Feature Photos

Since we’ve been on the road my photo portfolio has been growing in leaps and bounds- mind you it’s more of an on-line presence than a proper portfolio. I’d love to devote a bit of time to building up an actual portfolio but that ain’t going to happen any time soon so in the mean time, I have to make do with adding my better shots to Flickr, an image hosting website that I belong to.

My Flickr Albums are basically a record of many things and span some eight years of photography. They include many places we’ve visited (not only during the last 20 months of travel either) along with buildings, people, landscapes, animals, birds, and of course, churches I’ve spotted along the way. It’s a private record in a public location. Very public; my account is fast approaching 2 million individual photo views. I do have a few private albums in there too but you won't see them unless you have the link.

It has never been my intention to be a ‘professional’ photographer, I like doing my own thing and I don’t think I’d be that great at it anyway. The few weddings I have done for friends were so stressful it swore me off that genre of photography for good.

I have, however had many requests for various photos from my Flickr Albums over the years and this has been slowly building probably because of the number of photos I’m uploading and the wide variety of places we’re visiting in New Zealand. It also helps that I add ‘tags’ to all my photos when I upload them. I usually upload a batch of photos that are of the area, attach a link to the particular blog post that relates to them (that helps with traffic through my blog) and most importantly, add tags which helps people to search Flickr for particular photos.

For those less computer savy, ‘tags’ are a non-hierarchical keywords or terms assigned to a piece of information. For example in this photo below, I would have added these tags- Department of Conservation, DOC, Hut, Able Tasman, Walk, Great Walk, Anchorage, Bay, Tasman, Accommodation. The more tags and the more relevant they are the more likely that they’ll be picked up by search engines when someone is looking for a specific photo.

Which would have been why I was contacted by the deputy editor of the Wilderness magazine wanting to purchase the above photo for a article in their latest issue.

And here it is- don't worry about what's in the article, this is all about the photo! :)

Within Flickr there are hundreds of thousands of Groups- you'll understand the number when I tell you that there are estimated to be 51 million Flickr members worldwide. Groups are collections of similar photos that can be to do with anything and everything- you name it and there’ll be a group for it. One of the groups I belong to is ‘Heritage New Zealand’ and I link any of my historic or heritage building photos to it. Which is why one of my church photos was requested for a recent brochure.

That’s St Mary's Basilica in Invercargill.

I’ve had many requests for photos for advertising material; where companies don’t need to engage the services of professional photographer for a expansive photo shoot, they may go looking for one-off photos to purchase on the net.

I also get many requests for photos from private people wanting a particular photo so they can have it printed or put on canvas for their wall. Mostly the photo has evoked a memory of a place they’ve left behind or a long ago childhood but one of the more unusual requests has been for this Kereru or native wood pigeon.

It now adorns the splash-back of a new home built in the bush at Titirangi in Auckland.

So, even when not actively seeking out opportunities, it’s pleasing to know that my photos still do have some appeal and it's always a thrill for me to see my photos in print.....or behind glass, whatever the case may be. And I’m earning a little bit of pocket-money along the way.