I am an artist and a photographer. My work is posted on various art and photography websites for sale and has been for several years. Day after day, I log into these websites to see how many visitors I’ve had, to read new comments, and check on sales. My work attracts a lot of visitors which always delights me, and I adore it when my work has moved someone enough to comment, yet I’m invariably disheartened and frustrated that all this attention results in minimal sales.One of the websites where my work lives offers continual member-sponsored contests designed to help artists get their work seen. I enter them even though it seems this particular artist community holds a certain prejudice toward photographs, evidenced by entry rules that state “NO PHOTOS”, “paintings only”, “all mediums accepted and photographs”, and “all media including photography”. (The last two suggesting photographs are not art or something of an afterthought.)Another of these websites offers artists an opportunity to be a featured artist. I submitted my application over a year ago which to date hasn’t been acknowledged, and it saddens me to say that every artist that is featured is a painter, not a photographer.Truth is, I’m not only frustrated but angry as well, and I’ve been silent on this for far too long! There needs to be a shift in perception on what is constituted as art and where photography stands in the art world.The generally perceived wisdom, it seems, is that photography is easy and painting is hard or more skillful. Consequently, the thinking is that culturally painting is generally more valued than photography, even though there are a lot of bad paintings with little or no value. The same can be said about some photography, but the notion that photography is easy and not as skillful as painting is simply wrong thinking. To think that this is so is to invalidate world-renowned photographers like Ansel Adams, Annie Leibovitz, and Dorthea Lange whose works hang in places like the Guggenheim, and who in general, made more money as photographic artists than painters and didn’t have to die to become wealthy or noticed. The only true difference between painting and photography is that one is in a different medium than the other.I use digital photography to capture something amazing that I see and for raw material for my art. To capture what I see is often a lengthy process because of technical limitations. The limitations of digital cameras are due to the state of the technology, which is in its infancy, and not to the skill of the photographer. These technological challenges are particularly evident in outdoor shots taken in bright sunlight. Moreover, certain corrections for perspective, lighting, color, tonal range, and composition might have to be made, which I make on my computer in Adobe Photoshop. On average, I think I spend 40 hours (5 eight-hour days) or more per picture. Making corrections like these requires learned skills and talents, which in essence is no different than skills and talents needed to create a painting masterpiece.To me, art is the expression of ones self and how it is portrayed by the artist regardless of medium. On one hand, I’m happy to share my love of the visual world through simple photographs (notwithstanding subjective alterations or enhancements). On the other, some of my art I create to look like paintings not only because I like the overall effect, but because I’m concerned about the term “photo” and its’ often negative or cheap connotations. I hate that I sold out to that idea, but I felt I had to in order to be competitive (not that it has helped sales). Now that I have, I find, in attempting to submit my photo paintings to various contests, rules such as, “must not be digitally altered in any way” and “no photographs or digitally altered art”.This is preposterous! Throughout history new materials and techniques have evolved at different times and in different parts of the world. Artists have progressively had an increasing range of options to choose from. Up until the last 140 years there was only paint to be used. Much of what was attempted in the past was to reproduce reality as much as possible. There is, in fact, a debate whether Da Vinci and Michelangelo used concave mirrors to create their paintings, wherein the real life image wishing to be painted stands outside, while its image projects onto the canvas. Devices like the camera obscura (from the sixteenth century onwards) and the camera lucida (early to mid nineteenth century) were employed by the likes of Caneletto and Vermeer to help them achieve that faithful reproduction objective. The old master’s for the most part were just taking snapshots of reality using the tools available to them at the time. Had Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caneletto, or Vermeer had access to digital photography, I’m sure they would have used it, as all were creative visionaries.But it’s not the tool that makes the art. In the creative process, it’s the responsibility of the artist to do the best they can in terms of materials, knowledge, and techniques. This means using any means that will help them produce better work, including computer software.I understand that it is frustrating to all you painters that you had to learn and practice to get it right and then along comes artists that can do what you do (perhaps even better) with a click of a button. But keep in mind that photography, good photography, is an art form that is learned and practiced to get right too, and to correct, enhance, or alter that photography requires even more learning and practice.According to Weston Naef, senior curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum, photography underlies almost all the visual culture of the 20th century. He states that at his museum the exhibit recognizes once and for all that photography is no longer a stepchild of the art world. So please painters, get off your high horses and accept that photography is an important part of society. Painting is no better than photography and beauty is, after all, in the eyes of the beholder. Granted, not all photography is art, but then not all paintings are either.
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Hot Theme Based Directories Where You Can Make Money
All of us know that directory submission helps you in building massive one way backlinks. The popularity of SEO directories has given rise to niche directories. Niche Directories are directories containing links based on a particular theme. For instance, a directory based on travel theme will contain all links related with travel not of web design.Benefit of Niche directory is that it is a quality related link in terms of Google. Getting a travel directory link for a travel website will really help your site in gaining quick ranking.In fact, there are some niche directories which do not have PR, less amount of traffic, but still earns lot of money. The reason is that webmaster are ready to spend the money on a directory or a website which is related to their theme since it is a quality one way link in terms of Google.In this article, we are going to discuss about the popular niche directories where on a little promotion you can make quick money.
Travel Directories: Tour business is a lucrative business; it mainly consists of tour packages, hotel review, destination guides and many more. The best thing happened to tour business through internet is that a person can read a hotel review, choose his destination and book a hotel room sitting comfortably in his office or room. Due to this many travel agents, hotels have launched their websites. All of them would like to rank on a competitive keyword and for that they would do anything, in fact get listed by paying money. That’s why travel directories are so much in demand. Hence, launching a travel directory and its little bit promotion can help your site in a long way.
Adult Directories: Main reason behind the popularity of adult directories is that most of the general directories do not accept adult sites. Due to this, there is a huge demand of adult directories for one way link building. Launching an adult directory is sure way to earn quick money with some optimization. But, adult sites may contain some content which you may not like and have to bear it.
Regional Directories : I have seen in most of the freelancing sites, there is huge demand of regional directories mostly it is UK, but now a days there is also a huge demand of French, German, Spanish, Italian free SEO directories. Out of thousands of SEO directories more than 98% are in English, rest 2% are based on regional directories. At this time, launching a regional directory can be quite beneficial for making money.
Health Directories : Another niche, just like travel, health directories are quite in demand especially among pharmetuicals, cosmetic sites since there is lot of competition between them, they are ready to give money to get a quality link.
Golf Directories: Golf is quite popular sport nowadays, though sport directories are very less in demand, but golf directories are on rise due to popularity of golf. The site consists of golf accessories, golf trainer, golf club and many more.
It’s not that you can make quick money only in above mentioned niche directories, there are lots of fields which are in demand such as equestrian jewelery, mobile phones and many more. You just need to pick up a topic for which you are passionate about, do a market research about that field and then launch a directory. Bottom line is that it should reach the desired person for making money.
Directory Submission – Basic But Useful Hints & Tips
Internet Professional Marketers and SEO experts are already aware that good directory submissions are a requirement for any online business owner who is interested in increasing their search engine ranking to create link popularity and increase traffic to websites. Therefore we need to understand what a directory is.In very basic terms a directory is a list of websites that are listed and broken down into categories and subcategories. So if you want your website to be included into a directory you need to submit your site and have it approved and then you will be listed in that directory. Businesses or individuals that want to know more about any given subject will when accessing that directory be able to find your website.Some directories will allow you to list your site for free whereas others may charge a fee to allow you to be listed on their directory. Paying for a directory listing in most cases will guarantee that your site is included in their directory and very quickly usually within 7 days. Directories that you submit to that do not charge fees can take a much longer time to accept your submission. However, prior to listing your URL you do need to have an understanding of the basic rules for directory submissions. Listed below are nine simple things that you need to consider and understand before you submit your site.1. You must ensure that your webpage is fully completed. You should not start to make submissions to any web directory until you are sure your site is 100%.2. Make sure that you are not using any popup or popunder windows in your web pages.3. Any advertisements or affiliated links should be kept to the bare minimum as sites with a lot of “fluff” or distractions on them will generally mean that the directory owners will reject the submission.4. Do some research and make sure that you use well-respected and good quality directories. Using relevant directories will improve your rankings in the SERP’s. Search engines give a higher rating to inbound links from sites with relevance just as they do to relevant directories.5. Every directory will have a set of rules and requirements that you must fulfill before you can submit to them. Make sure you know these rules beforehand otherwise you may find that you are wasting a lot of time trying to submit to a directory that you do not fit the requirements of.6. Make sure you have all the required information that the directory will require such as providing your correct email address a relevant description, title, URL and keywords otherwise you may also have your submission rejected.7. Understand the use of keywords fully for optimal recognition within the directory. Most directories will use keywords to enable the individuals that are searching to find your directory. Ensure you put the keywords in to your description and your tile.8. Understand all the categories that you have available to use for placing your URL. This has an impact on giving you a higher search engine ranking as the search engine will consider your entry more relevant as it is in the appropriate category and subcategory. You must also ensure you are choosing the correct subcategories within that category for ease of location and also to ensure that your website is considered as quickly as possible for acceptance by the directory.9. Time is the other important factor that you need to consider, your site may not be accepted immediately, especially if it is not a paid directory listing so don’t just go for one directory, submit to a few different directories to increase your chances of acceptance and also the speed in which your ranking may improve.Many online businesses enjoy the process of directory submission and find that they receive great results in a short period of time. Others do find it incredibly time consuming and due to the time involved may not feel there is benefit in the process regardless of the result. If you find that this is not something you feel capable of doing then perhaps you should consider the manual services of a directory submission company to do this for you.Directory submissions will provide an effective and very efficient way to increase traffic to your website and increase your business sales. They will not only be able to do the directory submissions for you but they can assist with ideas and processes to increase your internet marketing plan. They of course will also save you a lot of time because they already have a lot of the information on hand that you would need to source if you planned to do the job yourself. They already know many applicable directories for your business and the correct format and information you should use in submissions to get the best results for your business. Either way, directory submissions will benefit your business, whether you take the time to complete the process correctly yourself or if you enlist the services of a directory submission service.