.

Today's Photo

Niagara FallsThis is a shot form the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. The weather during the late summer is awesome. The are so massive in real life, It's one of those places you have to see for yourself. See more of my Photography at AlikGriffin.com

Grand Canyon - Mohave Point

HDR of the Grand Canyon at Mohave Point

Last year I was out shooting a lot of photography and it got to the point where I was just forgetting about days I shot. This was one of those days. It's from the Grand Canyon at Mohave Point. I colored a few photos from this day and then moved on since later I went to the Horse Shoe Bend, Utah, and Japan, Bali, and China shortly thereafter. After firing up my old drive I decided to give a visit to some of my old forgotten HDR landscapes already colored and ready to go. This one was in the batch. It's from Mohave Point. It's on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and one of the west most points. it's supposedly has the best sunsets although we were unfortunate the night we were there. The clouds sucked.

Today's HDR Photo

Hopi Point Grand CanyonThis is from Hopi Point of the Grand Canyon. More west on the main south rim area. It's a pretty epic location and great for sunsets. Probably better than Mather Point which is the most popular point of the Grand Canyon. See more of my HDR Photography at AlikGriffin.com

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