Workshop: Words and Pictures

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The following are the workshop notes for Newspace’s Words and Pictures by Lorelle VanFossen in Portland, Oregon.

The workshop covered the following:

  • Writing for Audience and Search Engines:
    • Virtual Storytelling Techniques
    • Community Building
    • Writing for Social Media
    • Finding Inspiration and Motivation
  • Technical:
    • Tips and Tricks
    • Article Structure and Formatting
    • Image Embedding
    • Links
    • Site Core Content
    • Feeds
    • Editorial Calendars

Robert De Niro, quote from Oscars 2014 Show about writers.The following are resources and references to help you take the next step forward in writing for the web for photographers and photobloggers.

Web Writing Tips and Tricks

Writing Your Profile/About

The following articles focus on writing your profile for your social media and websites, as well as adding Gravatar, Blavatar (blog avatar), and profile images.

Preparing Images for the Web

The process of preparing images for the web include resizing them for web publishing. These articles offer tips and information on image preparation and embedding in WordPress and other social media sites.

The Social Web: Commenting and Interaction

Don’t forget that writing and publishing on the web also means interacting on the web. The following articles will help you learn how to write comments better and improve your social media communication skills.

Photoblogging

The following articles pertain to setting up a photoblog, a topic not covered in the workshop. Basically, a photoblog is a website with the emphasis on photography, be it a site filled with images or words and images, or writing about photography and the photographic work you are doing. The designs emphasize the images or words and images, and honestly are no different from other sites. Some photobloggers have self-hosted versions of WordPress to take advantage of photography and image gallery WordPress Plugins, but WordPress.com has galleries and slideshow capabilities also. Note that one benefit of these WordPress Plugins is to help you organize, manage, tag, and create albums of your images, something still in its infancy on WordPress.com and the Jetpack WordPress Plugin. However, if you just wish to publish your images and manage them elsewhere, these features are not necessary.

For Serious Writers, Authors, and Self-publishers

If you are considering becoming an author and self-publishing or working with a publisher, the following articles offer tips for using WordPress for author sites.

Blog Exercises to Flex Your Blogging Muscles

Lorelle has several series to improve your blogging and WordPress skills. Check out her ongoing WordPress School and Blog Exercises series.

Homework

The following two assignments are to be published on your website or social media channel. Please paste a link (in proper format) in the comments to the assignment and share your lessons learned and experiences with the assignments. We’ll check it out and comment on your post.

Tutorial

Write a tutorial explaining how to do something you know well. Keep it short and specific and use the following:

  1. Headings
  2. Lists (UL and OL)
  3. Links
  4. A minimum of three images, properly prepared, aligned right, left, and center

Feed-inspired Post

Using Feedly or another feed reader service, find an article that inspires you and write a post about it and how it inspires or motivates you or write a commentary about the topic.

  1. Include a link to the original article on the web
  2. Include headings, lists, and other links if appropriate
  3. Include images properly prepared and aligned if appropriate
  4. If published on a website, include a link to this article in a sentence at the bottom of the post that discusses that this is an assignment in your Newspace workshop on Words and Pictures. Upon publishing, it will generate a trackback, a link back to this article, in the comments. We will visit your post and check it out.

Again, my thanks to everyone. What a group. You inspire me!

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