Sierra Club

Sierra Club Nature Photography Presentation by Richard Wong

With great honor, I'm proud to announce that I was invited by the Sierra Club to give a lecture on nature photography. This event will be taking place at 7 p.m. on March 11th at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Culver City, California. If you live in L.A. or the Southern California region then feel free to stop on by.

To be able to have my name associated with the organization founded by John Muir is a very humbling thought. Everyone from John Muir to David Brower to Ansel Adams to Galen Rowell achieved great things for our country so it is really them that I owe this opportunity to. Also I'd like to thank Paul Breitkreuz who recommended me.

Press Release

Hope to see you there!

Gallery Slideshow

While updating my image archive today, I discovered that Photoshelter added a flash gallery slideshow feature so I put one together: Travel Gallery Slideshow

Click on the full screen tab for the best viewing experience.

Photography Website Re-Launch

I would like to announce that I have relaunched my photography website: Richard Wong Photography: Image Boutique

The previous design was a very personal one for me as it related to my family history but it didn't integrate well with other forms of media. I needed something where I could tie together all of my online and physical marketing materials in a cohesive manner. I also wanted a contemporary design not unlike that of a boutique you might find at The Grove. So after nearly four years of the old website, I have re-branded my website.

This is the start of many new things. I have launched a "Merch" section where you can purchase my magazine currently and will eventually be accompanied by other items. I also plan to add more multimedia. Eventually I also hope to have a portfolio website developed and leave this site as an e-commerce website.

One thing for certain is that for future heavy-duty stuff, I will consider outsourcing the development of my ideas so I can concentrate more on the photography and less time behind a computer.

New Redwood Coast Web Gallery

If you've been following my blog for the past month, you probably know that I went on my first trip up to California's North Coast. So now I have uploaded a gallery of images onto my website:

Redwood Coast Photos

Thanks.

The Golden State Photos Magazine

I just got the proof back from my first magazine and I am impressed with how well the photos were reproduced on the pages. I've heard a lot of horror stories about other photographers not being happy with the print quality of their images from various book publishers and magazines so I'm happy the report that there are no such issues with the MagCloud publisher.

The Golden State Photos Magazine is now available for purchase for $5.50 and features several full and double-page spreads worth of photography. While they aren't quite as large as my 12 x 18 and larger sized archival fine art prints, the magazine provides a much better viewing experience than seeing the photos on the web in my opinion.

"Like Heaven" Travel Photography Video

"Like Heaven" Travel Photography Video

Introducing my 4th YouTube video. I thought this would be a cool way to bring some of my travel photos to life. Still pictures might be a static medium, but they don't have to look like it.

Update 7/11/08: I uploaded a re-mixed version.

Landscape Photography Fine Art Print

Picture: Richard Wong Fine Art Landscape Photography 24 x 36 Matte Framing

Taking a break from the Northern California pictures for a few days. In the meantime, this is me framing a 16 x 20 Lightjet Matte print with a 24x36 inch Exeter Museum Mat.

10 Free, 12x18 Archival Lightjet Fine Art Prints of Your Choice

For every 100 people who "become a fan" of my Facebook artist page, your name will be entered in a drawing for a 12x18 Lightjet matte print of your choice from my website: www.rwongphoto.com. This will continue until there are 1,000 Facebook fans. So tell your friends about my Facebook artist page and hopefully we'll be giving out up to 10, $150 prints! Plus, for every friend referral your name will be dropped into the hat twice if you let me know who you referred.



Thanks for partaking in this experiment. Hopefully we'll at least get to the first 100. :-)

Photography Videos

Scroll down a few blog entries and you might have noticed the photography videos I've been making. Well now I created a gallery specifically for the videos. They can be accessed within one click off my homepage now. www.rwongphoto.com

And here is the new video gallery page: Photography Videos

My First YouTube Video - Landscape Photography Slideshow

I took it upon myself to scribble down a few chord changes and then record my own background track last night. I picked up an effects pedal from Guitar Center the other day and recorded this while plugged directly into the computer. I'm still trying to figure out how to cut out the silent part at the beginning so I apologize in advance.

The images got too compressed for my tastes after uploading to YouTube so I'll give it another shot some other day and see if anything can be done about that. In the meantime I'll work on generating some more tracks for the slide shows... :-p

Free Magnets Available

Photo Magnet: Couple About to Share a Romantic Kiss Next to Lifeguard Tower at Huntington Beach

I ordered some new business cards recently and the print company threw in a stack of photo magnets for free so now I am offering them for free as well! There is some weird faded text on the magnet for some reason but they're free so what the heck?

To get your magnet, send me a self addressed stamped envelope. Email me first though: Richard (at) rwongphoto.com

Thanks.

New Screen Saver for Sale: Colors of the Southwest

My mom's co-worker used to live up at Big Bear Lake and bought a Big Bear computer screen saver because he missed the place so much. He let me borrow the disc the other day and that gave me an idea for creating my own screensaver to sell off of my website.

Product: Colors of the Southwest Computer Screensaver

This "Ken Burns" cinematic-style screensaver features 25 beautiful southwestern images from Arizona, California and New Mexico set to the seductive rhythms of latin music. Most of the images on the cd can be found on my "Colors of the Southwest" photo gallery. The price is $9.99 + $1 shipping and handling. Previous clients and friends can get the cd for the discounted rate of $4.99 + $1 s+h. I accept credit cards for payments through my website.

Click on the photo to access the product page.

Thanks.


Added 8/23/07: Product test research done by Ron Niebrugge has prompted me to include screensaver installation instructions with the disc. Users with a dual monitor setup and Mac operating systems will be the next technical support topics that I will attempt to address.

ColorMakesFlowers.com Website Launch

My mom's custom floral arranging and craft design website has partially launched. I created two gallery pages yesterday and added the About Page. I finally got around to photographing her work the past few days and will be adding more to the website shortly.

Feel free to take a look at the website: Color Makes Flowers: Fresh Custom Floral Arrangements & Silk Flower Design Arranging

The site is a little more "feminine" than my own website.

Graduation Day Floral Arrangement: ColorMakesFlowers.com

Print Advertising: Richard Wong Photography

Photo: Richard Wong Photography Print Advertising

I had this print ad idea for my website. The intent is to generate awareness of the fact that I'm a California photography specialist among other things and my website has the searchable photo archive database. Click the photo link to see the big pdf. It's about 5mb, and that was saved at a level "1" compression!

I basically took a lot of captions from my California photos and pasted them into a word document. Then I tried to copy the whole document and paste it into this file you see above but my computer kept crashing on me when I did that. So I ended up only able to copy and paste one page over and over again. Even then, the RAM was being maxed out on my computer. I need to fine-tune the design and get higher resolution images on there but you can see the basic idea as is. This is kinda an inside joke for those photographers who do online stock photography.

I don't know if I will run this in an actual publication or not but since I currently do no traditional advertising for my website, it might be worth exploring after I come back from the coastal photography trip. Communcation Arts would be the most prestigious place to run the ad but they're probably outside of my budget and not quite my target audience, but I'm sure there are some publications geared toward editorial photo buyers. I'll have to head over to the pro stock photo forums to find out.

Added 6/30/07: Ron Niebrugge had a good suggestion regarding the body copy so I made some changes. I don't really like the way the block of text looks with the shorter amount of copy so I need to mess with the layout more next week. I'll also have to make myself a high resolution film strip at a later date because the current file is of a lower resolution than the photos. The ad has to be professional looking otherwise it wouldn't be worth placing in a publication. That would be like corporate companies deciding to cut costs by buying photos for pennies. It's not worth jeopardizing a company's professional reputation for the sake of saving a few bucks. It takes years to build a strong brand, and only one cheap photo to destroy it. Rights-Managed stock photos are the best way to go if you are serious about your business.

Notice something different?

I was looking through the PhotoShelter customization tutorial yesterday and found out how to make a Favicon. A favicon is the little colorful logo next to the url on your browser bar. Most websites don't have one yet but many internet companies do nowadays. You have to have Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox to see them though so upgrade your browser if you haven't done so already. I did last night.

Here is my favicon if it isn't showing up on your url browser bar: (me pretending to take pictures at Red Rock Canyon)

The reason why it was on the PhotoShelter customization tutorial is because since the archive is hosted on a different domain name, having your branded favicon on both your domain and on your photoshelter archive helps to retain your branding. Most of the time nobody would probably notice but it is a nice subtle little touch to eliminate any potential confusion for the difference in url names. Plus when someone adds your link to their favorite links, your favicon shows up next to your site name. Makes it a little easier to standout among the crowd.

Here is a site that tells you how to make your own favicon: How to Create a Favicon

PhotoShelter Amendment & Floral Arrangements

So I was a little out of date regarding the Digital Railroad Marketplace v.s. PhotoShelter comparisons. Previously when I had looked at PhotoShelter last year they didn't have a marketplace stock agency feature so I assumed that only DRR had one. Well I was wrong. PhotoShelter has a marketplace as well, it's on their first page which I apparently had paid no attention to yesterday while signing up for the service. LoL. I like their search engine better than DRR's because it's fast. DRR is so slow that I stopped searching their site after a page or two of sluggish load times. DRR content-wise though seems like a better match for what I shoot, but if I'm driving traffic from my main website it doesn't matter so much. It will be interesting to see what or if any sales result from the PhotoShelter marketplace. Once more and more editors get on-board with PhotoShelter I'm predicting that sales should be at least on par with Alamy's. Half of what I have sold on Alamy is for UK publications because they are based in the UK, so it will be nice to have a stock agency presence in the U.S. selling my photos since all of my images are from the U.S. Okay, enough stock photo geek talk.

Photo: Graduation Day Floral Arrangement by Patty Wong

My mom and I are planning on launching a floral and silk flower arrangements business website. I don't know much about studio shooting but using the kitchen counter as a make-shift photo studio I photographed my mom's recent arrangement. Her website should be a lot more carefully designed than my own since I won't have to be managing 600 pages of html on her site. I was originally an art director when I was was going to grad school, so I'm sure I can design something to compliment her art. Search engine optimization has been something I have been heavily involved with for the past year and a half so I'm hoping we can get the site trafficked relatively quick.

Beware of Internet Scammers

Photographers with websites are frequent targets of Internet scammers. Counterfeit checks, excess payments then requesting for a wire transfer of money to make up the difference, etc… are common strategies with these lowlifes. The banks will hold the photographer responsible, regardless of who cut the check originally. Investigate thoroughly first if you are going to cash cashiers checks, money orders, etc… There’s been several threads on popular photography forums dealing with this. I’ve seen enough of comments by various photographers to know to be very cautious when it comes to financial transactions. Lastly, don’t be afraid to turn down “sales” if anything seems suspicious. This hasn’t happened to me yet, and I don’t plan on it happening either.

Here are a couple links to important information that you should read up on:

Naturescapes.net: http://www.naturescapes.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=84965

Craigslist.org: http://losangeles.craigslist.org/about/scams.html

The FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center: http://www.ic3.gov/crimeschemes.aspx

Now that we have gotten the ugly stuff out of the way, I am happy to report that Google has become my friend again. A number of my photos have been re-indexed by Google Images and doing better than before. I won’t get into great detail but Google Images is currently blowing my MSN and Yahoo searches out of the water; and those numbers aren’t too shabby either. As a result, my website visitation is increasing at a rapid rate. Since November, my number of daily visitors has nearly tripled. So thank you to everyone who stops by my site. I appreciate the support.

I’m currently prepping a big batch of files to submit to Alamy so it’s time to get back to work. I am long overdue for a submission.

The #8 Most Popular Stock Photographer Website

On photographer Ron Niebrugge's blog yesterday he pointed out a list from the Alexa web traffic ranking site that ranked the top ten most popular stock photographer websites. He was ranked #2. The list also had my website, Two-Lane Road Photography by Richard Wong ranked #8! I was pleasantly surprised and humbled to see my name up there. Thank you to everyone that has visited my site and has read my blog, I hope you continue visiting as I plan to keep documenting my travel adventures on this site for many years to come.

Click on the graphic to see the full-sized screen capture.

As always, photos on my website and blog are available for rights-managed image licensing for publications by filling out this form or emailing me for a specific image request submission.