Site Address: sunnysixteencameraclub.blogspot.com
Features: Sharing
Information, Photographs, Videos, Slideshows, Tutorials, Calendar of Events,
Search for previous entries, Links to personal websites, and more.
Basic How to Use Info:
The Media site is an easy to use
social media website specifically created for Sunny Sixteen Club members. It is
hosted on Blogger which is a well-established, secure, and respected blog page
hosting site. Anyone can open the page by simply using the site address listed
above. At this time actual update capabilities
are limited to the Administrators, Keith Bridgman and Janet Young, and a few
other club officers with author privileges, however all club members can
contribute to the page, so let’s take a look at how you can create posts.
Media Posts: One of the main functions of the site is to provide for
articles either specifically related to the club or about photography in
general. These articles are posted and archived and show up on the left side of
the page. To submit an article for publication all you have to do is to write
it up either as a Word document, or through an email and send it to either
Keith or Janet. You can contact Keith at krbrid@aol.com
or beyondthecampfirebykeith@gmail.com.
Janet will provide her contact information later. They will be able to cut and
paste your article and place it on the media site.
Things you may want to consider as topics to submit are articles
about a vacation or trip you took, club sponsored trips or shoots, tutorials or
how-to-do articles related to photography, Photoshop, or something along those
lines. You can also submit material about a specific image and tell us about
how it was created. Also consider including related images for your post
material. When submitting images along with your post material please resize
them to something between 400 and 500 pixels on the long side. Anything larger is really not necessary.
Calendar: The site also includes a Calendar of events. Right now,
making updates to the calendar is restricted to one person, Keith, with the possibility
of expanding access to it later on. But, again, you can submit event
information and it will be posted to the calendar at the soonest possible time,
usually the same day it is submitted. There are two ways to submit calendar
event information. The easiest is to actually use the Contact Information
section of the page. Just simply enter your name, your email address, and short message
including location, dates and time, and a brief description of the event. This
message gets sent to Keith’s email and he will make the entry for you. Try to send event notifications well ahead of time of the actual event.
Slide Shows / Videos: If you want to submit images for a simple
slide show, you can email them to Keith, again limit the size of the images to
about 500 pixels on the long side, and he will create a simple Google slide
show that can be embedded. Please include basic information about the pictures
like who, what, when and where. Another way to submit a slide show is to upload
one you externally created to YouTube or to Facebook and then provide the Embed
HTML code YouTube / Facebook generates. We can help you with the process if you
are not sure how to do something like that.
You can also submit a video. Again,
the best way to do that is to upload it to YouTube or Facebook and provide the
HTML Embed code the same as with the Slide show uploads. Again we can help you
with that. Slide shows should be limited to maybe 10 or 12 pictures and videos
limited to around 4 minutes if possible.
How to Write a Post:
Don’t
be shy about attempting to submit a club related article for posting. The page
is there for your use and input. We want members to use it and feel comfortable
in the process. The site will only be successful if the members take advantage
of it. Understandably, many of you may think you are not up to writing a post,
but I encourage you to try anyway. Things to keep in mind when you are writing are
just simple common sense things like keep the content simple and write
using your own voice. Share with us about your experience, we really do want
to hear from you. Try to keep the article to between 300 and 400 words maximum,
but there is really no limit. We’ll let you know if it is too long, but, even a
simple paragraph or two will work.
One thing to think about when describing your experiences is
to remember one age old axiom of writing: Show me, Don’t tell me. What this
means is to use strong Verbs in place of Adjectives, to actually describe the
situation as opposed to telling about the situation. An example of Telling
would be to say something like “It was a cold windy day.” Although a
grammatically correct statement, it lacks imaginative clout. Trust the reader to use their imaginations to fill in the blanks. Instead of "it
was a cold windy day", try something like “A strong wind cut through every fiber
of my flimsy jacket”. Your reader will generate in their mind what you mean and
will know it was a cold windy day by how you described what you were feeling…But, don’t get so caught up in worrying about
things like that at first…just write using your voice.
Okay. That is enough for now. If any of you need help with
the site or with posting, feel free to contact Keith and he will help you out.
Thanks for taking to time to check it out and giving it a try. Also take a look at the Media Page Overview Video posted on the club Facebook page or just watch it here.
Hope to hear
from some of you soon.
Keith Bridgman
Site Administrator
