iPhoto, uPhoto

December 15, 2011 10:01 AM

Please help us get going so our blog doesn't remain some neat idea that we never made happen!

A long-distance friend and I are thinking of starting a blog together as a fun way to keep in touch. It won't necessarily be a private blog, but it isn't something we are trying to present to others - more like a shared scrapbook or journal or something like that. We both like the idea of photo correspondence and thought we would ask the brilliant hive mind for some suggestions as far as what we might photograph, how often we post, whether we should have a theme, or change themes every week... anything really. Suggest away!

Things to take into consideration: we are not professional photographers, we will both mostly be using our iphones, our common interests are vast and varied so the subject matter could be anything. To be somewhat specific, we both love: crafting, cooking, reading, writing, music, film, photography, interior decoration, people watching, psychology, coffee, tea, walking, thrifting, chocolate, creativity of most any kind, beautiful details, simple joys, all the little things in life, and on and on…

We've seen a couple of blogs where people simply take pictures of the same thing on the same day and then post them, creating a diptych of saltshakers, the moon, or whatever. Although we both like this idea, it would be great to hear about other approaches to correspondence photo blogging.

Incorporating text is something we've thought about as well.

Also, any suggestions as far as which platform would be best suited to this type of blog?

Thanks in advance!

posted by seriousmoonlight to media & arts (6 answers total)

Incorporating text is something we've thought about as well.

If you do this, you will probably tempted to embed the text directly into the image with Photoshop or whatnot. That's fine. Just make sure you stick the full text somewhere into the HTML as well. God knows years from know you'll remember the phrase you used, but not the year or the content of the photo or anything else, and that'll be the only way you can look it up.
posted by griphus at 10:12 AM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

Heh! This is exactly how I started blogging. (MY FRIEND MADE ME.)

We did some hilarious hand-built things where we each had a "side" of the page.

But my advice is: KEEP IT SIMPLE. Don't give yourselves rules; DON'T give yourselves goals or quotas; don't make a THING out of it, or else one of you will mess up or whatever and then you'll quit and then you'll be annoyed and then there'll be ONE MORE dead thing cluttering up the internet.

Just do it. And it'll evolve.

Also do the rest of us a damn favor and have the site label clearly which one of you is posting what AND you know, put WHO YOU ARE somewhere on it. (Damn kids and their Tumblrs with no email addresses and stuff, ugh.)
posted by RJ Reynolds at 10:22 AM on December 15, 2011 [3 favorites]

Agreed with RJ Reynolds, keep it simple. I tried doing a collaborative blog with a friend and it never really got off the ground, and I think one of the reasons was that we front-loaded way too much structure; categories, sections, etc... logically they made sense, but I think it gave us that "scary blank page" complex; too many empty categories to fill.

If you have to have a hook, what about free association? Look at your friend's latest photo, make an image of the first thing that comes to your mind... or something like the Flickr Tenuous Links group.

But yeah, just start posting! You can always go back and tag/categorize posts if some kind of structure emerges.
posted by usonian at 11:19 AM on December 15, 2011

This project sounds perfect for Tumblr. It's super simple, you can have multiple authours, and if you wanted you can password protect your blog. Plus it runs on HTML, so tweaking your theme will be easy peasy, should you want to. Also, Tumblr is perfect for images, especially images that you would never print (like iphone ones).

Good luck!
posted by emilycardigan at 11:58 AM on December 15, 2011 [1 favorite]

I think one of the reasons was that we front-loaded way too much structure; categories, sections, etc... logically they made sense, but I think it gave us that "scary blank page" complex; too many empty categories to fill.


This is an incredibly important aspect to avoid. What you need to do is just to do it. Any structure and habits will evolve naturally. Just write something. Then write something else. Don't wait for the other person to make an entry before you do your next one, either.
posted by msbrauer at 12:53 PM on December 15, 2011

Keeping it simple and staying away from rules seems to be the way to go on this one. I can totally see the dangers of making a THING out of it.

We've looked into Tumblr, the fact that it's simple makes it very appealing, and I think we will probably end up using it.

Thanks for the advice everyone!
posted by seriousmoonlight at 2:01 PM on December 16, 2011