Somewhere to begin
Welcome to the first post of the PhotoMerchant Blog.
PhotoMerchant‘s first appearance online is not quite the beginning, for me – it’s… well, somewhere in the middle. I’ve been working on Project PhotoMerchant for a while now, and getting the blog online is an exciting step, but there’s more to come. Let me give you a brief profile of PhotoMerchant…
Who we are
I’m Derek and PhotoMerchant is my brain-child. I’m a software developer with a keen interest in photography. Through my own experiences and my involvement with the photographic community, I’ve recognised that photographers today also need to know a lot about computing and digital technology to be able to work efficiently and produce high-quality images. But no-one wants the technology getting in the way of what you can do – it needs to be transparent and easy, and it needs to add something that wasn’t available before.
My specialty is the development of web applications. After spending a lot of time participating in online forums, talking with other photographers, and working through my own challenges, I’m keen to contribute to the photographic community by helping other photographers to take advantage of the opportunities that web technologies offer.
PhotoMerchant is more than just me. I work with a very talented team and hopefully through this blog, you’ll get to meet some of the other developers and designers working on the project with me.
What’s the project?
PhotoMerchant’s first foray into the web is via this blog. This blog will be a discussion of the ways photography, the web, and software intersect. Some of the topics I’m planning to look at in the first few weeks include:
- Workflow challenges – the challenges are many, but there are ways technology can help photographers.
- Sales – generating income from your work – how do you get customers to purchase? How do you make buying and selling easy (for you and the customer)?
- Presentation – using the web to showcase and sell your images.
- Time management – improving the way you work with customers and suppliers (print houses, couriers, etc.)
- Web – you’ve probably heard the term Web 2.0? There are some interesting developments here that may be useful to photographers.
But, as I said, the blog is ‘somewhere in the middle’. I’ve got a lot to say about these topics, but I’ve also been working on developing some solutions to these problems. I’m not going to say much about that now, but will be revealing more in the weeks ahead.
I’d also be interested to get your thoughts on a number of different topics. I’ve placed a poll to the right of the page. Don’t hesitate to answer it, it takes 2 seconds!
I’m planning to post about three times a week. I hope you’ll stick with me – I’m really excited about what I’ve got to offer in the way of advice and solutions and I hope you find it valuable. To make sure you don’t miss a post, subscribe via the RSS feed and your comments are welcome.
