If you want to be considered a great photographer (or even a good one, for that matter) you need to make sure you have these three key elements in your arsenal:

1. Photography equipment e.g. camera, lens, post-processing software, etc
2. Some photography education e.g. tutorials, classes, workshops, photo tours, etc., along with the experience in the field.
3. Your own portfolio website.

Attention to these three elements is what separates the pros from the amateurs when it comes to photography.

Now, when you are starting out, you might think that the first point on this list is the most important and spend all of your money on gear. That’s what camera manufacturers are always telling you: want a better picture? – Buy a new camera.

More seasoned hobbyists spend their time and money on the first two areas. They love to buy new gear, but they also want to know how to become a better photographer. They sign up to webinars and classes, buy tutorials and attend workshops, in the hope that they will learn the techniques that will turn them into a pro.

However, it is the professional photographers who understand that the third element on the list is actually the most important, and they tend to be the ones who will prioritize building their portfolio rather than leaving it to the end. They understand that the skill of taking good pictures is different from the skill of getting a paid client or of getting recognized as a good photographer. They aren’t concerned with constantly upgrading their equipment or signing up to every single webinar going, they recognize that the end goal is to get their photos seen.

They know that nobody cares what camera you shoot with, what lens you are using, or what classes have you taken. If somebody wants to hire you as a photographer, the only thing they want to see is your portfolio.

Your Facebook and Instagram accounts are great for displaying your latest shots, but your pages look different every day, so you can’t control what clients will see. Most clients will expect a professional photographer to have a portfolio.

Having a portfolio website already gives you a huge advantage over most photographers, and if your site looks professional, you’ve got a good chance of getting in front of a client once they’ve seen what you can offer.

Even non-commercial photographers know that one of the first things they need is a portfolio website. Even if people are not going to buy your shots, you still want to be able to display them in the best way possible and to show who you are as a photographer. Even if your only audience is your family and friends, you still want them to love your photography, don’t you? So do what professionals are doing and build a portfolio website.

A portfolio website is not the sign of a commercial photographer, but the sign of a great photographer. Having your own website will give you a sense of confidence, gravitas, pride, and recognition, it really is that much of a game-changer. The best part is that you can have your portfolio website published tomorrow.

Discover how, with an investment of just 90 minutes of your time, you can get your website designed, built and published.

Get your 90-Minute Portfolio book

Here at SlickPic, we have been helping photographers get their photos online since 2010, and now we’re offering an incredible deal where our designers will build a stunning, professional portfolio website for you at no additional cost when you join as a Portfolio plan member. See some sites that we’ve built for our customers: https://www.slickpic.com/portfolio-websites/

Our Pro members will have all the tools to build their own site from our easy-to-use website builder. Completely free for you to use and build as many sites as you like, all hosted on SlickPic.

And we should know; we’ve been providing portfolio websites and photo-sharing tools for great photographers since 2010.

There really is no excuse, so join the SlickPic family and request your website today!

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Why do a 365 Photo Challenge? Let’s be honest. New Year’s resolutions do not really work. We opt to do something, but as time goes by, this activity becomes less satisfying. However, if there was a way to improve your photography skills, would it be worth sticking to for an entire 365 days?

This is where the 365 Photo Challenge comes in. The idea is to take and post a photo every single day. Whether you choose a certain genre to focus on or just shoot everyday things around you, it is a fun way to keep busy. Apart from that, the 365 Photo Challenge offers a number of advantages, so why not start today?

Practice makes perfect

This doesn’t require much explanation. The more photos you take, the better you will become at it. Part of this is getting to know your camera and its capabilities even better.  If you are new to photographing and editing, this all becomes much easier with time – just stick to it and don’t give up.

Reflection on the year that was

The 365 Photo Challenge serves as a photo diary so at the end of the year you can look back at the year that was and reflect. It is often difficult to remember what happened during the year with our rushed lifestyles.

Try new things

The 365 Photo Challenge will force you to try different things, as you can’t take the same photos every day. It will push the boundaries and allow you to try different angles, compositions, lighting techniques. A good way to be inspired is to look at the work of other photographer’s right here on SlickPic.

Becoming more observant

When you shoot every day, you will become more aware of your surroundings. You might even see the mundane everyday things in and around the house in a new light. The 365 Photo Challenge will teach you to look at everything around you simply because you have to shoot something.

That perfect photo

Have you ever wished that you were the person that took that beautiful image at the exhibition? If you commit to freezing a moment in time every single day of the year, chances are that you might be a lot closer to having that brilliant image as reward for your efforts.

Need more inspiration?

The easiest way to get started with your 365 Photo Challenge is to grab your camera every time you go out. Alternatively, if you don’t have it with you, simply use your phone. With the advancement of technology, many phones can perform just as well, if not better than some cameras.

Get started now

Starting your 365 Photo Challenge is easy with SlickPic!

Upload your photo at the end of each day. Once a month you can share your albums with your family and friends to make sure you stick to the challenge.

Start your 365 Project now with SlickPic. From the Organizer, create your Project 365 album. Inside this album you can create additional albums for each month. You can start any day of the year, but once you start, keep yourself committed to upload every single day.

How To Create a 365 Photo Challenge Project.

Or read more: How to create 365 Challenge on SlickPic, Step by Step instructions to continue reading for  step by step instructions.

The post 365 Photo challenge: Take a photo a day – you will thank us for it later appeared first on SlickPic Digital Photography School.

Click here for a short How-To video or continue reading for step by step instructions:

1. Go to Organizer – click Organizer on the top menu

2. Click Album Menu (1) and Create new album “Project 365″(2)

Once created, refresh the screen and it will look like this:

3. Now Click the Project 365 album to open it and Create albums for the first month inside Project 365 album.

Type in the month you’re starting the project. i.e. January (if you start on January) into the popup. You’ll see the album is created inside of your Project 365 album:

Here’s how the first album looks:

Now, you are ready to upload your photos to this album. When the month is over, create a second album for the next month and start uploading there.

To upload photos, select your best photo from each day’s shoot and upload it by clicking the Upload button while you are inside your monthly album.

1. Open the monthly album by clicking on it
2. Click the Upload button and upload your photo. In case you mistakenly upload to another album, you can always drag and drop photos in the Organizer. If needed, please check our nifty Help section with How-To videos.

Below is a screen shot of the Upload screen: make sure you are uploading into your monthly album. Also, it’s good to check that your album is Public, if you are planning to share it publicly.

After you’ve uploaded your photos, you’re ready to share your album with friends and family. To share this album click the Share button, or you can go to the Project 365 album and share it instead. Then your friends will see the whole project and your progress.

Check out our blog post on why you should start the 365 Challenge Project:
365 Photo challenge: Take a photo a day – you will thank us for it later

Click here for a short How-To video

Happy Shooting!

The SlickPic team

The post How to create 365 Challenge on SlickPic, Step by Step instructions appeared first on SlickPic Digital Photography School.

SlickPic: Upload and Organize

When it comes to photo sharing websites or online galleries, there are just a few choices: Free and paid sites.

Free photo sharing websites – Facebook of course comes to mind first, but there are others that don’t charge money for photo sharing. Are they good for photographers? If you shoot everything you see and don’t care about your photos – free sites are good. Somebody will see your photos after the upload and then they will be lost in the billions of other photos.

Problems with free sites:

Social sites severely compress your photos, making files smaller to pay less for the storage, meaning the quality provided by your digital camera is reduced to the level of an old smartphone. Compressed images lose details. Compare images before you upload to a free site with what you see on the site and you’ll see a huge difference.

Your photos are displayed with annoying ads that take viewers’ attention away from your photos. You can’t enjoy a photo when there are thousands of ads flashing around!

SlickPic: Dashboard

If privacy is concerning for you – a social site is not the right place. Social sites make money selling your information. They don’t want you to have private photos, therefore making photos truly private is harder on social sites. Users of social sites are prone to oversharing, i.e. they think they’ve selected the right privacy options just to find out later that the photos have been shared publicly. It happens all the time when what users thought was private became public after all.

Paid photo sharing websites: Paid photo sharing sites provide additional privacy features and they allow you to have your own personal galleries. This is important because when visitors are looking at your gallery, they are not distracted by other people’s photos. It’s like you gave them your physical photo album and they see your photos the way you want them to be seen.

SlickPic: Advanced Privacy Controls

There are a few types of paid photo sharing websites:

Professional photo sharing websites that are designed for professionals, like wedding photographers, product photographers etc. You can use those professional sites and get an okay result, but you’ll have to deal with the complexity of the site that was designed with professional needs in mind.

There are photo sharing sites that are designed for photographers from amateurs to professionals created specifically for photo sharing, with all the bells and whistles, including privacy and ease of use. SlickPic is of this kind of site.

Try it now!

SlickPic: Gallery

The post Photo Sharing Website. How to start? Where to go? appeared first on SlickPic Digital Photography School.

If, in order to showcase your photos, you start scrolling through thousands of images on your phone – you are not serious. However, if you have an image hosting site or an online gallery with your hand-picked photos – people will take you seriously. Photos in a gallery have value. The unsorted images are just snapshots that will eventually die with your smartphones or laptops, or will be lost with thousands of photos in your or iCloud, Google, Facebook or other social site accounts. These are like the old time photos on film that were never printed. They’ve disappeared, taking away all the memories that went with them.

To save and showcase your photos, you need to have your own photo site with an online gallery. There is no other way around it, short of printing and putting prints in albums. You need a permanent web address (URL) with your or your screen name, for example, JohnDoePhotography.somephotogallery.com – something that you can put on your business card or just email to your friends – now you look professional.

Let me ask you again – if you spend money on camera and lenses – don’t you owe it to yourself to have something tangible to show them at, an online gallery that shows the end result of your work? Why did you buy the camera in the first place? Where are your photos? Try SlickPic now and see for yourself that you can have your gallery ready in five minutes.

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