This is the End

I can’t believe the semester is already over. Writing this blog and taking this module has been brilliant. My favourite part of it all was probably the Copyright and Promotional tips. And it took a while but i think i’m finally interested in taking pictures. Last Thursday morning i woke up at half six took the bus into UCD for Postering (yeah, i’m one of those people) and of course with my luck it was cancelled and i just didn’t know. Fortunately i had brought in the Nikon i’ve been using and so i went on a mission to take some lovely pictures of the breath taking winter morning. I got so into it and got so many good shots that i actually decided to scrap my theme completely and use the images i took for the photography brief which was due the next day. All of the pictures are available here if any of you are interested and i’ll include one at the end of this post as well.

For the last lecture we discussed Ebooks and the EPUB format and WordPress.org and a number add ons associated with it. I’m an avid reader and i’m not to fussy about whether the books are in a digital or physical format so i’ve been using Calibre for a number of years now.

Learning more about the mechanics behind epub and how it works was interesting.

If i continue to blog in the future i definitely would consider re-using it or using WordPress.org as it seems to have more functions and optimisation possibilities than wordpress. However I definitely think my wordpress experience like my experience in this class has been a positive one.

Pretty Autumn Leaves

How To Be Seen: Part Two

The Photography is going really well! I borrowed my friend’s Nikon and her external lens so that my pictures would look extra fancy and clear. I’m conscious of the fact that i haven’t posted any of my photo’s up so i thought i’d give you guys a sneak peek of what i hope to have in my portfolio.

Artwork in my Garden

This week we explored how we Could use Social Media to optimise our sites. Unfortunately because i was sick i was unable to attend the lecture but i’ve read up on the notes and i have a pretty good understanding of what was discussed. I currently actively use Twitter,Youtube, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Snapchat, Soundcloud and Vine. I occasionally use LinkedIn, Keek, StumbleUpon, Google+ and Goodreads. All of these being for personal use and not to promote a site or my own personal brand so it was interesting to hear how to optimise these platforms for corporate use. My least favourite site of all of them is Facebook because of it’s corporate nature which is ironic. Youtube which is my favourite social media site is shifting towards a more corporate model and unlike Facebook i think these changes are positive alter the user viewer dynamic in a productive way.
The tips on how to build a successful Social Media campaign are tips i’m going to use next semester as i have a number of events i want to promote to UCD Students.

My focus now is on the photography brief and polishing up this blog, wish me luck.

It’s Go Time

I can’t believe it’s week 9 already, 12 weeks is just not enough time D: Anyway my Presentation is up if anyone wants to take a look at it. It actually went pretty well, i’m happy with it.

So this week we had our final photography lecture! It was all about file types, image hosting and  image meta data! I finally learned how to make a gif and i’m certain my Tumblr followers will dwindle now that i now how to do this. I’m really beginning to love photography, i love finding new photographers and analysing what makes them really good at what they do. However it’s not my turn to step up to the plate and try it out for myself.

Fortunately thanks to a flashcard I’ve kept in my wallet for weeks, i finally understand all of the photography related lingo. I think my theme for the brief will be Power; The power of nature, learning, the body, a vote etc. I think it’s perfect since voter registration for the next referendum is in UCD next week and I have plenty of time to get the other shots. I found this amazing Photography hack video on you tube, i may or may not use the second arty hack. Stayed tuned to find out.

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Pretty cool huh, that’s what i do with half of these blogposts! Image by Tyler Haywood at angulargeometry.tumblr.com

Photography for Dummies

Step 1) Get a camera…

Funnily enough this was the hardest step. As i don’t own a camera i had to borrow one from a relative who managed to wipe the SD card clean so i have no evidence of my horrific UCD lake shots.

Step 2) Learn the lingo

Shutter Speed, Aperture, F stops, Depth of Field, ISO, DSLR. It was very intimidating at first but with a bit of hard work i hope that by the end of the meaning of all these terms.

Step 3) Find an inspiration.

So after discovering in class that there are many different types of photography styles i scoured the internet for contemporary photographers and i had a look at a lot of different styles. I found Tumblr to be the most useful site for viewing Photographers work and i found some incredible photographers whose work i’ll put in a little gallery with links below.

Step 4) Get out there.

At first it was a bit daunting and i was a bit worried that i would look like an obnoxious hipster but the best way to improve is to really just get out there and do it. I walked around UCD last Monday and just snapped pictures of anything and everything that looked remotely pretty. I also made sure that the camera was on manual settings rather than automatic so i can learn practically what exactly the aperture and shutter speed are.

http://posta-kutusu.tumblr.com/

http://posta-kutusu.tumblr.com/

http://laurenlemon.tumblr.com/

http://laurenlemon.tumblr.com/

http://meganmcisaac.tumblr.com/

http://meganmcisaac.tumblr.com/