My Footprint in Social Media

Over the past few weeks in my Social Media course I have been learning about the most popular social media websites and applications at the moment and expanding my information to each. In this day and age, people rely on social media to communicate with the rest of the world which is why staying up to date with these websites is important if you want people to know who you are and what you’re doing.

From blog posting on WordPress to sharing photos on Behance, I have connected each of my profiles to the other for the easiest way for people to get to know me and to grow my fan base.

Without all of the social media applications and websites we have nowadays, half of the artists and celebrities would be unknown to the rest of the world. Thanks to social media, everybody and their uncle has the opportunity to share their work to the world, expand their fan base, and have the dream job they’ve always wanted.

Online Reputation Management

Your online reputation is extremely important. Not only to your personal life, but also to your career. The more personal things you post on social media sights, the more dirt your employer can find on you. There is nothing wrong with sharing your thoughts and feelings and activities for the day via Facebook and twitter, but you always have to think about what you’re saying, who you’re saying it to, and all of the people that can see it. Keep in mind that what you’re posting will be online forever and even years later people and can go back to see the kind of stuff you were posting. Before every status update, tweet, video or any other post on the internet, think to yourself, ‘What will my grandma think of this?’.

My First Podcast

Today I recorded my first podcast with my buddies Josh, Matt & Ernesto discussing the possibility of the Durham Transit taking away bus passes for student transportation. We recorded it on a portable ZOOM H6 microphone which sounded pretty good for the environment we were in. We then imported the audio into Adobe Audition to cut and edit it to sound like a smooth recording. It was interesting creating this recording. It wasn’t a topic I knew a lot about which restricted me from saying very much, but I like the idea of recording during a conversation or debate to broadcast to others so they can understand somebody else’s opinion and possibly create more debate around it. All in all I enjoyed the recording process and I would like to record further podcasts, possibly on topics I know more about.

Viral Video

I shot a video today that is intended to go viral. I’ve never made a video with the thought of it going viral, but I enjoyed coming up with different ideas and putting together something that I hope others will enjoy. With the help of Ernesto, Josh and Matt, please enjoy our video and help it go viral.

Water Photography

Water Photography

I recently interviewed a fellow Durham College student, and good friend of mine, Jason, asking him about what he looks for in a good and interesting blog. Jason’s answer? Well, let me show you.

Water Photography is everywhere we look. It’s in textbooks. It’s in advertisements. It’s in art. It’s EVERYWHERE. Whether you’re sitting at home watching a biography on sharks or online searching for your next vacation spot, the chances are you’re looking at a picture of water.

Creativity with water in art is endless. There are so many possibilities with water that no two photos of water will ever look the same. Depending on how creative you are as a photographer, you don’t even need to use photoshop to make your water photos look surreal and sometimes even fake. There are so many options on your camera to change that will make the water in your photo look extremely different. For example, if you are photographing continuous drops of water and you want to capture a drop in mid air without having an motion blur on it, you can simply crank up the shutter speed on your camera and voila, the drop will be crisp and frozen in time. But instead of capturing water in a split second and freezing it for the photo, why not set up your camera on a tripod, make your shutter speed really low, and let your camera capture the water flowing. The result of this (see below) is breathtaking, and extremely creative and unique.

Water photography doesn’t always have to be used for creative and artistic purposes. Most of the time when we see photos of water, it is for some sort of advertisement. More often than not, when you are planning your next relaxing vacation, you aren’t online looking at pictures of desserts and busy cities. It is more likely that the photos you’re looking through include a big, blue, beautiful body of water that almost seems to be calling your name. The reason this is is because the water in the photo looks so welcoming and relaxing that it makes you want to go swim in that body of water. But depending on how well the picture was photographed and how beautiful you make the body of water look will determine how many people will decide to choose that location as their next vacation spot.

But that’s not all. If you’re a marine biologist or just plain intrigued by underwater creatures and other living organisms, water photography is still a huge part of your life. If it weren’t for the amazing technology of scuba diving gear and underwater cameras, we would know absolutely nothing about what really lies under the surface. Although not every photographer has the gear, or even the body of water to be taking unique underwater photos, they are still amazing to look at and extremely educational.

As you can see, water photography truly is everywhere. It may not always be very obvious, but water is always included in photography in some way. Without water, humans wouldn’t survive…and neither would photography.

Herb Ritts

Today I researched Herb Ritts, a famous photographer in the 80’s to early 2000’s. This is one of my favourite images because the nudity in this image seems acceptable. The sheet acts as a layer of clothes covering up enough detail that you could almost consider this shot to be not nude, but rather an everyday stroll on the shore.

for more information, visit:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Herb-Ritts/415841218548667

Apps for Twitter

Other than Twitter itself, there are several Twitter applications that can help make your Twitter experience even better. After researching a few in class, such as HootSuite and TwitPic, the most handy one I came across was the TwitBlock application. Twitter already has many different options of posting, such as links and photos, which is why I don’t think HootSuite or TwitPic are entirely necessary to enjoy Twitter. If you are a serious Twitter user and you have followed many people and worked your way up to have many people following you, TwitBlock is the perfect app to ensure all of your followers and the people you’re following are real people, and not computers, or ‘bots’. TwitBlock simply asks you to sign into your Twitter account, and it quickly scans through all of your followers and tells you who the real users are, and who are the fake ones. It even gives you the option of entering specific Twitter accounts if you are skeptical about a specific user. In my opinion, TwitBlock is the most useful application for a serious Twitter user. 

http://twitblock.org

First Post

ye, son.