For this new blog, I decided to post supporting images, in each of the posts. When you blog about airplanes it’s easy to post a picture of an flying airplane, but I tend to do it with a little more creativity. I enjoy picking a picture for a new blog post, but sometimes the picture picks me. When I see a picture, an idea for another post just comes up instantly.
Photo by moriza
The pictures need to let people think about the meaning behind it, but it also needs to be clear like a whistle what the connection between the post and the picture is. When people see a picture they need to feel the connection, but it should shake their brains up a bit before the complete thought behind it becomes clear.
What kind of pictures do I have to pick?
Well, this depends on the post you are writing, or have written. As I mentioned, the picture and the article must have some sort of connection. When you see the picture, it must be clear that it belongs to that article, but it’s allowed to have some sort of mystery around it.
For example, who thinks to know what the connection is between the picture of the girls staring in the water, and my post about grabbing visitors attention? You instantly see the connection, the girls have put their attention towards something, but is that all?
Flickr pictures above Google Images
Everyone that knows his or her way in the world of images knows that you’re not allowed to use all images you can find on the internet. Some images are protected by all kinds of copyrights, which makes it legally impossible to use those images.
On first sight you can’t see wether a image is protected or not and that’s the main reason why I don’t use Google Images, but Flickr for searching pictures for my blog. Flickr has a section where images are posted under Creative Commons licenses. Most of these images can be used freely, but you still need to look after what each license means.
Some licenses allow you to alter the images, but others strictly forbid editing. The most important rule in all licenses is the one that requires you to give credit to the owner of the image. This is also the reason that I link to the page on Flickr where I found the image.
How can a picture decide what article you’re going to write?
This happened to me, when I came by the picture I’ve used for my article about blogging as a long term project. A calm road, which doesn’t seem to have an end, reminded me about my blogging career. Most bloggers have a long road to go, before achieving their goals, and nobody seems to know how long that road is going to be.
Once this happens, at least to me it does, the article is almost completely written in my head. I know where I need to put more emphasys to make things clear, I know what my paragraphs will look like and so on. A picture can decide more for a article than you might think.
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I never thought about it that way. I just sort of picked a picture which I thought would fit the post.
Thanks
Picture have a lot of influence for a article, in some cases it even makes the difference between “keep on reading” and “leaving this website”.
Nice article. I must admit I have never given any further thought to using pictures on my weblogs.
Perhaps it’s an idea to start paying more attention to your pictures from now on? It’s always better to start late, than to don’t start at all.
I like how you are using the images in your blog, it fits nicely.
Good thing you are also checking the proper copyrights on a image!
Thanks Elja, I really think images take a article to another level, if used properly. Good images and good content is a perfect combination.
I love the Creative Commons license, so I post the copyright and support the owner of the picture. This way I support Creative Commons too!
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