Webshots Blog

Want to make your holiday greeting card memorable? Then dress up in festive colors and get the family together—including the pets—for a video holiday greeting! You can record your warm wishes for the season and then send them to all your friends and family in a Webshots eCard.

Most digital cameras today include a video recording feature, but you can also use your web cam, mobile phone and digital video camera to capture your greeting. Here are five tips from our editors for making a great video holiday greeting:

Editor’s Tips
1. Keep your greetings under three minutes.
2. Be aware of the lighting and background.
3. Let your family’s personality shine through.
4. Film in an unexpected setting.
5. Avoid shaky footage.

We know this time of year is busy for many, so we’re giving you two weeks to get your decorations up and practice your favorite holiday song. When you have your greeting ready:

1. Upload it to Webshots.
2. Post a link to it in the comments section of this blog post.
3. Send it to your friends and family by clicking on the “Share Video” link.

Happy holidays!

In last week’s Creative Challenge, we asked you to complete the sentence, “Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without…” and post a link to your photos or videos that help illustrate your Thanksgiving memories.

We loved all the great entries, but our winner is member dawson30 (Marvin), who said, “Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without…thinking of the past, looking to the future,” and posted a link to a family photo from the 1940s.

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving filled with good food, quality family time and thoughts of what’s to come.

Hey all. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend. And for our international friends, just a great weekend!

We’ve been checking out the videos you have uploaded ever since we launched the feature last week and I wanted to share some of my favorites.

First we have dune buggies, ATVs and motorcycles driving around on sand dunes from member talkjk.

dunes

Next up is a short clip of some skaters near the beach by member angad_makkar.

At the bellevue1

Finally, I wanted to share this silly one of two budding musicians playing chopsticks. Can you spot the pun in this clip from member redxina?

Chopsticks

Got videos? Upload them now!

For serious shoppers, today is your big day. The day after Thanksgiving is known as Black Friday, and it officially kicks off the holiday shopping season. Its name is derived from the idea that many retailers make a lot of profits on this day, thus putting them “in the black” and “out of the red,” or a net loss. It’s a great time to get all your gifts, too, as many stores have huge sales.

In honor of Black Friday, Panasonic is offering Webshots members a cool black page option to get you in the shopping spirit. As we all know, black never goes out of style, and it really makes the photos pop!

From now through Monday, you can wrap your Webshots pages in black and let everyone know you were born to shop. Just click on the black color option at the top of any Webshots page and your set.  

Now you’ll have four choices of color options thanks to Panasonic, and soon we’ll be adding more. When we launched the new site, you voted on what colors you wanted, and purple was number one. We’re excited to say that we’ll have this Members Choice color available just in time for the holidays!

Happy shopping, and here’s to a great holiday season!

Turkey. The big game. Crazy Aunt Mary. That’s right, Thanksgiving is just around the corner, so in honor of this holiday, this week’s Creative Challenge is to complete this sentence with text plus a link to your photos and videos:

Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without…

You can submit your entries in the comments section, and be sure to leave a link to your member homepage so we and other members of the Webshots community can contact you. If you are looking for some recipe ideas (like deep frying a turkey), see what our friends at Chow are doing.

Have fun, and here’s to a happy Thanksgiving! Gobble, Gobble!

NOTE: THIS POST IS CLOSED FOR COMMENTS NOW….

Many of our members have asked us for family-friendly photos that they can share with their kids. We’re happy to announce that we have a great new editor’s collection in our family channel: teddy bears!

These fuzzy little guys are sure to win your heart

For all you travel buffs out there, this week’s Creative Challenge is for you. Looking at the photo above and using the clues below, let us know where in the world you think this photo was taken. And specifically, which lake is featured in the photo? Post your answer in the comments section and include a link to your member homepage.

Clue #1: The mystery photo was taken in a national park. 

Clue #2: For grub, local favorites include the Ploughman’s lunch as well as Jennings Best, Coniston Old Man, Hawkshead Bitters, and Cumberland Ale.

Clue #3: The area where the mystery photo was taken was made famous during the early 19th century by the poetry and writings of William Wordsworth.

When we announce the winner, we’ll also announce which member took the photo, but until then it’s up to you!

Update #1

Well, we thought we’d start our Creative Challenge off easy, but you know your stuff. How about a new question: What lake is featured in the photo?

Update #2

Due to the blog’s software, we are unable to allow members to embed photos in the comments section at this time for security reasons.

We definitely have some poets on Webshots, and their talents shone through in our political haiku Creative Challenge. We sifted through your jabs at Tony Blair and George Bush, your musings on freedom and your odes to the soldiers fighting in Iraq, but our winning haiku comes from Joan R.:

Political Spin
My mind reels from the speeches
Merry-Go-Round: Stop!

Congrats to Joan! The editors and members of the Webshots community would like to send you personal congratulations, so please leave a link to your homepage in the comments section.

P.S. A special thanks goes out to member mcjing2 for use of the spintastic merry-go-round photo!

At Webshots, we all know that photography can make a difference in our lives. SF Camerawork, the Bay Area’s only nonprofit photo gallery, knows that too. They just published First Exposures, a collection of photographs by local at-risk youths.

In 1993, First Exposures was created by a group of concerned photographers working out of San Francisco’s Eye Gallery who wanted to use their artistic skills to help their community. Based on Washington, D.C.’s Shooting Back project, First Exposures paired homeless, foster and at-risk youth with qualified adult mentors in order to teach them photography in a one-on-one setting.

Check out First Exposures’ homepage on Webshots to see some of the amazing photography from the book. If you bookmark them as a favorite member, you’ll get updates on new photos from the book as well as future projects.

If you’re in the Bay Area, you can also attend the free book release party and book signing for First Exposures on November 17 from 7-9 p.m. at SF Camerawork’s brand-new, state-of-the-art gallery and facility at 657 Mission at 3rd Street on the second floor.

This event is also on Upcoming.org. Add it to your calendar!

Some of the Webshots staff will be attending, so send us an email if you’d like to go and we can meet up and get to know you!

Even if you can’t make it, you can still support this cause by purchasing the book from their website, and you also get involved in photography-mentor programs in your area.

Member KevinRowland23 has been documenting the U.S. campaign trail, offering a citizen journalist perspective.