Playing with Pictures

Pictures and words go together absurdedly well. Each seems to be somewhat at a loss without the other. As I get into writing I feel compelled to dress it up with photos, and as I get into photos I feel inspired to write up something worthy of that caliber. It's been busy, but enjoyable. I've kinda been using it as an escape from normal life.

I found out the other day just how widespread--and deep--breach of copyright goes with images these days. Spent two hours trying to track down the original artist of a photo I love so I could properly credit it. Though I'm still lookign for that one, in the process I found out how to do that with most images, and I'm slowly now going through my Pinterest boards to repin everything from their original sources. Sometimes having a conscience sucks.

Tumblr has similar issues.

Compounding these problems, Wordpress offers plugins that automatically place a Pinterest or Tumblr feed in your sidebar or wherever else you put it. Which means bloggers may decorate their site with pictures without the photographer's permission. Furthermore, some Pinterest plugins allow the option to remove the description as well. So that's zero credit to the original artist.

I wanted to decorate my blog with Pins. Really, I did. I got so freakin' excited about it. And some aspects of the plugins I feel could be used ethically. But at minimum, the way I feel currently is that if a photo is displayed without permission then it should be credited on that same page (preferably directly beneath the photo) as well as a link back to the original source. For me personally, removing that crosses a line. Though I've read dizzying amounts of info on copyright, the best rule of thumb I keep coming back to is: in what ways would I feel comfortable someone else using my images without my permission? And then I follow those guidelines.

Today was also the first time I watermarked a photo! Not even sure I did it right; I've been learning to use GIMP for photo editing and I just followed a tutorial I dredged up through google. Slightly dated, but I managed to figure it out. Main thing is I didn't want the watermark to intrude on the photo, detracting the beholder from enjoying it. Now that I'm aware of the issues, I'm really glad to see identifiable watermarks, mine or others'. Plus it makes that photo look so damn important.

The majority of my web traffic so far has been from Pinterest, actually.

As I enjoy myself on Pinterest and Tumblr separate from my blog (each with differing restrictions and advantages) I realized the other day that some people might have a favorite social media, and that might be the only place they follow me. As such, I should still try to make sure I get excerpts of my blog posts there. It's been interesting to try this on Pinterest. My attempts thus far are painfully amateur, but then again I've never done graphic design before. All this is a learning curve that will be over with in a month's time.

A picture is worth a thousand words, yet worth twice that if bundled with a goodly passel of verbal artistry. Achieving the latter sounds like my idea of fun.

Meme Woes

I hate memes.

Goodness, I'm going to regret saying that. Let me try again:

Memes are not typically a good fit for my blog.

There we go. Better?

My first experience with memes was from consuming blogs rather than writing them. I'd feel like I'd come to know a blogger and had a great appreciation for their content. But slowly, it would begin to be taken up by a bunch of fake happy excitement about participation in a meme. I say fake happy because I would notice their personality and writing style change. And gradually, their blog would become more meme and less of them, until I couldn't be bothered to read anymore. My favorite author might be there physically, but they've left the building as far as this reader was concerned.

Memes are great as community projects, but I'm seeing two things that are really important: 1) maintaining the individuality of a blog, and 2) ensuring the meme fits well into the blog and the author's style.

When I began blogging at first I wrote off all memes and contented myself with displaying my enthusiasm for the blogging community in other ways, namely by tweets and comments. But two in particular have piqued my interest lately - the Review Roundup and Toy with me Tuesday. Now that I have something akin enough to a review scheduled for publishing, I have the chance to actually consider participating in the Review Roundup. But it requires each person to post an entire list of links on their blog. As I'm subscribed to blogs, I keep getting the same post with the same links from different blogs. It feels spammy to me. It's something I don't want to subject readers to, because I don't like being the reader on the receiving end of it. A button to "click for more" is a lot less intrusive, and I plan to get around to suggesting it to dizzygirl.

The other one, Toy with Me Tuesday, as had my attention since I first heard of it and I've enjoyed people's posts when participating even if some of them do come off as a little corny/forced. I was toying with the idea of participating, but it didn't feel right until I happened to snap a photo on a whim the other day that I realized would be perfect for it. Eagerly, I read up on the guidelines.

Here's the problem: I have a weird personal thing about referring to sex toys as "toys". I'm okay with it in conversation, but on my blog I'd just rather not. It feels like it indicates they're frivolous, as if they aren't currently essential to my sense of wellbeing, as if my doctor didn't recognize a huge improvement in my health when I began using them and told me that I should continue. Maybe if I didn't come from a culture that told me they were superfluous (at best) then I'd be less sensitized to it. Nevertheless, including a button of a picture with "sex toys" spelled out in the sand with said items just doesn't feel right on my blog. Other blogs have a fun, happy-go-lucky atmosphere and that's totally cool and it fits well. But on my blog? Nope.

I emailed Nymphomaniac saying I'd love to participate but requesting that I could just include a link to Toy With Me Tuesday instead of the banner. It'd be completely within her rights to refuse it, but I'm hoping she allows it because it really would be fun to join in a meme that I feel suits both me and my blog.

Maybe I don't hate memes after all--perhaps I'm just hopelessly picky instead. Comforting thought, that.