FolioLink: Review

Following my recent post, I had the welcome surprise of an email from FolioLink's Elizabeth Manegold encouraging me to test drive it. Since she had graciously already set me up with a trial account, I gladly jumped at the offer. Although she suggested that they guide me through the initial setup process as well as how to add audio, I decided that I would spend exactly one hour building a new gallery without any outside help at all, and see how much I could achieve. Having built my own website, I figured if I succeeded in building a working gallery within the self-alloted time frame, that it would be the acid test as to how functionally intuitive FolioLink is.

So without further ado, here's my trial "it-took-one-hour-only" FolioLink Dancing Monks of Prakhar gallery. The trial will last about 7 days, so the link might not work beyond next week...but for those TTP subscribers and those readers who log in regularly, it will give you an idea at how easy FolioLink is. I think that I could have spent another hour or two on my own, and significantly improved the presentation. I wasn't successful in adding an audio soundtrack, but Elizabeth would've guided me through the steps to do so with this particular template. To add audio to the other available templates appears to be a cinch, but I didn't try.

I was very impressed with the quantity and aesthetics of the available templates (both HTML and Flash), and by the quick upload of images. I had to try out the best resolution parameters for my photographs to display as I wanted them to...FolioLink has an option to auto size the photographs for you, but I chose to size them manually ending up with what you'll eventually see. I would say that it took me about 10 minutes to fiddle with the various controls/mechanics of the service, another 15 minutes to test the appropriate image sizes, and the rest of the hour was devoted to uploading them, and the text biography, and fine tuning the order of the photographs. I also tested the Wizard which makes tasks even simpler, and tested each available template that looked appropriate for my gallery. Some templates are only available to premium users.

Having gone through the exercise, I'm reasonably certain that most photographers interested in FolioLink will be able to construct wonderful galleries within a few hours, especially if they use the Wizard feature. Naturally, having telephone technical assistance will reduce the time expended, and would allow users to add audio and other effects. FolioLink offers the feature of e-cards (sending photo editors and clients postcards of the photographs) which is great idea, and I'm told that there's Google optimization as well. Its 'Turnkey' option allows a maximum of 60 images, multiple galleries (subject to the 60 images ceiling). There's a PayPal integration so that clients can directly buy prints off the site. I was disappointed in FolioLink's Help but found that I didn't really need it.

Bottom line: FolioLink is a wonderful service which will appeal to many photographers and artists...not only because of aesthetics but also because it allows the users to have total control over their web portfolios rather than ceding it to a web designer. However, the pricing structure for the Turnkey option is $239 a year with a one-time $149 set up fee, bringing the total first year payment to $388. On my "back-of-the-envelope" calculations, this translates to $6.50 per image for the first 12 months, and $3.98 per image thereafter (yes, FolioLink does not charge by the number of images, but that's how my brain is wired...so bear with me).

Provided that you want a professional 'wow' website with multiple galleries, and you prefer to maintain full control over it (at a much cheaper cost than hiring a web designer), then I have no second thoughts in recommending FolioLink. If however, you already have skills in web design/HTML/Flash, then you can probably go for the DIY route...as they say, if you want Flash and you have the cash, then FolioLink is a product that certainly merits your consideration.

Photojournalism Now

Digital Photo Pro magazine has an interesting and higly topical article in its May-June edition. Ed Kashi, Dirck Halstead and Brian Storm give their thoughts on the future of photojournalism. The article starts off by asserting that " the age of traditional freelance photojournalism is no more. Newspaper and magazine markets are shrinking. Editorial budgets are at an all-time low. In these changing times, freelance photojournalists can still make a living and fulfill the calling to get the story out by adapting to a new paradigm."

The future is certainly in cyberspace, and almost every photographer now has a web presence, if not a dedicated website. This evolution requires new skills, chief amongst them the skill of story telling and the skill of adapting to new media and to new products. Photographers unable or unwilling to evolve will soon find themselves marginalized and without an outlet for their products.

Brian Storm is quoted as feeling the pulse of the industry shifting now toward multimedia storytelling, which is hugely satisfying for him. "I've been jumping up and down for almost 15 years now, trying to get photographers to think about multimedia and multi-platform storytelling, and gathering sound— the kind of things that maybe a photojournalist wasn't too keen to do before. Now I think they see it as a great opportunity to be authors of their stories, which is something I think we've been missing in our profession."

The full article is here.

NY Times: Dabbawallas

Image Copyright Fawzan Husain for the NY Times
The recent NY Times' slideshow of the 'dabbawallas' of Mumbai is an example of weak multimedia, and whoever decided on publishing it was sleepwalking. The subject of the 'dabbawallas' is an interesting one, not only from a cultural standpoint, but also from a business perspective. It's a shame that the photographs by Fawzan Husain in this slideshow barely touch the surface of the 'dabbawalla' profession. The absence of an audio soundtrack also tells me that the feature was not sufficiently thought through. I would have divided the feature into two parts: one focusing on the overall industry (but much more than the NYT did) and the second delving deeper into the lives of a couple of "dabbawallahs"....their daily routine, their families, their lodgings, etc with interviews and ambient sound of traffic, street noise and so forth.

However, TTP is not only about photography, but also showcases topics that gives assignment ideas to photographers and photojournalists....so this gives me the opportunity to post about the 'dabbahwallahs', or the 'packed-lunch delivery boys', who number at least 5,000 in Mumbai alone. These men deliver at least 200,000 home-cooked meals from the outer suburbs to the city's center each and every working day. They are self-employed, and have devised one of the most ingenious distribution in the world, by working in groups of four in a semblance of a relay ensuring the door-to-door delivery.

The dabbawallahs date back to the late 19th century when the city's exploding population needed feeding at work. More than a century later Mumbai's middle classes still prefer their food home-cooked. From a business standpoint, Forbes magazine ranked the dabbahwallahs alongside the likes of GE and Motorola in terms of efficiency and quality of service.

The enormity of the task is mind boggling...over 200,000 boxes (known locally as tiffinboxes) are handled every day...each box has to be delivered to the right person, using local infrastructure such as public trains and bicycles...and during weather problems such as monsoons or heat waves. Costs are low, roughly about $5 a month.

However, competition is looming. The tiffin box carriers delivering to the Mumbai Stock Market workers jostle for business with international fast food outlets such as McDonald's and Pizza Hut. However, I bet that the 'dabbawallahs' will remain as a fixture...as the Indians' aversion to what is known as "outside food" is well known.

NY Times' Dabbawallahs (Registration possibly required)

Chains of Heaven Slideshow

Posting about the island monastery of Narga Selassie a couple of weeks ago, I had the urge to revisit some of my photographs of northern Ethiopia, where Christianity is a more than daily way of life. I ended up producing this non-audio slideshow with beta (trial) version of Soundslides Plus, but haven't used its new 'Ken Burns' effect which many have clamored for. Chains of Heaven slideshow

Ross Taylor: India

Image Copyright © Ross Taylor-All Rights Reserved
Ross Taylor is a staff photographer at the Hartford Courant, and is the recipient of impressive awards. He was awarded the Award of Excellence (Portrait) at POYi, won the NPAA's Best of Photojournalism (Magazine Cover Picture), and many more.

His portrait of a Kashmiri woman holding her child featured on his website's India gallery is beautiful in its simplicity, while his photograph of a New Delhi man having his son massaging his back while a dog is looking on, is just a wonderful 'tableau'.

I chose Scott's photograph of Rajasthani women carrying bricks on a building site to start off this post. I liked the light and the composition of the photograph. The angle is slightly awkward, but gives the impression of movement as the women are walking upwards, and I particularly liked that he captured the women's identical hand gesture in steadying themselves against the wall.

Scott's website has a handful of galleries, out of which two are 'international' : India and Costa Rica.

Beyond The Frame: Balinese Bicycle

Image Copyright © Tewfic El-Sawy _ All Rights Reserved
Pekak Jiwa is 75, and has lived in a village near Tandeng for at least 60 years. As pemangku, he officiated in countless temple anniversaries or odalan. The pemangku are temple priests who are recruited from the lower castes in Bali. They maintain temples with the help of villagers, but are generally regarded by the higher priests, or pedanda, not much more than cleaners and sweepers in the temples. However, the pemangku are more accessible, live near their temples and live ordinary lives.

Pekak has difficulty walking because of arthritis, so used his creaky old bicycle as a walker. It seems he never actually rode the bicycle but just pushes it along the way, also finding it useful to carry his scythe and an old Puma tennis racket cover (as a bag) on its handlebars. Notice his conical hat (red in the original photograph) denoting that he was a farmer, still working in his small rice field every day. He readily admitted to gambling (perhaps on cock fights?) and to an addiction to arak, Bali's dangerous moonshine, traditionally made from coconut and essentially equivalent to the well-known 'toddy'. Interestingly, arak is used as an offering in religious ceremonies, perhaps explaining the reason for his continuing to work as a a lay priest for so long. I can easily visualize Pekak surreptitiously drinking the arak offerings when he has the chance.

One of my objectives from setting up and leading my Bali photo expedition is to photograph people such as Pekak...authentic, photogenic and with life stories. Bali is replete with such opportunities, its smiling people more than willing to be photographed, and its culture incredibly welcoming.

F. Scott Schafer: Asia

Image Copyright © F. Scott Schaffer-All Rights Reserved
Information on F. Scott Schafer is certainly not all over the place. He was born in Key West in Florida, after spending much of his adolescence sneaking his camera into local heavy metal shows and photographing friend’s bands, a career in photography came calling.

After graduating from the Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena, with a degree in Photography, Scott has been working for editorial and advertising clients ever since. It also appears he's into surfing, snowboarding, scuba diving and trekking up Everest....activities which are somewhat contradictory to his serene Travel portfolio on his website. Unfortunately, he has chosen not to provide any captions to these magnificently toned portraits...but they're from India (Pushkar and Punjab), Bhutan or Ladakh, probably Nepal and Tibet, Myanmar, Cambodia and possibly Viet Nam. These portraits are all posed, and are ageless...similar to ancient studio portraiture style and are visually compelling.

By all accounts, Schafer's commercial photography is very successful, but it is this Travel gallery on his website that attracted my attention and admiration. To me, the above image of the monk and a novice is just perfect...the poses are both very well calibrated. The older monk's tilt of the head, and his facial expression is one of puzzlement (the "what on earth is this foreign photographer up to" kind of look), while the novice's expression is one of acceptance and wonder...and are they in a temple's alcove?

Here's F. Scott Schafer's website , where you can see his Travel gallery amongst other of his galleries.