Oh, you’re a photoblogger? Grrrrrrreat.

Digital camera + URL = Photoblogger?

Sorry, but that’s not right. It has something to do with the quadratic formula and algorithms and the moon being in the 7th house… the math just doesn’t add up.

In my mind, there are only a few reasons to include pictures in your blogs. The first, and most important, is if you’ve just had a baby and you’ve mentioned it on your blog. Chances are, people are only reading because they’ve been waiting to see what your spawn looks like. Food blogs also need pictures– just don’t go overboard. A picture of one or two steps in the preparation and a picture of the end product are enough. And if you have a hilarious blog that’s made even more hilarious by the illustrations? Those are perfectly acceptable. However, it has become apparent to me that people aren’t aware that there are boundaries when it comes to photoblogs. They’ve been unwritten (as far as I know) until now:

1. Keep it minimal. Just 3 or 4 shots will be enough. Any more than that is just overkill, usually.

2. Don’t try to get all artsy. Every emo kid with a camera phone thinks they can be an artsy photographer, and it’s getting old. Take a picture of something hilarious or significant or with boobs… just make sure it has a purpose.

3. No, I do not need to see pictures of every second of your vacation. Those blogs are just like the old home movies Grandma used to drag out as torture devices for long weekend visits. Yes, I know you went somewhere cool. Yes, I’m jealous. Now I’m going to hate you because not only did you rub it in, you bored me to death in the process. Asshole.

4. Have I mentioned the minimal thing? I use Google Reader, and I subscribe to Freshly Pressed. Why I did that is beyond me at this point, but that’s a topic for a different blog…

Anyway. I’m sure you’ve used an RSS reader before. If you haven’t, imagine a never-ending newspaper page. It’s nice and broken up around the individual blogs, and you can scroll past the ones you don’t want to read pretty quickly. Unless, of course, some asshole has decided that they’re the world’s greatest photographer and has posted 4567890976546754 pictures in their blog. Without captions. Not only do I not want to look at all your fucking pictures, I don’t even know what I’m looking at. I’ve wasted precious moments of my life scrolling past other people’s forays into photography and I have to say, I’m not impressed. I’m mostly just annoyed.

5. Pictures, but no words? Get a Shutterfly account, or whatever the hell is popular for online photo viewing nowadays. I still have all my pictures in Photobucket…

6. Photoshopping is perfectly acceptable… to a point. Learn the limits. I’m not exactly sure what those limits might be, but there are some.

In conclusion? A few pictures in a blog are great as long as they accentuate the content. If they’re the only content? Get a damn photo album. They still sell those at Walmart. Really. I think…

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