Zero to Hero: Day 9

Posted on January 10, 2014 by Andrew Seal

Day 9: Head a Little Deeper Into the Blogosphere or The Ten Best Reasons to Travel There!

…This is a good day for blogging! The Weekly Photo Challenge today was entitled “Window” a subject I love, as clearly do so many others. My submission on thechangingpalette has been very popular and has resulted in my visiting, communicating and following many wonderful photographic bloggers today. It also made me think more deeply about the beauty of the blogosphere and as a result have come up with the 10 best reasons that make travelling there so enjoyable:

No luggage, passports, visas or vaccinations required.
It never rains or snows and flooding is almost never heard of.
You can always get a window seat and the toilets are never occupied (well hardly ever)
There are no customs officers staring at you with piercing eyes and asking if you have a cross bow or snowboard in your shoulder bag.
If you live on a farm or plan to visit a farm, you should.
No need to worry about what to wear, ever.
You can even travel in your pyjamas and no one will ever know.
No time change and so no jet lag
Since you travel at the speed of light or sound or something equally as fast, hyper speed perhaps, you arrive before you have ever left. Amazing!
Best of all, your travelling companions are people just like you, so the company is always the best.

How about creating your own list. I would love to see it and when you do link it here so others can see it too. I might even add to my own list as I think of more good reasons to travel through the blogosphere…

Zero to Hero: Day 8

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Andrew Seal

Create an About page, or revisit and improve the one you have; or How to make your About page Irresistible.

…So this is the one I’ve been waiting for with a certain degree of trepidation as I have never made an “about” page since I started blogging last May. This may well take a day or two for me to complete but I thought you might like to witness the process I am going through having read, a number of times I might add, the recommended article from the Daily Post About Page 101: Making Them Care, and feeling more intimidated each time I read it: must avoid “flowery verbs”, whatever they are; no “unnatural chunks of snooze-text”; no creating “gut-wrenching yawns”. Oh my goodness I’m not sure I can go on…will I ever reach “hero” status in 30 days?

Since my blogs have been mainly photographic in nature I thought these images will show you how I am following the five steps of “About 101”, which address: you, me, the blog, links and an opening sentence. I’m a long way from being there yet but when I arrive you’ll be the first to know (if you are interested in following me that is!)

to be continued…

Zero to Hero: Day 7

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Andrew Seal

Today’s assignment: create and upload a simple header, or test out a few different backgrounds.

Today I tried out a few different headers as suggested using some of the stock images that come with the Twenty Eleven Theme as well as a few of my own photos. I ended up using today’s new header image, a photo taken early one morning when we visited the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy, Northern France in 2012. After then trialling a number of background colors I felt that a teal blue looked the best, but after receiving Michelle’s comment I switched to the current blue grey, which is definitely a better choice I think, don’t you? Thanks Michelle.

After our memorable and very moving visit to Vimy I made a video using many of my photographs, which I was able to post on YouTube in time for Remembrance Day. The video opens with the full image of the header, and If you have a few minutes you might enjoy watching it and particularly listening to the beautiful Adagio from Schubert’s String Quintet, which plays whilst the photo gallery is showing and starts nearly two minutes into the video. Enjoy…