Wednesday, October 3, 2007

How I Choose "Shot of the Day "

There is a man behind Good News Now his name is James. He is my boss. I have friend Carolen who cuts my hair and she likes to hear me talk about the website. She thinks James is like Charlie as in Charlie’s Angels. She knows he is there, but we never see him. I just get my orders from him and I carry them out.

When the site was first started Charlie, I mean James told me he wanted lots of photos that changed often. I am thinking, “where do I get them?” After some internet exploration I discovered Flicker and I used the public posted photos to go with stories and I started Shot of the Day. I noticed a lot of on-line papers have something like that. I also found out the photos on the government sites can be used and most non-profits. I try to give credit and a link back. I beg forgiveness, instead of asking permission. Only one person in 18 months has been upset with me. And even she asked me to please you her photos after we went back and forth with a few emails. Most people are very happy to have their work on the site.

We would like more submissions.

At first Shot of the Day was chosen by me just picking a word and doing a search. Like the word “blue.” I just surfed until I found a photo that delighted me with the tag "blue." That is the random method of choosing Shot of the Day.

After being the webmaster for about 9 months I began to developed relationships online and figured out there were online communities. I joined several. My favorite is Gather. I got the idea to start a group on gather for people to submit photos for Shot of the Day. We have about 24 members. It is called Good News Now Photos.

I decided to do the same on Flickr. That group is also called Good News Now Photos too. I am not very original with my group names. We have 19 members who regularly submit.

I tell you this because…. I want you to join us. We really would like to grow those groups and get more people submitting photos. To do that I am committed the month of October to doing more random photo searches. See, that is how I make photo friends online. I have joined a few other online groups and I need to develop those connections. If you are in a photo group that I need to know about invite me to join. Email me at ruthieonart@ruthieonart.com.

Today’s Shot of the Day was randomness at its best. I chose the word “pear”. I have no reason why except that it is late and I am hungry and a pear sounds good to me. Too bad for me I only have bananas.

Chosen at random "Pear" by Flickr member S Baker