Welcome to Rhodes, now where’s the plug socket?
Posted on | August 3, 2010 | No Comments
We arrived in Rhodes early yesterday morning, to a beautiful blue sky and wonderful heat. We had arranged to meet the owners of the rented accommodation in the town square at 7:30am, as supposedly the place was hidden away somewhere in the back streets of Lindos. We grabbed the first taxi we saw, “all prices fixed and in book” was the answer to the question to the extortionate fee on the taxi rank at the airport. The classic line: “we must get petrol” mid journey didn’t help when the obligaory timer is tick-tocking away.
After the somwhat scary taxi ride from airport to Lindos, we arrived at the beautiful central square, bathed in golden morning light and under a massive sweeping tree acting as the local roundabout. So we sat, as arranged, for the owners of of little self catering villa/flat to come and find us, very few people around apart from the street cleaner and a couple of old boys. Half an hour passed, still no sign of them. Decided it was probably a good idea to try and find some information about the location of this place and maybe get to it ourselves. We only had a number and a name, no one answering the phone, still asleep perhaps. Eventually asked a couple of locals who were sitting around, and after much gesticulating back and forth, they managed to get in contact with a man who knew someone who knew someone else… either which way “2 minutes and woman will come” sounded like an epic solution. 10 minutes later an old woman appeared out of a side street, shorty followed by our man, Stavros.
The man, Stavros
Arriving in a small moped, back modified to allow a case or two to be lashed to the back, I lifted our small suitcases onto the rear and watched him tie them up with some old cord. Foot to the metal his moped was travelling at just over 2mph, and easy stroll behind him as he weaved through the paved, worn smooth and winding backstreets, with white walls and cane shading over most sections woven with vines of some kind – to shield from the already baking morning sunshine.
On reaching our accommodation we were pleased to be able to stare out of our veranda onto the beautiful blue green bay. Lovely little room, small sink, hob and saucepan, just the one, or 2 if you account for the metal teapot. Metal teapot, probably perfect for boiling rice I guessed.
Starting to unpack, phone battery almost dead, best send the relevant people a message to keep them in the loop, charger found.. Just need to find the plug socket. Hmmm. Nowhere. Surely you can’t have a room somewhere as developed as this and have no plug sockets? Surely. Searching high and low, found nothing. Hmnn. Here for photography and a wedding and nowhere conveniently obvious to charge the plethora of electronics I seem to stuff my bag with. Gave up, decided I would think about it in the morning.
Ah right, ‘that’ plug socket. Literally the three random non symmetrical holes in the wall. If only i had realized. I had thought they were, well, holes. Nervously plugging in our travel adapter it was soon evident that there was infact some form of power from these magical holes. Perfect.
Time to taste the local hummus and halloumi, beer and cocktails. Wonderful.
Some iPhone images of our first day:
Tags: greece > iphone > iphonography > photography > rhodes > Travel
Some colourful & tropical images for this grey rainy day in Britain
Posted on | July 27, 2010 | 1 Comment
Whilst it is overcast and tipping down with rain here in England, I’m once again dreaming of the tropics – I can’t wait to head to the South Pacific in October if all plans work out, should give us plenty of time to get some more tropical photographs to keep me inspired through the next winter I am in England. If we time it right we perhaps won’t be back in the county until well into spring, wishful thinking I know. So here is a small collection of images I regularly look at when the days are dreary, knowing I’ll eventually be standing in similar surroundings again with my toes in the ocean. Can’t wait.
These photo’s were taken over my last two trips to the beautiful islands of the Seychelles, in the Indian Ocean – pure paradise.
Tags: Canon > canon 24-70L > Canon 40D > colourful > sigma 10-20 > Travel > travel photography > travelling > tropical
Using TinEye to check if your images have been used online – I found one!
Posted on | July 20, 2010 | No Comments
A great result from TinEye reverse image search today, a recommendation to anyone who may have images online that they want to try and keep track of, especially if they are not watermarked.
A little about TinEye: “TinEye is a reverse image search engine. TinEye is a reverse image search engine. It finds out where an image came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or if there is a higher resolution version.”
I have spent a fair amount of time on TinEye in the last couple of years, I was one of the early users of this software back when it was only just out of it’s beta stage, and loved the idea. It its early stages, it struggled finding images, as it still hadn’t indexed some of the bigger search engines and image libraries, and I seem to remember telling them about loads of image libraries that hadn’t yet been indexed. A couple of years on and they are really starting to get involved, it seems the search engine has now indexed over a billion images, a fair feat for a company that is still running on donations only.
So I randomly did a check on a couple of images on one of my blog posts, I chose my blog post with an image of some french shutters (Image 3)- I chose this one because looking at Google Analytics the night before I was getting search traffic for ‘french shutter photos’ and as I remembered that this image for some reason had slipped through my watermarking process.. and may be a easy target. I loaded up TinEye and pasted the URL of the actual image on my website, clicked the search button and let it chug away for literally only a couple of seconds.. and it returned an interesting result. (Image 1)
Tineye found a reference to one of my images, and showed that it had searched 1.6 billion images, and had picked up a usage of my image on quite a large blogging website, so I checked the URL provided by TinEye and had a scout around the site until I found it. Nothing sinister about the usage, they were just talking about choosing the right image to represent your blog post, but even so – they didn’t ask for permission to use this image, so I was justified in contacting them. Due to the positive nature of the image within this blog post, I spoke to the lady in charge of the website who apologised for the error, and I agreed that she could continue using the image as long as she linked to my website from the image. She changed it straight away, what an excellent result.
So thanks TinEye, a great outcome, and I suggest that you should do the same with your images. It’s a long process, but perhaps a random check now and again doesn’t hurt.. you never know, you might just find one..
For more information have a look at TinEye here.
Tags: blogging > copyright > illegal usage > image tracking > online > photographs > tineye
How to move your Wordpress blog to a new domain without losing traffic
Posted on | July 17, 2010 | No Comments
How to move your Wordpress blog to a new domain without losing traffic the proper way, a summary of information and process used to move it across in a way that actually works, in an SEO friendly way. So with this solution you shouldn’t notice any loss of traffic, I noticed my traffic straight away in Google Analytics (Don’t forget to add this code to your new blog).
PROBLEM:
For me this was quite a specific problem that I was trying to address, but hopefully if you are reading this it will help you make the switch if you need to also. Fundamentally, I had my blog that I have been updating since 2007 on my domain www.11thstudio.com/blogs/ – but I wanted to move JUST my blog across to www.chrisridley.co.uk/blogs. BUT, I wanted to leave my existing site (not the blog) up on 11thstudio.com, which has some of my wedding photography, and the more commercial side to my business on it. I wanted to have my main blog on my www.chrisridley.co.uk domain purely to help strengthen brand and, well, because I just wanted to. So, this wasn’t just a quick move and a simple catch all 301 redirect, it needed to be a much more tailored solution. I needed to keep all my traffic, SEO, rankings and all that malarkey.
SOLUTION:
1. Backup, backup backup
Before you start, Back up, back up, back up, THE most important part of this whole endeavour I kid you not. I cannot stress this enough, please. Back up your files across all sites via FTP and backup your existing wordpress database in it’s entirety.
2. Use FTP to download your files to your machine
I used my FTP client to make a full copy of my entire /blogs folder on my 11thstudio.com domain to my local folder on my desktop.
3. Upload via FTP to new site
Uploaded my entire /blogs folder that I had just downloaded, to my www.chrisridley.co.uk/blogs folder (same path)
4. Set up new database on new site
Go into you control panel of your new hosting on your new site, and create a new blank database for you to install Wordpress into.
5. Copy your old (live) wordpress database into you new blank database on new site.
You can use specific software for this such as Navicat, or you can manually do this from within your phpMyadmin on your hosting. What you are trying to do here is copy your entire existing database from your old site, so in this case from my 11thstudio domain, into your new blank database, so in my case on the chrisridley.co.uk domain.
6. Change your wp-config file on new site
Make sure you update your wp-config file with your new connection data so that your install connects to your database.
7. Check site to see how it’s looking
You should now be able to see a running version of your blog on your new site… but it’s likely to not be working 100% yet, you’ll probably see image links broken all over the place, and URLS not behaving correctly and pointing to your old domain, this is because Wordpress likes to hard code FULL URLS into it’s database which is a pain in the butt if you were not expecting it.. but we have a solution..
8. Find and replace hard coded URLS.
Be careful here, there are never any ‘undo’ functions, but if you do mess it up remember you can install from a backup you made, you did make one right?! Right, so assuming you have a semi working version of your blog now on your new domain, you need to install and run Search and replace plugin to solve the hard coded URL problem. Install plugin, and once installed, activate it in the usual way, and you’ll see a couple of options. In my case, I searched for ‘www.11thstudio.com’ and replaced any instances of it with ‘www.chrisridley.co.uk’, in my case was about 950 places it got changed. You’ll find now that everything should be working correctly. It did for me anyway.
9. Set up redirects in HTACCESS file.
Careful editing htaccess files, I warn you in advance.
On my 11thstudio site I created a .HTACCESS file with the following information and placed it in my 11thstudio.com/blogs/ directory folder.
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /blogs/
RewriteRule (.*)$ http://www.chrisridley.co.uk/blogs/$1 [R=301,L]
This tells the browser it’s a permanent redirect via a 301 redirect, and to tell it that anything that comes after the /blogs/ to redirect it to the same page on the chrisridley.co.uk domain exactly the same..
IE if someone clicks www.11thstudio.com/blogs/category/post1333/ it will change it and redirect it to www.chrisridley.co.uk/blogs/category/post1333/ This is important, as if you miss this part and just use a normal 301 redirect, it will send ALL blog traffic to just your new blog page default homepage which is no good for SEO. I hope that made sense. So now your full 301 redirect should be in action and should help Google find your changes and update itself.
10. Update your RSS feed.
In my case I used feedburner, so I just went to ‘edit feed’, changed my incoming feed link to the new wordpress default RSS feed link, which for me was www.chrisridley.co.uk/blogs/feed/ , and left the existing feedburner link the same. This way your subscribers won’t see any difference..
11. Done.
Double check everything, test a sample post and click your way through random pages in your blog – depending on how complex your wordpress template is, you may have a couple more things to do. But I think the above steps cover pretty much everything you need.
Any problems, feedback or new and better solutions please let me know and I can update, as this was just the way I did it, I’m sure there are other ways!
If you did use this and find it helpful please let me know using the comments below!
This post should address the following questions; moving wordpress blog to a new domain, moving wordpress blogs without losing search traffic, wordpress HTACCESS setup, and how to move your wordpress blog to a new domain and redirect SEO search traffic without losing any search traffic at all.
Tags: blog > blogging > feedburner > how to > htaccess > RSS feeds > search traffic > seo > web design > wordpress > wordpress move
24 iPhone images, the iPad, Macbook Air rumours, moving house and happy snapping.
Posted on | July 16, 2010 | No Comments
iPhone images: A quick roundup of the last fortnight of iPhone images, all apart from a couple of the iphone photos are taken in the Exotic Garden in Norwich. It’s all go here at the moment, packing up the house into more boxes than I ever imagined, where does all the stuff come from? I swear it just magically appears overnight. Note to self, must stop buying so much stuff.
iPhone love: Still loving using my iPhone for sporadic and spontaneous images when I’m not behind my usual SLR, and I still enjoy taking photos on the iPhone as much as when I first got it, just over a year ago. I just love not having to think about it, with no settings to fiddle with, and no worries about exposure, sharpness, defects, fringing etc etc… just forget all that and just snap away, it’s awesome. Makes such as change from the technicalities of using the 5DMK2.
iPad love?: Still enjoying having an iPad too, to be able to have my photos displayed on the beautiful screen feels like actual prints, and being able to hand it around for people to look at in their own time is brilliant too, without the weight and impracticality of the laptop. Talking of nice bits of kit….. I hear rumours of a new and updated Apple Macbook Air today.. a slightly smaller version, with faster processor.. perhaps finally a ‘proper’ travelling machine that’s not a netbook PC.. and more power than the iPad. Don’t get me wrong, I love the old Macbook Air, but it’s just not powerful enough for basic use of Lightroom when out of the studio.. perhaps the new version will change this. Still – it’s a wait ahead, they are predicting October / November as far as I am aware, and we leave for the South Pacific (Finally!) in early October.. so we’ll see.
Anyway, a few iPhone images from the last couple of weeks..
Tags: ipad > iphone > iphone images > iphoneography > iphonography > macbook air > rumours > Travel
Kit review: Great camera bag for photographers – Lowepro Vertex AW 100
Posted on | July 8, 2010 | No Comments
I needed a new photography camera bag a couple of months back, and ended up doing so much research and hands on testing trying to find one that suited my needs I thought I might share my findings, so that perhaps you can make your decision easier..
I have had Lowepro bags in the past, and I have never been uphappy with them, hard wearing and great value – and the zips haven’t shown any sign of wear as of yet.
What I needed:
I needed a bag for general use, for my main bag for wedding photography, and also an aeroplane suitable sized for travelling abroad with. My standard kit for this bag would be for two DSLR Canon bodies, as well as 3/4 Canon lenses, which is my ‘core’ kit. I wanted a bag that I could wear on my back, as well as just have for storage – but one that was pretty sturdy and hard wearing.
What I bought: ( 14″ Notebook Backpack for Digital SLR & 3-4 lenses) (See here on Amazon)
Big enough for most of your travelling kit, I can easily fit my Canon 5DMK2, Canon 40D body, 24-70 2.8L, 16-35 2.8 L, 2 x Pocket wizards, a 580ex Speedlite, all sorts. It’s super tough, with hard taped seams that look like they are never going to break, and offer a kind of splash resistance, certainly no dust will get through. Lots of internal storage and moveable foam velco dividers, enough to fit in pretty any configuration you want to throw at it.A Lowepro Vertex 100 AW
All in all it’s a great bag, not forgetting you can easily fit a 13″ Macbook pro, as well as an Ipad, spare memory cards, batteries and all the other guff that goes along with standard photography kit. There is also a bigger version of this bag should you need more space, this can be seen here: Lowepro Vertex AW 200 and the even bigger Lowepro Vertex AW 300.
Final opinion:
Excellent, 5 Stars. It’s taken a fair bit of abuse already, and I don’t think it will fall apart very easily at all. Highly recommended. To buy this bag, or see more please check it out here for more information.
Tags: bags > kit > lowepro > storage > travel photography > wedding photography
Time for an epic adventure, South Pacific and round the world!
Posted on | July 7, 2010 | No Comments
So we’ve decided, finally that thing we need more than anything right now is a mega round the world trip. Just like that. It’s been a long time coming, and the timing has always not been quite right, but it seems, come October this year we may have the opportunity for an adventure. Watch this space! I think there may be some awesome photographic opportunities along the way too.. 
iPhone photograph
Tags: iphone > iphonography > Travel > travel photography
iPhone photography June roundup…
Posted on | July 4, 2010 | 2 Comments
A few images taken with my iPhone from June and early July… images from the north Norfolk coast, Will Giles and The Exotic Garden. I’m still loving the iPhone, great for shots using the Hipstamatic photo App
Love it. Still!
Tags: iphone > iphone images > iphonography > mobile > photography > photos
Finally here, my iPad…
Posted on | June 30, 2010 | No Comments
About time… I took the plunge and bought a 32Gb WIFI iPad last week, loaded it with photos and showed my photos to a few people, great feedback – leading to one person going to buy one for themselves the next day. I’m not going to bang on about how good it is but rather put it to the test over the next few months, and if it’s honestly just sitting on the shelf unused after a couple of months I’ll stick it up for sale… (yeah right!)
So I bought it primarily for promotional purposes, it’s a great device to just have me to show prospective clients new work, but also as well as for me just to have a device that I can keep a huge amount of photographs on for just myself! I hardly print any images at all these days, and viewing them on the iPad feels as good as actually printed.
New video for The Exotic Garden shot on the Canon 5DMK2
Posted on | June 30, 2010 | No Comments
Will and I made a new video to show off some of the recent changes in his Exotic Garden in Norwich, this is still only the 5th small video i’ve ever made, so I understand it’s not the best, I’m a photographer, not a videographer – but I do like the challenge of learning new things, especially as it’ll help a little bit to promote the garden for Will…
Fimed on the Canon 5DMK2, with both the Canon 24-70 2.8 L and the 16-35mm 2.8 L, p/p on Final Cut pro. Used a Rode videomic for sound.
Some of the equipment I used for this:
Tags: canon 5dmk2 > hd filming > rode videomic
