Webshots Blog

Labor Day should really be called “Labor Day Weekend” as the party starts when you leave work on Friday and doesn’t stop until Tuesday morning. So, what are you going to do with your three full days of relaxation?

We know you’re going to take some awesome photos and videos of your friends and family, so be sure to upload them to Webshots and order some prints and gifts—we’re having a sale on everything in the store through September 4!

If you’re planning on entertaining or going camping, our fine friends at CHOW.com have the perfect recipes to impress your guest:

Let the Grilling Begin!
There should be nothing hard about grilling season. Drag the grill out of storage, check the propane tank or buy the charcoal, invite your friends, and open a beer. But this year, ditch the hot dogs and hamburgers; we’ve got two easy grilling menus from which you can mix and match, some easy-drinking wines and beers, and a gallery of easy-to-use products. Get it? Easy. Do it.

Perfect Tequila Cocktails
Margaritas? Of course. But try something new.
As summer progresses, the traffic on our Perfect Margarita recipe gets stronger. Sure, margaritas are delicious (and that recipe is especially delicious). But should we be expanding our tequila horizons? Here’s a list of tequila concoctions, some from CHOW and others from great tequila bars across the country.

Wilderness Preparedness
CHOW goes camping
Part of the fun of camping is cooking over a fire, and it’s especially fun if the food comes out especially good. We’ve developed some low-impact, high-return recipes to get you motivated to plan your next camping trip. (Fully tested in the field, too.)

Got any great traditions or your own recipes to share? Let us know in the comments section!

For some of us, today marks the beginning of a long weekend and the celebration of Labor Day. And for me, that celebration is a day off of work (as much as I love it) and an extra day to take photos and videos! So this week’s Weekend Warrior is inspired by Labor Day—and, yes, you’ll get an extra day for this one!

How it works: Each Friday at noon, we’ll post the criteria for the picture, and you’ll have until Sunday (for this challenge only, you’ll have until Monday) to take new pictures featuring all three criteria, upload them to Webshots and post a link to them in the comments section. You can submit as many photos as you like, so get off the couch, grab your camera and start snappin’!

Criteria
1. A tool
2. Macro setting
3. Something shiny

Have fun, and if you need some inspiration, check out these photos tagged “macro” on Webshots.

P.S. Your entries won’t be judged—this is just for the fun of it!

***Tag your entries with: Weekend Warrior 11, Weekend Warrior***

A year ago today, we brought you the new Webshots. The launch was a success, but more importantly, it enabled so many new features for you. Here’s a list of the 50 Top Features the redesign made possible. Let us know which ones you love the most in the comments section!

Brand-New to Webshots
1. Video
2. Slideshows

Webshots Experience
New colors

3. Red
4. Blue
5. Green
6. Black
7. Pumpkin
8. Sage
9. Teal
10. Eggplant
11. Pink

12. Reduced ad space by 40%

Homepage
13. Bigger featured photo of the day
14. Saved search history

Organization
10 Channels

15. Entertainment
16. Family
17. Good Times
18. Home & Garden
19. News
20. Outdoors
21. Pets
22. Rides
23. Sports
24. Travel

25. New dog categories based on what was most popular in our current dog collection, such as puppies.
26. Tags on individual photos and videos (in addition to albums).

Browsing Webshots
27. Recent uploads updated every hour.
28. More EXIF data, such as f-stop, exposure, focal length, flash, metering mode and dimensions. But if you don’t want to share this info, you can make it private on your options & privacy tab on your Account Page.
29. Related searches
30. Webshots interesting members

Member Homepages
31. Ability to search a member’s albums for specific terms
32. Ability to sort a member’s albums by owner-selected, newest first, oldest first, most viewed and most downloaded
33. Options for displaying album thumbnails: Two photos in full-aspect ratio with titles or 28 photos in square-thumbnail view without titles.
34. Increased character count for guestbook messages from 255 to 2,048!
35. Two-column layout enables more albums on a page for all your friends and family to see.
36. A lock icon distinguishes your private albums from your public ones.
37. Bookmark photos and videos increased to 48.

Sharing
38. A variety of embed codes for sharing photos and videos on your blog, MySpace page, etc.
39. Gigya, a fun way to share photos and videos on your blog or favorite social-networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook.

Storage
40. Premium members get an extra 500 photos and 50 videos (up to 10 minutes) and free members get an extra 100 photos and 10 videos (up to five minutes) for each month they’re a member with us—it’s our way of saying, “Thanks!”

Photo Quality
41. Bigger photos with improved image quality.

Emails
42. Webshots Roundup: Weekly roundup of the best stuff on the site
43. Alerts
44. Store newsletter
45. New look for the Pro Shots email

Search
46. Search by photo, album or video.

47. Narrow your search by channel.

Original Programming
48. Wink!
49. Know How
50. Webshots Reel

When you think of something soft, what comes to mind? Whether it’s a fluffy kitten or a puffy marshmallow, if it’s soft, you want to touch it! Keep that in mind when you’re looking for your subject in this week’s Creative Challenge: Soft Things.

We’ll announce the winning entry and feature it on the homepage on Wednesday, September 5 due to the Labor Day holiday on Monday, September 3.

Submission Guidelines
1. Our editors look for sharp, clear horizontal images that are at a minimum resolution of 800×600 (submissions can have larger resolutions than this). Currently, vertical images cannot fit in the homepage template. Therefore, we cannot publish vertical or narrow panoramic images.

2. Images with added text or images, including watermarks, logos, copyright symbols, graphic borders, frames and time stamps, will not be considered. Collages, however, are acceptable.

3. Please do not submit pictures that have already been featured on the homepage.

4. The Creative Challenge runs from 12:01 a.m. on August 29 to 3:00 p.m. on September 3 (all times PDT).

5. 3 pictures per member. Please edit your work—show us only the best!

You can easily grab the links to all pictures by copying the URL from the yellow action box on each picture page and pasting it in the blog. Click on the picture below to enlarge.

*Note: Images that don’t meet the exact guidelines can be submitted and viewed for everyone to enjoy, but please understand that we cannot publish images that don’t meet minimum guidelines on the homepage.

NEXT WEEK’S THEME: Transportation
Some members suggested the idea of having more time to take new pictures for the Creative Challenge, so we’re letting you in on next week’s theme, which is Transportation. Thanks to members akoene100 for the great suggestion! Got an idea for a Creative Challenge? Let us known on the blog!

Submitting Over the Weekend? Read This!
Some members have let me know that they’re not seeing their entires show up in the comments section right away and that they get the error message: “Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!” We have the spam filter set pretty high on the blog to protect you, so some of your comments may go into moderation over the weekend before showing up. Rest assured that we’ve received them, and they’ll show up soon! No need to repost.

What color and joy your entries in the Creative Challenge: Colors in Contrast brought us! We had fun looking over all the interesting submissions, and these three really wowed us!

#1. Out of all the submissions we received, we were most captivated with member bjclarke1’s unique approach to showing contrasting color. The use of soft lighting was used well, making is easy to pick up the facial details as well as highlight those striking eyes. Great job! We’re sure all the college football fans will love this as the season kicks off this weekend. We’ll feature this photo on the homepage on Thursday.

#2. Member gtjeddah’s entry is a classic example of illustrating contrasts. The colors of the hot air balloons are balanced so well against the blue sky that they just seem to leap off the screen. We also really like the overall composition of this photo as the two different sizes of balloons balance each other out quite nicely. Nice work!

#3. The vibrant combination of red and green in member jacrabit4’s photo of a water lily is truly eye-catching. The tight focus and well composed image really jumped out at us. Excellent!

Thanks to everyone for sharing your entries with us. You’re all winners at Webshots!

Have you ever taken a close-up of a friend that turned out a little fuzzy? Then here’s a quick tip to getting sharper photos: Instead of filling the viewfinder with your subject at close range, try stepping back a few feet and zooming in.

For example, I photographed our intern and co-creator of the Webshots Reel Marco using a Canon PowerShot Pro1 in the auto setting from a couple of feet away.

Marco: Too Close
Then, I stepped approximately five feet back and zoomed in on his face to the same approximate area.

Marco: Zoomed In

Comparing the two, you can see the greater detail and sharpness in the second, zoomed-in image. To view either photo in a larger size, click on the image and then select view full size.

An added bonus was that Marco was much more relaxed when the camera wasn’t so close to his face. For portraits, it’s easier to capture the natural personality if the camera doesn’t invade the subject’s comfort zone.

The end of August is an important time here at Webshots. For one, we celebrated our 12th birthday on August 23. Also, the one-year anniversary of the Webshots redesign is coming up on August 29. Plus, fall is just around the corner, and we know how much Webshots members love this season.

In celebration of these three big occasion, we’re introducing three new shades to color your Webshots experience: teal (for our birthday), sage (for the redesign) and pumpkin (for fall).

We hope you enjoy your new choices, and we’d love to hear which new color is your favorite, so let us know in the comments.

Cheers,

Your friends at Webshots

Twelve Apostles, Great Ocean Road, Victoria

Webshots celebrated its 12-year anniversary yesterday, but we’re keeping the party going all week long. Well, for 12 days, actually. Check out the post about it, and be sure to head on over to the Webshots store to save 12% on your entire order—that’s our gift to you for being such great members.

So this week’s Weekend Warrior is dedicated to the wonderful 12 years of Webshots!

How it works: Each Friday at noon, we’ll post the criteria for the picture, and you’ll have until Sunday to take new pictures featuring all three criteria, upload them to Webshots and post a link to them in the comments section. You can submit as many photos as you like, so get off the couch, grab your camera and start snappin’!

Criteria
1. A reference to 12 (in a name, age, place, number, etc.)
2. Your favorite photography technique (hey, Webshots is all about you!)
3. One, some or all of the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water

Have fun, and if you need some inspiration, check out these photos tagged “twelve” on Webshots.

P.S. Your entries won’t be judged—this is just for the fun of it!

***Tag your entries with: Weekend Warrior 10, Weekend Warrior***

Webshots is 12 years old today, so let’s celebrate with all the cool birthday-related features on the site:

Photos of members celebrating their birthday.

See what’s in the stars for Webshots!

Send us a birthday eCard!

Wish us Happy Birthday on our message board.

Don’t forget the gift…a gift for you, that is! To keep the party going, Webshots is giving you 12% off your entire order at the Webshots store for 12 days! Here’s what we’re loving right now:

Posters
Stickers
Postcards
Photobooks

The offer runs from August 23, 2007 at 12:01 a.m. to September 4, 2007 at 11:59 p.m., so you have plenty of time to pick the perfect gift!

Here’s to many more years of Webshots….now, let’s eat some cake!

The contrast of complimentary colors is an effective compositional element in color photography, just as tone is in black-and-white photography. When placed together, colors with opposite characteristics contrast strongly. Each color accentuates the qualities of the other, and the result can be very dramatic.

For this week’s Creative Challenge, use a primary color wheel and seek unique complimentary colors in contrast. Feel free to include neutrals, such as black, white and gray, in the scene, but emphasize opposing colors. Here are some examples to get your creative juices flowing:

Red and Green

Yellow and Purple

Orange and Blue

Look for photographic opportunities that showcase warm and cool colors that fill the entire frame.

We’ll feature the winning entry on the homepage on Wednesday, August 30 due to the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina being on August 29.

Submission Guidelines
1. Our editors look for sharp, clear horizontal images that are at a minimum resolution of 800×600 (submissions can have larger resolutions than this). Currently, vertical images cannot fit in the homepage template. Therefore, we cannot publish vertical or narrow panoramic images.

2. Images with added text or images, including watermarks, logos, copyright symbols, graphic borders, frames and time stamps, will not be considered. Collages, however, are acceptable.

3. Please do not submit pictures that have already been featured on the homepage.

4. The Creative Challenge runs from 12:01 a.m. on August 22 to 3:00 p.m. on August 27 (all times PDT).

5. 3 pictures per member. Please edit your work—show us only the best!

You can easily grab the links to all pictures by copying the URL from the yellow action box on each picture page and pasting it in the blog. Click on the picture below to enlarge.

*Note: Images that don’t meet the exact guidelines can be submitted and viewed for everyone to enjoy, but please understand that we cannot publish images that don’t meet minimum guidelines on the homepage.

NEXT WEEK’S THEME: Soft Things
Some members suggested the idea of having more time to take new pictures for the Creative Challenge, so we’re letting you in on next week’s theme, which is Soft Things. Thanks to members summerjade and Kezzarama for the great suggestion! Got an idea for a Creative Challenge? Let us known on the blog!

Submitting Over the Weekend? Read This!
Some members have let me know that they’re not seeing their entires show up in the comments section right away and that they get the error message: “Duplicate comment detected; it looks as though you’ve already said that!” We have the spam filter set pretty high on the blog to protect you, so some of your comments may go into moderation over the weekend before showing up. Rest assured that we’ve received them, and they’ll show up soon! No need to repost.