As bloggers, we’re all looking for exciting new ways to blog.

We’ve regularly looked to different media to enhance our blogs.  It really builds the experience for your users.  We thought a piece on photo blogging (to be followed by posts on other media) was long overdue.  We’d love to hear from you with your experiences.

Putting together and operating a photo blog is no more challenging than creating and updating a text-based blog.  It’s just different.  Video is, as we all know, now huge on the web buy many people feel that the internet’s current level of blogging technology reaches the pinnacle of its appeal with the sharing of transmission of high definition (often very creative) images.  High quality video still needs too much bandwidth for the typical internet user’s heavy use but high quality photos are now within most people’s reach.

Blogging your photos on a daily, weekly, or more occasional basis is an excellent way to express yourself while reaching out to readers in an emotionally charged and aesthetically pleasing way.  Sharing and surfing photo blogs can help you to get a powerful new perspective on the world in which we live.  Photos also have real power to engage people in topics.  Any marketeer will tell you that.

Obviously, it makes sense that many who run image/photo blogs are photographers by profession, but photo blogging is also very popular among hobbyists and amateur camera fanatics. Many of the most popular photo blogs have gained attention because the pictures on them are of the highest artistic caliber, and some of the owners of these striking blogs are graduates of prestigious art schools and have impressive professional portfolios.  But the beauty is that you or I can do this today with the huge advances in digital camera technology.

Conversely and interestingly, some of the most well known and most often visited photo blogs are as notable for their concepts as for the pictures themselves. Certain photo blogs, like the popular “Cute Overload” which features picture after picture of animals, are more about the themes of the pictures than they are about the style in which the photos are taken.

In fact, the diversity of photo blogs shows that true photo blogging is appealing and powerful.  The fact that photo blogs are relatively easy to put together and to update makes this kind of visual communication very “democratic”, particularly in parts of the world where the more conventional media is less ‘open’, and enables people of all skill levels to become a part of the global conversation about the nature and value of photography across the world today.

You may be an artist or hobbyist who wants to create a photo blog.  Or you may simply be somebody who enjoys learning about new places and things.  Spending some time looking at the most popular photography blogs on the internet can be very rewarding from an interest perspective, but if you intend to make money from your blog then, as with anything, don’t get lost and focus on your goal. Whilst you can travel to another place or another time by seeing pictures of faraway locations and long-gone eras, it won’t necessarily help your bank balance unless you focus   Be topical, be relevant, be interesting and use the photos to enhance your blog experience and delivery.

You can even reach out and see your own neighborhood with fresh eyes by discovering how local people have photographed the town, city or countryside in which you live. Photo blogging allows people to communicate all of these things and more, which makes it a very exciting part of the  blogosphere. Arguably the best thing about web technology is that it allows people to reach each other in a very personal way across the world and in many ways photo blogs, and of course blogs containing other rich media, are amongst the most successful kinds of web sites.

Videos, audio and other multimedia are deeply interesting; they are powerful. They’re all different and add value in different ways, and some are obviously more ‘dynamic’ than photos. But it’s clear that high quality, well-taken still pictures have a profound place in our society and lives.