Hello,

This post is about the migration of my photoblog from my own server, using OneReaction Photoblog software, to Pixyblog, a new photoblog hosting platform and community.

A bit of history: back in 2004 when I started to look for a good photoblogging software, I choose OneReaction Photoblog, which was the only photoblogging software running on the Microsoft ASP.NET platform. Developped by Ryan Pardue, OneReaction Photoblog was originally working with an XML back-end and then with an SQL Server database. It had many interesting and original features. One of these features was a companion Windows application, called OneReactionSendTo which allowed users to post photos without having to log on the web site.

I am almost converted to using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom version 2 (LR2) as my main photo management software, after using (with some frustrations) iView Media Pro (now Microsoft Expression Media) since 2005. One of the problems in LR2 that I discovered while exporting some photos is that pre-existing keywords (ie keyword created with a previous version of Lightroom or imported by it from already tagged files) are not exported with the photos during an export process. As explained in Adobe's tech support page, you have the choice of either editing each and every keyword and checking its export options or, more easily, download and install the script that Adobe has released (see previous link).

I chose the later solution and it worked perfectly (much easier than manually editing around 500 keywords!).

As I wrote in a previous post, I have setup accounts at Fotolia and Dreamstime. My experience so far is that both sites have nice and intuitive interfaces. They both exist in several languages, although Dreamstime non-english languages are still in beta and sometimes translations aren't accurate. This is not a problem for me as I use the english version of these sites most of the time. Fortunately, both sites let you upload photos using FTP, which makes your life easier when you have a series of photos to upload.

Here are some remarks about this personal experience:

It has been seven days now since I submitted some photos to Dreamstime.com and Fotolia.com stock photography websites (see this post for details). A week later, I am still waiting for approval of my images. This is very frustrating...

Recently, I have been looking at stock photography sites. More precisely, I have set up accounts at dreamstime.com  and fotolia.com. It seems that more and more people are trying to sell their photos on these image database sites and some (well...a few) people are making money with this activity. Even if you are talented and have an important activity on these sites, I don't think the income you may get from these sites can replace a "regular" job. But it can be fun, I guess, and it gives an opportunity to index and classify your photos more accurately.

Richard Avedon in Milan : a retrospective

I had the chance to see the Richard Avedon retrospective exhibition in Milan last week.

Richard Avedon (1923-2004) is considered as one if the greatest photographers in the world. His work has changed the world of fashion photography. He has also done some great portraits of famous and non-famous people. These portraits are dark, emotional and intense.

This could be the best photo website around...
Onexposure.net is a photography website and community, where each photo is screened which means it has to be approved by an editor before before being published. Then anyone can comment, criticize and discuss it in the forums. Onexposure.net is a photo community, but where art is the main concern. You don't have to look at hundreds of less-than-everage photos to have the chance to see some great pictures. Founded by two serious amateur photographers from Sweden, onexposure.net has an interesting vision and philosophy :