We’ve almost fully utilised the power of Yoast’s WordPress SEO plugin. Last time, we went through some of the more advanced individual post settings and discussed why it’s important to keep certain pages and sections out of Google’s index. In a nutshell, you want Google to see the pages with lots of written content and few external links. Other pages, such as your login page, are like leaks in a faucet. They siphon off your total page rank, ultimately harming your chances of ranking well for certain photography related search terms.

Now we’re going to switch gears and have a look at internal linking and XML sitemaps. You can find those setting in the same toolbar on the bottom left of your WordPress dashboard.

What is an XML sitemap? Without getting too technical, it’s a list of all the pages on your website. You send this list to search engines so they don’t skip over the…

Photography and SEO. The two are rarely uttered in the same sentence. Photographers and other creatives often eschew the technical stuff like maintaining websites so they can do the awesome stuff like taking amazing pictures and pleasing their clients. I can’t blame you. I am you. And that’s why I’m so excited about Yoast’s new WordPress SEO Plugin.

This plugin helps you spot all of the little SEO mistakes you might be making on your WordPress website. The concept is simple. You tell the plugin which keyword you want to focus on, and it tells you whether you’re hitting the mark. If everything checks out, you’re good to go. But if there are a few bumps in the road, you’ll know about them.

With Yoast’s plugin, you don’t have to spend a lot of time wondering what you’re doing right or what you’re doing wrong. As long as you know which searches you’re trying to target, the…

All sports photographers have only one goal – to capture a moment that would last a lifetime, a photo that transcends a message to the people who will be looking at it. Sports photography has become the face of the reality of sports. It has been the mirror of many victories and success, as well as the agony of failures and defeats. With all the moments, there is an eye that sees what others cannot. As every great person starts in a humble beginning, same goes with Bob Martin.

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Karen Brook’s photography showcases the Australian outback in shades of red, blue, green and all the local colour of its pubs, festivals and locals.

Brook is most notably the official photographer for the Birdsville Races and with the next event pending in September this year, her photos might just be the drawcard to get you driving the 2000km (or more depending where you live) to the outback town for a horse race in the desert.

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If you’re eye have been caught by the new Matt Damon – Morgan Freeman movie, Invictus, about South Africa’s emergence from apartheid, you should also check out this photographic exhibition about the country.

Brisbane Powerhouse from April 8 to May 10 with a collection spanning 50 years of South African history.

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In this last installment of our four part series on abstract photography, we will examine a technique in abstract photography called ‘delaying recognition.’ To help us understand this technique, we will consider the ideas of Canadian abstract photographer Mark Raymond Mason. Mark likes taking photographs of abstract scenes from nature and out of the way urban areas. Working abstractly instead of linearly, Mark’s goal in his abstract photography is to delay the recognition of his subject. What this means is that Mark gives the viewer time to become acquainted with the subject of the photograph without hurrying the viewer in anyway.

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In this second installment of our four part series on abstract photography, we will try to answer the question, ‘Can art happen by accident?’ An abstract photographer with a painter’s instincts, Saul Leiter will help us answer this question. When he started as a photographer in the 1940s, Saul had no formal training in photography. But his genius would be acknowledged soon enough. Saul once confided that he would buy inexpensive color film past its expiration date. It was not because of its low price. Rather, Saul wanted the surprise of the resulting odd shifts in color.

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This third installment of the four part series on Randy Craig examines Randy’s take on beauty and his approach to capturing it. To Randy, it is all quite simple really. Beauty is the reason why Randy is a photographer. To him, beauty is not just something, it is everything. What we notice about the beauty of interest to Randy is that it has three characteristics. These are:

Firstly, the beauty to which Randy is drawn is natural beauty. It is pristine and unadulterated. Randy seems quick to spot anything that is artificial or made up. Randy finds the beauty that he seeks in natural scenery, in nature’s wildlife and in people possessed of natural grace. Randy says, ‘Where do I find beauty? I find it in nature, mostly; through wildlife, landscapes, isolated details and patterns, and in graceful human form. I am an avid hiker and lover of the outdoors. Exploring new places and observing all aspects of the natural…

In this second installment of our four part series on Randy Craig, we explore Randy’s philosophy as a photographer. How does he view photography and what are his sources of inspiration? These are questions that we will consider and endeavor to answer as we let you know more about Randy Craig to whom we refer with fondness and a bit of envy as a photographer with an eye for beauty.

Randy Craig says that ‘Photography is my artistic outlet.’ We can relate to Randy’s statement. Artists become better attuned to the stirrings inside them through the opportunity for an outpouring that their art form provides. Art can thereby be both a creative and liberating experience. Through a chosen art form, an artist is able to reach new heights and in the process become truly free.

We can similarly relate to Randy’s remark that photography ‘provides balance and fulfillment in my life.’ Sometimes, it is hard to figure out when…

Randy Craig is an art photographer living in Portland, Oregon. He takes photographs of nature and people to capture their beauty and be able to share it with others. He enjoys traveling immensely if for no other reason than to be taken by the beauty that he finds where his journeys lead him.

We feel that Randy is spot on about wanting to capture beauty to the extent possible through his photography. Randy prefers not to let the beauty that exists in this world to slip past him. He would like it for this beauty, as it were, to be preserved in his photography and to go on forever.

For Randy, his hiking and his photography go together. Hiking takes Randy to places that he otherwise might not be able to get to by the other, more common means of transport. Randy likes to be kept guessing what lies up the hill or around the bend. He does not mind getting…