Daily Archives: May 23, 2009

Photo-A-Day

Carousel

6 Comments
Carousel
Photo-A-Day #1506

I love having a day where you have nothing planned. We are such over-scheduled people that we sometimes cannot have fun in the moment because we have to rush off to something else. Today was one of those rare days where we had nowhere to be and no agenda. Rather than bum around the house we decided to take advantage of our Zoo New England passes. We took a ride into Boston to go to Franklin Park Zoo.

The zoo is nearly 100 years old (100 years in 2012) and it is one pretty nice zoo. There are many excellent exhibits and a wide variety of animals. We immediately saw Zebras and Wildebeasts in a large habitat. There were even viewing stations up high so that you could see the animals better. I think they should have had a few of those for some of the more exciting animals like the tigers or the lion though. We spent about 5 hours there walking around, taking photos, having lunch and of course riding the carousel. The carousel is Eva’s newest obsession. She never tires of it and she wants to ride by herself. She was pushing my hands and Allison’s hands off of that middle pole down each animal. We had to hold our hands directly behind her and out of sight to make sure that we were right there if she started to slip. She did not, she held tight and went round and round for 6 separate spins on the carousel. She rode the Lion, The Tiger, The Dog (2x) the Zebra and one of the horses. Get the all day pass and just keep riding, it is worth it at $6.00 if it makes your kid happy and it certainly made Eva one happy camper.

You can check out my latest gallery on Flickr with all of our photos from the trip to Franklin Park Zoo.

Blogging

Your Best Face Forward

6 Comments
SocialSpark Avatar

For this installment of SocialSpark Saturdays I ‘m talking about your avatar. I’ve now looked at over 19,000 SocialSpark profiles and do you know what is a common denominator for all of the Premium Bloggers and more successful bloggers? Their avatars. Successful bloggers know that blogging is a personal endeavor and putting their own face up front is important.

I’m talking about a full on image of their face not just an eye, chin or some obscure part of the face. Blogging is a very visual medium where advertisers and other bloggers are drawn to your images immediately. Do you really want to represent yourself as a Simpsons or Southpark character? To me that shows a blogger who is not serious about their craft. It is sloppy so don’t do it.

When thinking about your avatar take a look at the premium bloggers, the izea insiders and then go to the networks area and take a look at bloggers in each network. You are going to see bloggers projecting strong confident images of themselves. They are also going to have well cropped images.

When you upload an image to SocialSpark you will have the option of cropping a large image and a small image. Take the time to do this properly so that your image appears the way that you want it to appear.

What not to use for an avatar:

  • Default images that come with Windows.
  • Cartoon Characters*
  • Sparky or Leaving avatar blank
  • Your 1985 prom picture
  • Your kids*
  • Your Dog*
  • Your Cat*
  • Any photo taken more than 2 years ago
  • A cameraphone photo

    A blurry, dark or small photo blown up

  • A Photo of you at the Grand Canyon… to scale

I put a few (*) up there because some people blog about their family so photos of their kids are fine, as long as the blogger is in the photo with their kids, dogs, and cats (unless the blogger is a cat, dog or kid). Cartoon characters are fine if they are custom characters of the blogger, not licensed characters. Your avatar represents who you are and they present you in the best possible light.

What you should use for your avatar.

  • Have a friend help you or set up a tripod or use an Xshot to take a picture of yourself
  • Dress for success
  • Smile
  • Get up close and personal
  • A plain non distracting background

You want to make sure that the image you put out there for other bloggers and advertisers to see is an image that people want to see. Present an open friendly image and just see how many more people want to interact with you.

I am an IZEA Insider and my crew is called the “I’m Not A Famous Blogger” Crew and I want YOU to join me. Here are simple instructions on how exactly you can join my IZEA Insider Crew on SocialSpark.