Art and Photography Blog

New Web 2.0 Ways to Share Your Travel Photos

I have a lot of travel photos on this blog. Here are some other ways to use features of the new web to share your photos and learn from others who have already been to where you might want to go. The New York Times recently had an interesting article, Practical Traveler: Sharing Photographs Online, in which you covered some of the ways the new web allows you to share your photos more effectively and use those of others to enhance your travel plans. As they wrote, “photo-sharing sites like Yahoo’s Flickr.com and SmugMug.com have begun to let users add another dimension to their travel photos. Through a technology called geotagging, users can add G.P.S. data to their pictures, which can then be plotted on a digital map. This not only allows users to see exactly where a photo was taken, but, when uploaded to an Internet map, users can also quickly browse a trove of photos that were taken nearby, providing a kind of scattershot collage of a place.”

It is still a bit geeky to use these features but I am sure they will get easier. More your can go to these sites and search for photos of your travel destinations to see what they are really like. It can get very specific, “Plotting photos on maps also allows trip planners to “see” the terrain before booking a trip. On Everytrail.com — which lets users upload geocoded photos from their favorite hiking trails, biking routes and sailing trips — visitors can check out sights along a specific driving route in Namibia, or examine trail conditions on a hilly bike route near Palo Alto, Calif.”

This could easily be another area of accelerated business activity for Web 2.0. As the NYT wrote, “ Last month, Google announced plans to acquire Panoramio.com, a photo-sharing site with more than two million images that allows users to integrate photos into Google Earth. And as photo-sharing continues to evolve, travel Web sites are recognizing how valuable images can be when users essentially act as free contributors and submit their own pictures.”

These features can certainly increase the stickiness for web site. “Zoomandgo.com, a travel review site, recently redesigned its site around photos and videos submitted by travelers. A team of four people spent months “geocoding” thousands of hotels and attractions so that user-photos can be displayed on digital maps. A new social-networking feature also allows users to create their own travel profiles, connect with like-minded travelers, and swap tips through photos. “Facebook meets Frommers” is how Jonathan Haldane, the founder of Zoomandgo.com, described it. Before the social-networking feature went up, he said, users spent about eight minutes on the site, mostly reading or posting hotel reviews. Now, he said, users spend an average of 18 to 19 minutes, sending messages to each other and browsing through photos and videos.”

That is a great concept for any site that wants to keep people there. It is like getting lost in YouTube.

Photos of Drake's Beach, Point Reyes 2005

Taken April 2005.
           

Photos of Point Reyes 2006

Taken October 2006.
   

Michael Schmitt Photography Site

My cousin, Michael Schmitt, is a professional photographer living in Portland Oregon. I was impressed with his site, especially the travel photos, and wanted to pass on this link to Michael Schmitt Photography. I enjoyed seeing all the interesting places he has been. I also like his photo style and the simplicity of his site.

Women in Art on YouTube

Here is a wonderful video, Women in Art, that shows the changing face of women in painting over the years. Someone spent a good bit of time working on these transitions. What do you think?

Your Gallery – Charles Saatchi Provides Web 2.0 Art Site

Here is an online gallery where you can list your art for no charge. It has a number of web 2.0 features such as the ability to send your profile or others to friends. There is also Showdown. It is for “all registered Your Gallery and Stuart artists to enter their works for visitors to score. The winner of the final head-to-head vote will receive £1000 and the runner up will receive £750. The winning work will go on display at the new Saatchi gallery.”

Apparently Charles Saatchi created this while he was waiting for his next physical gallery to be finished. Other features include a daily mag-blog with views. Stuart is for student artists, and the ability to submit your art for others to provide feedback. Street art shows photos and videos of murals and performance works. You can also chat online with others interested in art. There are country specific galleries. It look slike they keep adding new features.

Monumenta Arrives at the Grand Palias

The French government recently completed a $135 million restoration of the huge Grand Palais — a vast, glass and steel palace originally built for the 1900 Universal Exhibition. Now the French Culture Ministry has been struggling to find a mission for the space, which is 150 feet wide, 660 feet long and 150 feet tall at its highest point. Good idea since they spend all that money. At the same time it has been trying to generate more public interest in contemporary art.

The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/31/arts/design/31kief.html?th&emc=th">Monumenta series</a> was design to accomplish both goals. It starts with the German born Anselem Keifer, 62, with the exhibition “Falling Stars.” That work will be followed next year by Richard Serra, the American sculptor of weighty shapes in sheet metal. Christian Boltanski, the French installation artist who often fills entire rooms with one work of art, has been chosen for 2009.

Keifer uses sunflowers, branches, pieces of cloth, terra cotta pottery, plaster, dried mud and lead objects often attached to thick layers of paint to create houses. He also creates what he calls books with sheets of lead, some of which he rescued from Cologne Cathedral when its roof was being replaced some years ago. Here is the <a href="http://www.monumenta.com/2007/">Monumenta site</a> to see what he is up to.

I walked by the Grand Palais last September when I was in Paris and wondered what they might do with it.  See my picture below. This seems a wise move. I would like to get back to Paris to see it. I wonder how it might play in Second Life?

Photos of Paris 2006 Two

September 2006
           

Photos of Paris 2006 Three

           

Photos of Paris 2006 Four

September 2006.