Britta-Lis Design

5 Simple Steps to Creating a Website that Works

Britta-Lis — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Trying to save a little money on marketing your new business? Ready to try this web design thing for yourself? I understand that it can be a daunting task, especially if this is your first foray into the field. There are so many variables to consider, from interactivity to design principles to visitor behavior, that just thinking about the process can be overwhelming. If you’re the do-it-yourself type, you’re probably determined to see this project through to the end, but you’re still trying to get some of the concepts straight in your mind before you start. In my years in the field, I’ve figured out a few steps that seem to streamline the process and make it less stressful — here’s a brief overview of how I structure a project, and some tips for managing your own. (Of course, if the process becomes too overwhelming and you realize you just want a professional to take care of it, I’m available!)

Step 1: Decide on the goal of the site, and the target audience.

This might seem like a given, but I’ve found that it’s very important to articulate up front what you expect to get out of your website, and who you expect to be visiting your website. It may not seem like it at first, but the answers to these two questions will govern the way you design the framework for your website and the way you write and display your content. Everything you place on your site needs to be there to accomplish your goal, and needs to be appropriate for your target audience.

Sometimes your target audience will be defined by what you sell — if you’ve got a fishing lodge, then clearly, your target is fishermen (and fisherwomen). But sometimes it’s not as easy to define, like if you run a small town B&B and anyone who’s willing to make a reservation seems to be your target audience. But chances are there is a type of guest you really like to host, and those are the guests you should think about when you create your website.

Defining the goal for your website is equally as important as defining your target market, and just as hard, if not harder, to come up with. When I ask clients this question, sometimes their response is, “More sales. Duh.” And, while that is a perfectly valid, and obvious, goal, it’s not the only possible goal for a website, nor is it always the one you should shoot for. Websites can be used to enhance and promote a company’s image, they can be used for brand recognition, they can be used for online sales and reservations, or they can simply be online brochures. Those might seem like subtle differences, but each goal requires you to organize and present your site in a different way, so knowing what you want your website to achieve is important.

Step 2: Come up with a design.

Once you know who you will be designing for, and why, it’s time to start your design. Before you’ve got any ideas of what you want your site to look like, it helps to review other websites, both of your competitors and of others in your industry, and decide what you like, what you don’t like, and why. Is it the overall feel of the site — the mood set by the layout and placement of elements — or is it one or two elements in particular that strike your fancy? What about the background, the text and the placement of images within the text? And how about the color scheme — is it appropriate for the target audience, or does it miss the mark?

To build your website (see step 4), I recommend using WordPress, a free blogging and website software that is easy to use and install. WordPress uses themes (or templates) for the design and some of the functionality, so at this point, you’ll need to find a theme that matches the design you have in mind. I recommend the premium theme Thesis (it’s what this site is built with – affiliate link), which is a little pricey but totally worth it in that you have control over all of the design elements, and a great support community when you get stuck. If you know what you want in your website layout, you need only set the parameters for your theme — background and link colors, sidebar widths, header images, etc. — and don’t need to bother with mock ups or design programs, though I do recommend drawing it out on a piece of paper to start with.

Step 3: Gather the website content (including writing copy and taking photographs).

This can sometimes be the second-hardest task on the list. The content is the information on your website, so you need to make it appropriate and useful for your site visitors. Gather everything you want to put up: Write the copy for each page, shoot or gather and edit all of the photographs you want to use, and create any custom graphics you think you’ll want, including “Make a Reservation” or “Buy now” buttons. You can start without all of these things in place, but your work will come to a grinding halt every time you realize you’re missing something and you either have to go look for it, or create it, and then it’s that much harder to get back to the place you were. Take it from the expert — it’s best to have all of this, or as much as you can gather, together at the beginning.

Step 4: Build the website framework.

All of the creative work is done, and now it’s just a matter of setting up the website framework and populating it with content. It’s not necessary to have any knowledge of HTML or CSS or any other design language to set up a website, although it helps if you do. It’s easiest to use a Content Management System, or CMS, to build your site, as this will allow you to set it up visually instead of with code, and will often allow you to work on your site whenever you are able to access the web, whether you’re at your home computer or not.

I recommend using WordPress as the CMS to build your site. It’s a free and easy-to-use blogging software, and doesn’t require you to have any technical knowledge or skill in writing code. Install the software (often web hosts have a 1-click installation option that makes it easy), find and apply (and customize) a theme that matches your layout requirements, and then add the necessary global elements: the photo or graphic in the header, the buttons on the navigation bar, the links in the sidebar, etc.

Step 5: Populate with content, and launch!

This is the easy part, but also sometimes the most time-consuming part. Since you’ve already got your materials together, it’s a matter of organizing the information so that it’s the easiest to understand and follow, and making sure that that’s the best way to accomplish your goal and appeal to your target market. Sometimes you have to see what it looks like before you know whether it’s organized in the best way or not, and sometimes it’s easy to see right away what should go where. Experimenting at this stage is just as important as experimenting at the creative stages — you want it to be the best site it can be, so make sure you’ve got everything right. A word of caution: It’s possible to want things to be too perfect. The web is a dynamic medium and, though you want to keep post-launch changes to a minimum, you can always change it if you don’t like it or it’s not working. Don’t let perfectionism delay your launch, because likely as not, there’s more than one way for it to be perfect.

When everything’s ready, it’s time to launch! Monitor the site closely for the first couple of days to try and catch any unforeseen problems or errors, which will definitely show themselves right away, when everything else is also going wrong. After that, you’ll be able to settle into a routine where you’ll check stats, write regular blog posts, converse with commenters or those who use your contact form, or start to see reservations roll in. Your particular site will determine your routine.

Because the web is a dynamic medium, change is a given, but daily change (unless it’s a daily blog post) is not expected. When it’s time to change and update, you’ll know it (or your visitors will let you know it), and then, the process begins again.

For more information on how I organize and put together a project from the client side of things, take a look at The Process page. Try the Thesis (affiliate link) premium theme for your WordPress blog — you’ll love it. And for more information on my services, take a look at the Services page or request a free Information Kit.

How to Add Video to Your Website

Britta-Lis — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Now that your video has been filmed and edited, and you’re proud of the finished product, the next step is to add the video to your website, where the world will be able to see it.

Video files can be quite large, however, so uploading it straight to your website isn’t always the best way to go: Files will take a long time to download, and most of your site visitors are not willing to wait around that long. The best and easiest way to add video to your site is to upload it first to a video hosting service like YouTube. You will also need to have access to the back end or edit mode of your website, or FTP access to upload new HTML pages.

If you don’t already have a YouTube account (or a Google account), start one. You’ll need to be logged in to upload your video. Once you’ve got your account and are logged in, click on the Upload Video link, and find the video file on your computer. Depending on how large the file is, it could take a while to upload. Give your video a description and keywords, and set the privacy setting to public, so that everyone can see it.

Once the file has been uploaded, you’ll see your video, with a little YouTube icon in the corner. Play it if you want to watch it again, or to see what everyone else will see, and then scroll down to find the embed code. Choose the size you want your video to be on your website (640×480 is a good size), and then copy the HTML code that appears below the video.

Go to the back end of your website, and find the page that you want your video to appear on. Open that page, make sure you view the page content in the HTML editor, and paste your copied code. Save, and view the front end of your site. If you video doesn’t appear, it’s likely that you missed a few pieces of the code, go back and copy and paste again and see if that fixes the problem. It’s as easy as that.

You can track the stats of your video by going back to its page on YouTube. You’ll see how many times it was viewed, and on which platforms. It may even draw a few comments or links from other websites.

YouTube is not the only option when it comes to hosting video on the web. Other services include Vimeo and Viddler, but I think that YouTube is the easiest option. Plus, YouTube is also a highly ranked search engine, and it doesn’t hurt to have more options to find potential guests.

So, now that you know how to shoot, edit and upload video to your website, what’s stopping you? Make your business stand out by using a video that perfectly captures the nature and essence of your business or B&B.

Got a question? Have something to add? Add it to the comments!

How to Make a Video

Britta-Lis — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Next up in our video series is how to edit your video — how to put all of the footage you just shot together in a way that tells a story about your business.

In all likelihood, you already have the necessary software to put together a “movie,” or you can easily obtain it. If your computer is less than 5 years old, your operating system probably came with a default video-editing program, Windows Live Movie Maker for Windows, and iMovie for Mac. Both programs have a manual and an automatic option, meaning that you can either control all the aspects of your video yourself, or you can let the program do it. Both ways work, it just depends on how involved you want to be in the process, and how much control you want over the final product.

Editing Clips
When you import your footage from your digital camera, each video will probably show up as a “clip” that you can add to your final video. You can edit these clips for length — in an interview, for example, everything the subject says is not necessary to put into the video, and even just one quote is sometime enough — or you can split them into two or more separate clips to be used in different places in your video. Add them in the order that tells the best story, not necessarily the order that you shot them in.

Adding Music & Narration
The audio portion of a video is at least as important as the video footage itself. If you followed the techniques in the article on shooting video, you shouldn’t have any road noise or any narration in your footage. If your video does require narration, this is the stage where you’ll be adding it. You can also add background music at this stage if you feel it will enhance your video.

If your video program has a voice-over tool, use that, and follow the instructions. If not, it may be necessary to shoot another “clip”, of which you’ll only be using the audio. You should use an external microphone for this, as the built-in mike will often pick up too much background noise. An external microphone can be as simple as the earpiece you use for your cell phone (as long as it fits into the plug on your computer) or as complicated as a bluetooth headset linked to your computer.

There are two two things you should consider before you select the music for your video: 1) Unless you have special, written permission, you cannot use copyrighted music. This includes virtually all current and most past popular music. You can use music in the public domain, and you can also use stock tunes. Do a Google search to find out whether something is copyrighted if you’re unsure, or do a search for stock music. You can also use original music, which would be a two-for-one if you’re a musician hoping to sell a song or two! 2) Make sure the music is appropriate to the subject matter. Just because it’s your favorite song doesn’t mean that everyone else likes it: do a test run on a few family members or neighbors to see what they think before you call it finished.

When you add your background music, make sure you don’t drown out your guests’ warm fuzzy comments, or even any of the natural sounds (people love to hear the ducks quacking on the lake or the moose’s footsteps as he lumbers down the road).

Making Transitions
Both software options allow you to add transitions (fades, dissolves, etc.), so use them between your clips if you think they’re appropriate. A creative transition can enhance the feel of a video, but a plain-old cut (a scene change without a transition) is often more appropriate. If it looks awkward, add a transition, but if not, it’s probably ok to leave it as is. Regular cross-dissolves are usually the best option for transitions — the fancy transitions (the wipe, the ripple effect, the star dissolve, etc.) only call attention to themselves, and therefore away from the subject matter.

Try to keep your videos at three minutes or less. That might seem short, especially after you shot 15 minutes of footage and selected a 7-minute song, but a video more than three minutes in length often discourages viewers from watching. So, select the best shots and the best portions of the song, and fade out at the end if you can’t find a natural ending spot.

One final tip: It takes a little practice to get everything working together, so don’t be afraid to make mistakes and mess up. Save the raw footage from your camera in a separate folder on your computer so if you do ruin a video irreparably, you can just go back and grab the original and start again with what you’ve learned.

Play around with some of the video you’ve already shot, and see how you can put it all together to tell your story. Next time, we’ll go over how to add that video to your website.

5 Tips for Shooting Video with your Point & Shoot

Britta-Lis — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Have you considered adding video to your site? If not, you should know that it’s a great tool to promote and enhance your site and your business, especially a business that relies on tourism like a B&B.

Making a video doesn’t have to be an expensive, time-consuming process. Chances are, you probably already have the tools you need to put one together: A point-and-shoot digital camera with video capabilities (if you’ve bought your camera in the last five years or so, it almost certainly includes a video feature), and the software that came with your operating system, either MovieMaker for Windows or iMovie for Mac. It also helps to have a YouTube account, and a bit of knowledge of how your website works, although it’s not essential — if you’re willing to learn, this series will teach you what you need to know.

Today we’ll discuss some tips for shooting video — best practices to follow to get decent, clear footage using your point and shoot. It won’t be a Spielberg film, but it will be enough to give your site visitors a glimpse into your world.

Tripods
No matter how still you think you’re standing, the camera will still pick up your movements. In still photography, this results in a blurred image, but in video photography, it results in shaky footage, which is hard to watch. Use a tripod or other stationery object to balance your camera and keep it still.

Landscapes
Avoid moving the camera if you’re filming landscapes. Take several 10-second “still” shots instead of panning 360 degrees. Your viewers will get less dizzy, and they’ll get a better sense of how things really look. Alternately, try this: Before pressing record, zoom in on an interesting feature, say a flower bud or a rock next to a stream. Hit record and then zoom out to encompass the entire landscape. Zoom slowly (some cameras have a separate setting for a slow zoom), otherwise it’s a little dizzying.

Panning
If you’re filming something moving, follow the subject with the camera, but not your feet. Try to avoid walking or, really, anything more than pivoting at the waist. The goal is to minimize the camera shake. Pick a good, stationery spot, and use the camera to pan from side to side. Let the subject get larger as it approaches and smaller as it gets farther away. Give it a little lead-room, if you can (in other words, if you’re filming a moose walking through your yard, make sure there’s a little room between his nose and the edge of the frame. Cut off his rump if not everything fits in the frame).

Interviews
When filming people, especially when doing interviews, zoom in so that just their shoulders and their faces are in the frame. Even if the background is beautiful or interesting, it’s the person who is the subject of the interview, not the background. Everything else will just distract from what the interviewee says. If you’re filming a testimonial, you want the focus to be on the great things your customer says, not on where he is standing. Make sure the subjects’ heads don’t touch the top of the frame, but don’t give them so much headroom that their faces are in the middle. Keep the eyes in the top third. Try to avoid cutting the subject off at any joints at the bottom of the frame. This just looks awkward and unnatural, so end the frame at the forearm instead of the elbow, etc.

Audio
The audio that a point and shoot picks up is usually decent enough to use in an informal video. Whenever you film and you plan on including audio, make sure that you’ve eliminated as much background noise as possible: Don’t film next to a busy road if you don’t want the sound of cars passing, for example. If you have an external microphone that can be plugged into your camera for interviews, use it. This will eliminate most of background noise, and will also give you better quality audio. If you plan on including narration in your video, wait until you get to the editing section and use your microphone to do a voice-over, rather than narrating while you film. This gives you better audio and your voice won’t have that breathless quality.

Lighting
It should go without saying that you should always seek out or set up proper lighting. See the photography tips article for more on lighting.

If you haven’t shot a lot of video with your camera, take it out and practice, and use some of these tips as you do. The more you use them, the better you’ll get at shooting video. Next time, we’ll discuss how to put together and edit all that footage you’ve gotten by practicing the tips above.

How to Build Your Website around Great Photos (and Why)

Britta-Lis — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Do you read travel magazines? I do. I can’t get enough of them. I love the vibrant descriptions of exotic locales and the strange explanations of unfamiliar customs. But what really makes me want to go places is the photographs, the great ones that are more than just visuals of a scene. They make the smells and sounds come alive, they draw me into the scene and make me feel as if I were there. Most of the time, a really great photograph gets me dreaming about my next trip and about who I’ll meet and what I’ll do once I get there.

A photograph isn’t always just visual representation of what really exists. Different lighting conditions, different angles, different photographers even, can give the scene a mood that a snapshot just can’t capture. You know that saying, “The photo doesn’t really do it justice?” It’s not always true. A snapshot doesn’t do it justice, but a good photo not only captures the visual elements in a scene, it captures the mood and the drama, too. Good photography is a demanding (and in-demand) skill, and it’s why professional photographers are able to charge the rates they do — it’s an art, and good art is not cheap.

If you’ve read the tips found in the photography principles article or the point-and-shoot technical tips article, you’ve probably learned that a well-composed and well-lighted photograph is light years beyond its snapshot counterparts in visual interest and drama. In a great photo, your viewers can imagine themselves in the scene, as if they were there, and if you’re following the tips, you’re probably taking those kinds of photos already.

It’s these photos you want to build your website around, especially for a tourism-based business like B&Bs. You want your site visitors to imagine themselves in the scenes, to see themselves taking part in the photographs, and to love that feeling so much they make a reservation or a sale at your site. Start with the photograph that best captures your business, or the mood behind your business. Use that as your header or the main site photo so that as soon as people arrive at your site, they’re hit with the visual impact of that photo. They will immediately know what you stand for, or what your business does, or how they’ll feel when they arrive on the day of their reservation. They’ll click deeper into the site because they’ll want more of that photography and that feeling.

Use your photograph to organize the rest of your site as well. Sample the colors in the photo and use them to create the color scheme for your site. Your visitors will be constantly reminded of that photograph and the feeling it inspired, even if it’s not on the page. If it’s an ocean scene, for example, use the blue color of the ocean as the background for the site. Or use the green in a forest scene for the button color in your navigation bar. Use the red of a raspberry for your site’s highlight color.

Continue with the theme of the photograph — if it’s captured a certain mood, try to capture that mood throughout the site. If there’s a pattern or a distinct line in the photograph, duplicate that line in the graphics on the site. Be subtle about this one, though — it’s easy to overdo it with repeated graphics. Capturing the mood is not limited to the visuals on the site: If the photograph inspires relaxation or activity, strive for that same feeling in the copy on your website, and write to complement the photograph. If a picture paints a thousand words, a thousand words can paint a picture, so feel free to paint another picture next to the one that’s already up.

When you choose the other photographs on your website, make sure they enhance and complement the mood set by your original photo. If your photo inspires relaxation, choosing other photos that are full of action and activity might undermine the theme of your website. If your focus is on wildlife or outdoors, interior shots should be kept to a minimum.

Great photography is more than just a tool for showing what things look like. It’s about who and where and what, and also about how and why, too. It helps you present yourself and your business in their entirety, from what guests will see to how they will feel when they arrive. It’s that feeling that’s the most important, and great photography will help you get there.

How to Get More Referrals

Britta-Lis — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:00:46 +0000

Referrals are the kind of prospective customers or guests small business owners love. They’re already primed for a great experience, they already trust you because their friend or colleague trusts you, and they booked or are thinking of booking with you on the recommendations of someone they know. Personal referrals can come in all shapes and sizes, too, these days. They can be a lot of good reviews on TripAdvisor. They can be a “Like” on a Facebook business page (you do have a Facebook business page, don’t you?). They can be a mention in a forwarded email or tweet. I posted an article a few months ago on How to Encourage Referrals; here are a few more articles on the same subject from some respected blogs around the web.

How to Build a Referral Engine

John Jantsch, the publisher and founder of Duct Tape Marketing, is the leading expert on encouraging referrals and making your business referral-friendly. In this article, on American Express OPEN Forum, he discusses how to make generating referrals a primary focus of your business, and give practical advice and examples for doing just that.

5 Truths that Lead to More Referrals

Another OPEN forum article, Jantsch writes about why referrals happen — what drives other businesses and customers to refer their friends and customers to your business — and how businesses can utilize the whys to capitalize on the hows.

How to Get Customer Referrals

Inc Magazine’s how-to guide offers some of the basic advice on getting customer referrals, namely, when and how to ask your current and past customers and guests for referrals.

How to get referrals

Seth Godin, new and permission marketing expert, also weighs in on customer referrals, but looks at it from the customer’s perspective: Why they would refer a business, and how much it costs them in time, and integrity.

10 Ways to Strengthen Referral Relationships

Entrepreneur magazine has some tips for maintaining relationships with your best business referrers, after they’ve started making referrals for you. While some of these tips are directed at bigger businesses (with bigger budgets), it’s still good advice even for small businesses, even if some of the advice would have to be scaled back a little.

Have any advice to offer on getting new referrals, or have a favorite article that has helped you? Leave a comment and let us know how it helped.

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Web Design on a Budget

Britta-Lis — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Wondering how to build a website? Ready to make some changes to your existing one but not sure where to begin? Start here! The Quick and Easy Guide to Getting Started on the Web, B&B Edition, is the key to simple and effective web design, the do-it-yourself way!

Specially written for B&B/Inn and small business owners, the Guide covers how to build a website from start to finish, from buying a domain name to Basic SEO pointers. Written in a conversational, easy-to-read style, the Guide avoids the technical terminology and insider language that make the basics of web design so difficult to grasp. Plus, it comes with an interactive glossary that easily defines the technical terms and language used in the field.

Coming on January 31!

The Quick & Easy Guide is a start-to-finish tutorial designed to walk you through the web design process, step-by-step and click-by-click. It consists of 6 modules, which cover 6 distinct parts of the process:

Part 1: Domains, Hosting and WordPress (Oh My!)
Part 2: Appearance is Everything
Part 3: All About Content
Part 4: Widgets & Plugins
Part 5: Just Google It
Part 6: Small Business 2.0
Glossary of Technical Terms

The Guide is written as a comprehensive template for creating a new website, but the six different parts can be purchased individually if you only need one or two.

Bonus

Plus, buy two or more guides, and you’ll also receive a couple of bonuses:

Design Project Worksheet
Design Basics e-Course

What the Guide covers:

No-hassle website setup using popular (free) blogging software WordPress
Buying a domain name and a hosting plan, and installing WordPress
Changing and customizing your website design and layout
How to use WordPress to add and update your site content
Adding additional functionality to your site through plugins and widgets
The basics of SEO and writing web copy, and using Google analytics to track your site statistics
How to connect and integrate social media, including setting up a blog and importing your TripAdvisor reviews.

Professional web design, without the professional web design price.

6 Technical Tips for Getting Great Photos with a Point & Shoot

Britta-Lis — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 19:00:00 +0000

During my travels, I used both a digital SLR and a compact point and shoot to capture my images. Mostly, I brought the P&S along so that I didn’t have to drag my big camera into places where it would be very conspicuous, but I actually managed to get some pretty great shots with it. Using it constantly for more than a year allowed me some time to experiment with the camera’s technical settings, and I figured out a few things that improved the technical aspects of my photographs. Here are a few tips, based on my year of experimenting and discovery, to improving the technical aspects of your photographs. Combine these tips with the composition tips from the last article, and you’ll be producing some spectacular shots in no time. (For the record, my SLR is a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT, and my point-and-shoot is a Pentax Optio W10.)

Turn the flash off

The default settings on most point and shoot cameras involve an auto setting for the flash. The camera decides if it needs the flash or not, and turns it on or off accordingly. A flash is never a good substitute for natural light, however , and it’s actually unnecessary most of the time. If you’re shooting outside, turn the flash off, especially if you’re shooting landscapes and wide-angle shots. The camera might read that it needs extra light, but the tiny flash bulb will do nothing to highlight those mountains in the distance. You’re really just draining your battery. The only exception to this rule is the fill-in: If you’re shooting a photo of a person with a very bright background, often the person will appear very dark. Turning the flash on manually in this instance will ensure that both the background and the foreground subjects receive enough light (the subject should usually be within about 8 feet of your camera. Any farther and the flash will just be ineffective).

Though cloudy, the main light source is behind the subjects, requiring the use of a fill-in flash. (Me with my relatives in California)

Use Tripods and Timers

If you’re shooting inside, try to capture as much natural light through the windows as possible, and use the interior lights as fill-ins. You can use the indoor setting on your camera, which will adjust a little bit for the lower light, but I find that the setting almost always turns the flash on. One of those tiny, bendable tripods will help you get around this issue. Turn the flash off and set the timer, and your photo will be properly exposed without registering the movement of your hands. Or, find a makeshift tripod: use a stool or a countertop, or anything you can set your camera on to keep it steady.

You can also use the timer even when you’re hand-holding the camera. I’ve gotten pretty good at pressing the shutter button without moving too much, but it’s impossible to hold completely still. The timer helps avoid the motion caused by pressing the button. My camera, and likely yours too, has a 2-second and a 10-second delay. The 2-second delay can avoid the shutter shake. (The 10-second timer is too long; you’ll be moving by the time the shutter releases.)

Using the 2-second timer reduces shake in low light. (Inverness, Scotland)

Squeeze the shutter button

The act of taking a photo can sometimes be what ruins the photo. Try this: Instead of hovering your finger over the shutter button and then tapping it when you’re ready to shoot, press the shutter release button halfway before squeezing it for your photo. The reasons for this are three-fold: On my camera and on many others, the auto-focus locks when I press the shutter release halfway before taking the shot. Also, there’s often a delay between when you press the shutter button and when the picture is snapped, so pressing the button halfway reduces this delay significantly. Thirdly, it reduces the shake that pressing the shutter button causes. Instead of tapping the button when you want to snap the picture, you just squeeze harder. It’s less movement for your hand, and therefore less movement for the camera.

Use the Beach Setting for Back Light

Using the beach or snow setting to shoot backlit shots can help correct the exposure. In the last article, I encouraged you to avoid backlit shots. But, they can be beautiful and dynamic, and sometimes you don’t have a choice except to shoot into the sun. A way to get around that is to use the beach or snow setting (or bright light setting) on your camera. This is intended to adjust for the increased amount of light reflected off of the water or the snow, but it also works when you point the camera directly at the sun. Using it will depend on the scene and how much detail is required to be in the foreground, but it will often avoid the washed-out look of most backlit shots. Of course, use this setting for snowy, sunny days as well.

Backlit photos can be very dynamic, but hard to expose correctly. Bright light camera settings help. (Roskilde, Denmark)

Use Macro for Close-Ups

To get very close to a smaller object in order to shoot it, it helps to use the macro setting on your camera. The macro setting is usually found under the focus settings, not the light settings, and allows the camera to “see” things that would normally be too close to focus properly on (point-and-shoot cameras usually need at least 3 or 4 feet to focus properly). So when you’re shooting the ripe berries in your raspberry patch, or trying to capture that perfect fireweed blossom, switch to macro and you’ll be able to lean the camera in much closer, eliminating the extra, unnecessary background and making the object the star of the show.

Using the macro setting allows you to focus close-up on smaller objects. (Lake Mjosa, Norway)

Use the Optical Zoom

Your camera has two types of zoom: optical and digital. The optical zoom changes the lens configuration, and the digital zoom pushes in on the pixels in the photograph. Zooming digitally will get you closer, but it will often add a lot of “noise” or blurred, pixelated sections, and will not result in the best photo. Zoom into the limits of the optical zoom, but, for the best images, don’t go beyond. This tip also goes hand-in-hand with a compositional tip: Get rid of the junk. Use the optical zoom to get close to the subject, and eliminate distracting background. If it’s a small object, use the macro setting (see above). If you’re shooting a moose wandering through your yard, zoom into see him nibbling the willow branches. If you’re shooting your house, you don’t need passing cars and street signs in the shot.

The key to mastering photography and any skill, really, is to practice, using these tips and figuring out your own, until you have figured out your camera, your style and how to put them together. The instant feedback the digital format provides has made me a better photographer. I can see right away which experiments worked and which didn’t, and can start adjusting for that right away. Don’t take just one shot of anything: Take several shots, and choose later which ones are the best. And, since it’s digital, you just delete the ones that aren’t up to par.

Using a point and shoot doesn’t have to mean all your photos are snapshots. Adjusting the technical settings, and following the rules of composition, will allow you to take fantastic shots of just about everything you set out to photograph. You’ll know you’ve hit your stride when you hear this: “You took that with a point-and-shoot? Amazing!”

(I took all of the photos in this article with my Pentax point and shoot during my year of travel through Europe and the U.S. See more examples of my photography here.)

Learn How to Take Great Photos for Your Website

Britta-Lis — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 15:00:00 +0000

Web design is all about visual impact. It’s rare that a website doesn’t inspire you to think or feel a certain way, and there’s no better way to achieve that visual impact than by using great photography.

Ideally, everyone would be able to afford the services of a professional photographer, but for most of us, their services are beyond the budget. That doesn’t mean you can’t get good photos for your website, however. You can take them yourself and, with the following tips and a bit of practice, you’ll be producing images that are good visual representations of your home and B&B, and visitors will thank you for it—by making more reservations.

Following are a few rules and tips for composing your photo: how to place the elements within a frame for the most dynamic scene possible.

Rule of Thirds

The rule of thirds states that images are more dynamic when the main subject is placed in the upper or lower third, or right or left third, of the image, rather than in the center. Apply it like this: Look through your viewfinder. Imagine two vertical lines splitting your image into thirds. Now imagine two horizontal lines. The intersections of those lines are the most dynamic points in your image, so if you can, it’s best to place the focal point of your image onto one of these points. Let the rest of your subject extend into the other thirds. For example, if you’re taking a picture of your house, with the mountains or a lake in the background, try this: Place the house in the lower left third, and let the background take up the rest of the frame. How about a moose wandering through your yard? Place him in the lower right hand corner and let him appear to be wandering into the rest of the frame.

Foreground & Background

Adding a prominent foreground feature into a photo with a distant main subject adds depth and character to a photograph. We humans always need a point of reference to determine where we would fit into a scene, and placing an object in the foreground is a good way to provide that. Next time you shoot a mountain scene, stand so that there is a tree or a bush in the foreground of your scene, way off to the left or right. Make sure it frames the real subject, instead of stealing the spotlight. Trees with large lower or upper branches are good for this. Get down on your knees and put tall stalks of fireweed in the right or left foreground. The image you produce will carry much more excitement and beauty than one without the foreground images.

Depth of Field

Not everything in a photo has to be in perfect focus. In fact, if you’re trying to achieve a certain mood or feeling with your image, you’ll probably achieve that much more easily if either the foreground or the background is out of focus. Try this. Focus closely on a small object in the foreground of an image. A berry on a bush, for example. Let the rest of the background blur, and see whether your photo is mroe dynamic or less. Or, if you’re taking pictures of your breakfast, try using this technique to add to the yum factor. When you’re shooting landscapes and adding a foreground feature, as in the previous example, let the tree or bush in your foreground stay out of focus — this will offset and magnify the mountain that is the real subject.

Lighting

Proper lighting is by far the most important factor in photography, and probably the hardest one to master. First of all, determine where your light source is. If it’s the sun, try to place it to one side of you, or behind you. If a light source is very bright, place it off to one side and use a white board or backdrop on the other side to fill in the shadows. Shooting into the sun can be effective if done properly — if you’re using a point-and-shoot, and it has a bright light setting, try using that to see if it works. If not, it’s best to avoid those backlit shots, as most of the time they are washed out and too bright. When you’re shooting inside, make sure that proper lighting is available. If you’re taking pictures of bedrooms, for example, try leaving the lights in a room off, and leaving the window shade open. Try to avoid putting the window itself into the photo, though, as it will just appear as a block of white light. If you have a tripod, try to use that before using the flash — natural light is always best. If you can adjust the direction of your flash, try bouncing it off of the ceiling or off of a white board to diffuse the light a little more. Sometimes lighting is difficult to get right; you’ll probably have to experiment with a few different configurations before you find the right one.

Try experimenting with some of these tips and see if your photos improve. Next week we’ll discuss some of the more technical aspects, particularly with using a point-and-shoot camera, to achieving great photographs.

How to Make Your B&B Successful

Britta-Lis — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 00:47:54 +0000

I recently interviewed the owners of Bear Lake Lodgings B&B in Seward, Dennis and Pat Perry, on why they feel their business has done so well, and what role their website has played in that success. A short disclaimer: Dennis and Pat are my dad and stepmom, and not only did I create the website and marketing materials for their B&B, I also worked as the innkeeper for a couple of summers. Read more about my experience building this website and how I found my niche in the B&B industry right here, or read more about the process of creating Bear Lake Lodgings’ website right here.

A short synopsis: The website has helped Dennis & Pat to realize success quickly, as the majority of their guests find them through their website. It’s easy to navigate and easy for guests to find what they’re looking for on the site. The site has been both instrumental and invaluable in the growth of their business. They urge other B&B owners to create sites that are professional-looking, because most of their guests are looking for them online, and they want to portray an accurate and professional image to those potential guests.

We did this via a Skype call, and the occasional disembodied voice you hear is me!

To see the full interview, click here (about 6 minutes).