  
If you like Flickr for archiving your photos and for exploring the work of other photographers, both amateur and professional, AND if you love Pinterest, here’s some good news. Â Flickr has added a share button to share directly to Pinterest, and the deal struck between the company retains attribution for photos pinned. Â AG Beat sums it up in this post.
If you aren’t familiar with sharing images from Flickr, here’s a short how to screencast:
Bob Dylan and the Band - Mid-South Coliseum 1-23-1974, a photo by joespake on Flickr.Posterized due to lighting and focus on this shot. You can recognize Levon Helm by his posture, and Dylan is Dylan. Here’s the Set List. More of my photos of Dylan and the ’70s at in Flickr.
So maybe your Uptown church can’t afford fancy signage in the parking lot. This rather abstract, freehand drawing of the handicapped parking symbol gets the job done.
I am always looking for interesting photo subjects in Memphis, especially Downtown and Midtown. Any ideas? Email me - Joe@spake.com or just leave a comment.
[reposted from Joe Spake’s Weblog]
[caption id=”attachment_20067” align=”aligncenter” width=”520” caption=”Panorama of Mississippi River flood crest at Memphis - May, 2011”]
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Four of the most read posts on Joe Spake’s Weblog in 2011 were directly related to this year’s record flooding on the Mississippi River from the Memphis perspective. Â Interestingly the 6th most read post, about the Memphis ice storm of 1994, was written in January of 2010, and has been read consistently ever since (Maybe I accidentally worked some SEO magic.) Â Here are the Joe Spake’s Weblog Top 10 for 2011:
1.  Mississippi River flooding- You ain’t seen nothing yet  (April 4, 2011)  - The water was high in April, but not nearly as high as it would be in May.
2. Â Flood Stage (April 26, 2011) Â - Actually the Mississippi River rose over 14 feet higher than the official “flood stage”.
3. Â NOAA raises Memphis flood crest prediction to 48 feet (May 2, 2011)
4.  Why I am not following you back on Twitter  (June 19, 2011)  - It seems that everyone wants to get involved in Twitter, but few want to put forth the effort to engage.  Think back to how much Twitter has been in the news, or actually shaped news in 2011.  The growth of the 140 character messaging system will continue.
5.  Quick guide to Mississippi River Conditions  (January 31, 2011)  - Written before the magnitude of the flood was anticipated.
6. Â The Memphis ice storm of 1994 Â (January 30, 2010) Â - That ice storm is probably the most memorable weather event of my life - a true perfect storm - The ice that caused the damage was mostly gone by noon.
7.  Joe’s Google+ tips - #1 - controlling the content of your stream (July 10, 2011)  - Google+ joined the social media field this year.  Will it be a viable  competitor for Facebook?  Will G+ find it’s niche?  The jury’s still out.
8. Memphis begins to feel the flood (April 28, 2011) Â - River rising!
9. Â For the love of figs - a new hobby (August 8, 2011) Â - Having access to figs and pears gave me the incentive to take up canning.
10. Â Memphis ghost schools - a photo essay (February 27,2011) Â - Memphis City Schools has a lot of neglected and abandoned properties in their inventory.
Side note: Â Images of the flood garnered over 100,000 views on my Flickr photo sharing site.
If you have been a regular reader of this blog, Â please comment on the Top 10 or any of your favorite posts from 2011 that didn’t make the cut. Â More to come in 2012!
[caption id=”attachment_20067” align=”aligncenter” width=”520” caption=”Panorama of Mississippi River flood crest at Memphis - May, 2011”][/caption]
Four of the most read posts on Joe Spake’s Weblog in 2011 were directly related to this year’s record flooding on the Mississippi River from the Memphis perspective. Â Interestingly the 6th most read post, about the Memphis ice storm of 1994, was written in January of 2010, and has been read consistently ever since (Maybe I accidentally worked some SEO magic.) Â Here are the Joe Spake’s Weblog Top 10 for 2011:
1.  Mississippi River flooding- You ain’t seen nothing yet  (April 4, 2011)  - The water was high in April, but not nearly as high as it would be in May.
2. Â Flood Stage (April 26, 2011) Â - Actually the Mississippi River rose over 14 feet higher than the official “flood stage”.
3. Â NOAA raises Memphis flood crest prediction to 48 feet (May 2, 2011)
4.  Why I am not following you back on Twitter  (June 19, 2011)  - It seems that everyone wants to get involved in Twitter, but few want to put forth the effort to engage.  Think back to how much Twitter has been in the news, or actually shaped news in 2011.  The growth of the 140 character messaging system will continue.
5.  Quick guide to Mississippi River Conditions  (January 31, 2011)  - Written before the magnitude of the flood was anticipated.
6. Â The Memphis ice storm of 1994 Â (January 30, 2010) Â - That ice storm is probably the most memorable weather event of my life - a true perfect storm - The ice that caused the damage was mostly gone by noon.
7.  Joe’s Google+ tips - #1 - controlling the content of your stream (July 10, 2011)  - Google+ joined the social media field this year.  Will it be a viable  competitor for Facebook?  Will G+ find it’s niche?  The jury’s still out.
8. Memphis begins to feel the flood (April 28, 2011) Â - River rising!
9. Â For the love of figs - a new hobby (August 8, 2011) Â - Having access to figs and pears gave me the incentive to take up canning.
10. Â Memphis ghost schools - a photo essay (February 27,2011) Â - Memphis City Schools has a lot of neglected and abandoned properties in their inventory.
Side note: Â Images of the flood garnered over 100,000 views on my Flickr photo sharing site.
If you have been a regular reader of this blog, Â please comment on the Top 10 or any of your favorite posts from 2011 that didn’t make the cut. Â More to come in 2012!
The old saying “a picture’s worth 1000 words,” has held true through the ages, yet many small business don’t see the real value of publishing pictures of their products and services. Whether it’s a cleaning service, custom manufacturer, realtor, or provider of very specialized services, a picture of what you do, make or sell is almost always more appealing and memorable that a paragraph or more of descriptions.
[caption id=”attachment_19987” align=”alignleft” width=”300” caption=”Seeing what happens in a cotton gin is more interesting than reading about it”]
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Flickr is the best online photo management and sharing application; and it’s free. You can also upload videos and manage them in the same way as your photos. Google has a long way to go with their photo system to catch up, but that’ a topic for another post. I will leave it to you to explore Flickr’s simple interface. You may even want to upgrade to the PRO version as you become a heavy user. You can even make all your images private, and still use all the great Flickr management tools.
For me, Flickr’s best feature is Sharing. Not only can you share individual pictures, galleries or slide shows to the major social media platforms but you can post directly to your blog/website, directly from Flickr. Simply link to your favorite blogging platform, Blogger, Wordpress, etc. in the options, the locate a photo you want to add, and one click posts on the blog of your choice. I seldom have to do anything with my Memphis photoblog, except add keywords. Posts come straight from Flickr. Here’s an example photo post to this blog.
This quick screencast will give you an idea of how easy this process is.
Whether you are a business person or an individual proud of your photography, a photo blog is a very effective way to showcase your work and get your message out there in a visual medium; and Flickr makes the process a breeze.
Joe Spake is a Memphis Real Estate Broker, Consultant, Photographer, and Social Media Junkie
Contact Joe at joe@spake.com or voice or SMS at 901.214.5563
