Old school SEO and a take down request

Way back in 2009 I put an image up that I called "Floating Rose", and I used many of the tactics for SEO available back then just as a learning experience. It was a tremendously successful experience and this image stayed on the front page of Google Image Search for "Floating Rose" for years.

Last month imagine my surprise when, on a whim, I did an image search for "Floating Rose" again and BAM it's still on the front page. I was ecstatic that old school SEO continued to work on a four year old fairly generic post!

Until I looked closer and realized that my image was now showing up because it was being used on someone else's store front without attribution or purchase; a clear violation of my Creative Commons License.

Now this isn't a post about licensing, in fact the site's owner was very cooperative and took the image down without incident.

So here I am with an opportunity to explore new SEO tactics to see if I can my own image back to the front page of all the search engines. Time will tell, let's start the fun!

Bokeh...

f/1.4

f/2.0

f/4.0

f/5.6

f/8.0

f/11

f/16

f/22

My Two Wives

My "alter ego" experiment. I had a lot of fun with this shoot because I could finally include my wife and kids into my photo world.

I'll be doing more and more of these shots soon.

July 4th Fireworks

My shots from July 4th fireworks show. Mostly had a 30 second exposure for each shot, and varied my aperture from f/11-f/22.

Now I can't wait for a good lightning storm...

Quick Tips: Photographing Fireworks

While browsing around prepping for July 4th shooting I found this article at Canon's Learning Center. From the article:

Get out of AUTO! Shooting fireworks is one specialized situation where you simply cannot expect good results with the camera’s mode dial in the full-auto green zone. Nor will autofocus work reliably. For the best and most consistent results, make sure that your exposure and lens focus are both set to Manual (and try pre-setting the lens focus to infinity.Turn your camera’s mode dial to “M” for Manual, and be sure to set the AF/MF switch on your lens to “MF”. Now, turn the focus ring until you’re set at infinity focus. Some Canon lenses have a distance scale printed on them for this purpose; the infinity symbol is a figure that looks like the number eight turned sideways. Others (like the popular EF-S 18-55mm kit lens) do not — if you don’t have a distance scale, with the lens set to “MF” and the front of the lens facing you (as if you’re staring into the lens), turn the focus ring with your fingers clockwise until it stops. Now leave it there; do not set it back to “AF” until you’re done shooting fireworks.