Photoblog

A photography blog, picture log or simply a photoblog, is a web application which contains periodic posts containing user-taken photographs on a common webpage. These posts are often but not necessarily in reverse chronological order, from the date when the photograph was taken.

Photoblogs are, for the most part, run by amateurs who profile/diary their lives through photographs, along with some text at times. They are more individually based (personal) than corporate. Some are maintained by single authors, while others have multiple authors. Some users post one to multiple photos every day, while others post sporadically. Many photoblogs enable visitors to leave public comments, which can lead to a community of readers centered around the site; others are non-interactive. Some feature text-based blogs along with their photographs. Obviously the formats of the photography are wide – digital, film, paintings, and drawings appear, sometimes exclusively.

The format of photoblogs varies, from a single photograph, to lots of text, scripts, article summaries, Exif data, user-provided comments and ratings. Individual photoblog entries are almost always date and time-stamped, along with a title, with the newest post at the top or index page. Because of the massive amounts of photographs taken by individuals, most photoblogs have a way of archiving older photographs and generating a static address for individual entries; these static links are referred to as a permalink. The latest photographs, with hyperlinks, thumbnails of the photograph(s), and titles, are offered in photoblogs in the RSS or Atom XML-format, to be read with a feed reader.

History

Precursors

• Although there had been many photographic portfolio sites in the early days of the internet, none had periodic posts of their work, such as daily updates. The creation of blogs and digital photography in the early 1990s sparked the birth of photoblogs. Although text was the main aspect of a blog, many individuals started including photographs in their entries.

Photoblogging begins

The first known photoblog hit the internet in December 1995 from photographer Emilie Valentine, called Snap City!. The idea of a photoblog didn't become popularized for almost seven years, as most photobloggers (photoblog curators) updated in obscurity with not too many people knowing their work. It was in October 2002 when computer programmer Brandon Stone created the photoblog database, Photoblogs.org. It started off with a database of 15 photoblogs, which now features over 8,000. He is credited as being the individual who brought photoblogs into the spotlight. Now, photoblogs feature everything from professional daily photography work to a documentation of a person's everyday life and experiences.

External links

• Photoblogs.org is a photoblog database featuring over 8,000 sites.
• Flickr is a community-based photoblog-type site, allowing anyone to post their photos online.
• DailySnap Interviews features interviews with popular photobloggers.
• Camerapedia is a free-content encyclopedia of camera information that uses the Wikipedia system.
• File Magazine is a ezine that showcases the works of popular photobloggers.
• Fotolog is the most famous photoblog server.