Learn a New Photography Trick or Two; Entire BBC Photo Masterclasses Now Available Online

Photo courtesy of opencontent on Flickr.

Each Monday, I bring you a list of five articles from around the web that I’ve read the week before that I find particularly entertaining, informative, or inspiring.

As a follow-up to last Monday’s discussion on watermarks, I decided to invest some money (and not as much as you might think!) into getting a professional logo done.  I’ll probably dedicate an entire post to the process and service I used once it’s been completed, but consider this proof that I do follow up on these things! For this week, the big money post comes from PetaPixel and their notes on MIT’s photography online offerings, because nothing beats a free premium, college-level education.

• Recycle Old Photo Slides into a Colorful Privacy Screen

This is one of those posts that seems to have made the rounds last week.  It was featured on several of the blogs that I have follow, but for the purposes of this post, we’ll give the credit to Lifehacker since it wasn’t until they posted it that I actually took the time to check it out.  I haven’t done much slide photography in my lifetime, but I am happy to say that there’s a roll of slide film in my Holga at this very moment.  This idea also gives me something to look forward to when those slides don’t turn out that well, which is a problem I seem to have when I shoot with said Holga.

• MIT Photography Courses Online

In all honestly, this post over on PetaPixel probably should have earned its own separate post here, but I’m sorry to say that I neglected to do that, so it’s been relegated to an eternal life here.  This is quite possibly one of the best things that I have come across since I began doing and learning photography.  I’ve known about and looked into some of MIT’s OPENCOURSEWARE offerings before now, but it never occurred to me to look into whether or not they had anything for photography.  I’ve been doing a Certified Financial Planner program (I don’t know why either) through Florida State, but I may give some thought to completely switching gears and focusing on these free courses in the very near future.

• Three Lenses Every Photographer Should Own

The good folks at Digital Photography School says that every photographer should have a general purpose, macro, and telephoto zoom lens in their possession, and although I can happily say that I have two out of three of those, my equipment to this point is mostly basic and I could do much better in each regard.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to improve upon those things in the coming months and years.

• The Best-Selling Popular Photography Subjects

I mentioned this in passing last week, but I’m going to make it a goal of mine to share more posts by Photopreneur.  Part of the reason for this is because as time goes on, I’m hoping to use this site more as a vehicle to sell my own photography, and I’m hopeful that these tips will become more and more handy.  This post focuses primarily on two subjects: seasonal and niche photography.  Obviously, demand will always be there for seasonal photos, but while demand might not be there for particular niches, if you find one that is under-served, you could use it to your advantage.

• Five Ways To Make Sure Your Photography Stands Out

To list them briefly, the five ways are: develop your own style, shoot in a niche, show your work everywhere, know your audience, and be original.  I debated whether or not to include this post from Photofocus because it touches on a subject that I’ve been going back and forth about for a while now, and that’s tip number two here: shoot in a niche.  I decided to go ahead and share it now, since I feel that it’s important enough, but I plan to dedicate an entire post to that subject in the near future.