Webshots Blog

Macro photography is the art of extreme close-ups. The idea is that the digital or film image is almost—if not exactly—the same size as the real-life object. While special lenses are recommended, you can still present the general idea of macro photography with any camera. Many even include a macro setting, which is often depicted as a flower icon.

Let’s get up close and personal with our subjects in this week’s Creative Challenge. Your challenge is to take a new macro photograph, upload it to Webshots and then post a link to it in the blog. The Challenge runs from February 28 to March 2, when the winners are announced.

Here are some tips for taking macro photographs:

• Limit your depth of field.
• Focus on the most important part of the subject.
• Be aware of lighting—try taking the photo with and without a flash.
• Consider the background, which may be blurry, as part of your composition.

Our photo editor, Penny, just spent a weekend in Yosemite to celebrate Ansel Adams’s birthday on February 20, so I asked her to pick the winners for our Ansel Adams Creative Challenge. She’s also added some comments about why she chose them, but she admitted that it was a tough decision.

First place goes to member reedstar, and our photo editor said it best captured the spirit of Ansel Adams as it included the most Ansel Adams-like qualities. It has beautiful lighting, texture and details. Overall, it’s a well-balanced composition with excellent contrast as the image holds all levels of tones that are reminiscent of the zone system.

Second place goes to member terezadelpilar, and our photo editor said the photo has a beautiful use of vertical lines and assorted textures, and the tonal range is very balanced. She said the photo reminds her a little of the work of Edward Weston more than Ansel Adams, but it’s definitely in her top three.

Third place goes to member callumcorrie, and our photo editor said the black-and-white shot of a lake has well-balanced tones, nice textures and is very peaceful.

Thanks to all the members for submitting their amazing photos in the Challenge!

The 79th Academy Awards airs tonight on ABC (5 p.m. PST, 8 p.m. EST), and we’ve got you covered on Webshtos with our And the Oscar Goes To editor’s collection. Check out all the celebs on the red carpet and then have some fun with our Oscar-related links!

The Official Oscar Site

• All things Oscar, including a list of the nominees, fashion photos and the list of presenters

Vote for Your Favorites Nominees

• TV.com lets you predict who will win.

New Award: Best Food Scene?

• Find out what movies have food as the leading star.

Party Ideas

• Decorations, party attire, activities, drinks and more!

We’re constantly striving to make Webshots the best it can be, and based on your feedback, we’ve made some changes to the site:

Posting Photos on Your Blog or Website
We have five sizes of photos for you to post on your blog or website, such as MySpace or Facebook, and now you can preview what the photo will actually look like. When you click on the red “preview this size” link, you’ll see a preview of the photo in a pop up window.

Direct Link to Photos
Want to directly link to an image without dealing with HTML? Now you can! We’re providing the image’s direct .jpg URL in the “link to this picture” box.

Member Homepage
You can easily share your member homepage (or someone else’s) thanks to the handy URL and embed links in the green action box located under the “about me” section. Send the URL in an email or post a link to a member homepage on a blog or website by using the embed link.

We’ve also fixed some issues with the site:

• The issues with stats collection and photo stats counting have been fixed.
• Your “about me” text on your profile page should no longer “mysteriously” disappear.
• You can now sort your Webshots friends, fans and bookmarked members by date added again!

In honor of Ansel Adams’ birthday (February 20), this week’s Creative Challenge is to show us your best outdoor landscape photo. Ansel Adams was best known for his black-and-white photographs of California’s Yosemite Valley, which captured nature in all its glory.

Tap into your inner Ansel Adams and get snappin’!

Congrats to member tfm446 for sharing her lovely “hearts on fire” image and wonderful poem for her Valentine in last week’s Creative Challenge:

YOU SET MY HEART ON FIRE.
YOU GRANT MY EVERY DESIRE.
YOU LOVE ME IN EVERYWAY AND
I LOVE YOU SO MUCH ON
THIS VALENTINE’S DAY.
LOVE,HUGS,AND KISSES

Celebrate President’s Day with 10 FREE 4″ x 6″ prints from Webshots. We promise there’s no political jiggery-pokery in this deal: Just order your prints between February 17 and 19, and all you pay is shipping and handling—and not a cent more. Now that’s a deal the people will vote for!

Plus, you can also print your Webshots friends’ photos, too! Learn more about making friends on Webshots from our recent blog post.

Details: Enter the coupon code President (case-sensitive) at check out. To receive 10 free prints, you must place your order between 2/17/07 at 00:01:00 a.m. and 2/19/07 at 23:59:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

We had some unexpected site outages on Valentine’s Day, and member pennylane157 in the U.K. informed us that the featured albums for February 14 did not display until later in the evening her time.

We sincerely apologize to all the members who were featured that day—pennylane157, theyogiclimber and vodyanoi—and we wanted to showcase their albums on the blog for everyone to see. Please check out these great albums and leave your comments for the members on their album pages. (I’ve closed the comments on this blog.)

Valentine Wishes from Me to You

Landscapes & Mountains

Roses Upclose

You can always check out previously featured albums by clicking on the featured album archive link next to the featured albums.

Some services on Webshots will temporarily be down from about 7 to 7:20 p.m. (PST) tonight so that we can migrate three databases onto newer hardware. This maintenance is necessary and required as it will help prevent unexpected database outages like the one we experienced a few days ago. We assure you that all your photos and videos will be safe during this down time.

Valentine’s Day is a time for showing affection for the one you love (or all your friends and family). This week’s Creative Challenge is to find a photo or video that best “says” how you feel, whether it be a bouquet of roses or the romantic Eiffel Tower or a meaningful place for the two of you. You can even include a note to your Valentine along with your entry.
For some inspiration, check out these links:

Be My Valentine editor’s collection

Romantic Destinations editor’s collection

Valentine’s Day subcategory on Webshots

Happy Valentine’s Day from all your friends at Webshots. Our Valentine to you is the new pink skin—decorate your homepage today!

P.S. Don’t forget to send a Valentine’s Day eCard to your special someone. You can send any photo, album or slideshow from the Community or one of our many Pro Shots images as an eCard.