I apologize for the short notice, but The Photo Playground will be unavailable for up to several hours beginning at about 8pm EST for much needed site maintenance.  When the site returns online you shouldn’t notice any major differences, if any at all.  Our server has been neglected and requires major clean up and reorganization.  We also need to update a fair amount of the scripting that we utilize.  Thank you for your understanding and patience.

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Greetings readers.  This is just a quick update on what the Facebook’s new groups product means for readers and followers of The Photo Playground.  Fortunately the new groups product has made significant improvements over their previous groups product.  Although it does seem that Facebook is always in the middle of some sort of controversy involving privacy, we believe that the new features better secure your privacy based on how you decide to control your information in regards to The Photo Playground’s group and how to limit or maximize the amount of information you receive from The Photo Playground on Facebook.  We have created a new Facebook group and intend to delete the old one within the next week, although an exact date has not been set.  We expect to delete the old group sometime next weekend.  All of the Facebook links on this site have already been changed and link directly to the new Facebook group.  To join the new group please click the large Facebook graphic at the top of the page.  We do not foresee any changes being made our Facebook Page.

A major plus to the new groups is that it allows users to submit photos viewable to all members.  This is beneficial in that it supports peer critique and affords you the opportunity to present your work for consideration at The Photo Playground.  I have all current options and features selected, which essentially offers you the greatest amount of potential interaction with our Facebook group.  Members can post to the wall, publish images, publish videos, engage in discussion, etc.

As a reminder we also have a Flikr group where users can submit photos and enter into discussions.

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Last weekend I also created a Flikr group so that the fans of this blog could contribute and have their work featured in the ‘Photographers’ category.  So far there are four members including myself.  I will be posting another featured photographer article within the next few days.  I have three featured photographers articles on the burner right now and would love have that number increased.  Click the graphic above or click here to join us on flikr.

I was having some coffee with a few friends on Thrusday and they urged me to create a facebook fan page and a facebook group, thanks Beth and Mike.  I set the two pages up later that evening and we’re already at over 40 people on each page.  The facebook group is where you have the option to submit photos for our consideration to be featured on this site and the fan page is just there for you to show your support for the site.

I have also added another widget to the sidebar right next to the posted content.  You can connect directly with the Flikr and Facebook groups by clicking on the icons in the widget.

I also recommend that you resubscribe by clicking on the subscribe link above.  My original feed still works, but I’m not sure it will when seanstimac.com is moved to another hosting account.  You can also resubscribe by clicking here.

Thanks to all who regularly read this, you’re the reason I do this.

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If you have linked to this blog please update the web URL accordingly.  I will only leave seanstimac.com active through the end of the month.  Thanks for your support.

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Greetings readers. Recently we’ve been thinking that we should open the blog a bit more to you, our readers.  There are so many people doing incredible things with photography that we would like to present some of them here on The Photo Playground.  Using our new flikr pool, readers can now add photos of their projects for all of us to enjoy.  We decided to make membership open to the public and we did not establish any rules.  In fact, the pool will not be moderated, at least initially.  Sean will act as administrator and will not be terribly active in that role.

We want to see what you are working on with your photographic endeavors.  Whether it be fine art photos, home made equipment, etc.  There aren’t any submission guidelines.  From time to time, depending on the activity of the group, we will be featuring artists pulled from this group on the blog.  As you may have noticed there is a new category called ‘Photographers’ in the sidebar through this category you will be able to browse through all the  featured photographers, once we have actually published some of their work, of course.

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I understand that there are certain software applications that were built specifically for IE6.  To those people who are accessing this site from work, I apologize and encourage you to either access it from home or from a public terminal.  In an age where technological advancements are made so rapidly it can be daunting to keep up, but sometimes it becomes necessary to accept a little bit of change to allow progress.  The latest web browsers have streamlined the internet, made videos and graphics load faster, and most importantly have become more intuitive.  The browsers of the past are inefficient and stifle the growth and reliability that we have come to expect of the internet.

For those of you who are not running IE6, but are interested in the latest version of Firefox (my favorite) please click here, it’s a free download.

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I prefer analog photography and almost all of my photographic endeavors are accomplished with analog equipment. However, I believe I can improve on the content of this blog and serve a larger audience by including articles that delve into the digital realms of photography. That said, I’m happy to announce that soon The Photo Playground will be the home of a new author, Jeff Kitson.

Jeff is a friend of mine currently attending classes at Northern Michigan University. With his help The Photo Playground will also be a resource for photographers that utilize studio lighting and digital photographic equipment. Together we will also delve deeper into photography theory and discuss some post modern trends in photography. Jeff will add depth to the blog that I couldn’t, I’m very excited for what’s to come. I hope you’ll join me in welcoming Jeff to The Photo Playground. I should also mention that soon we will be moving to thephotoplayground.com. I will post a redirect on seanstimac.com for about a month to make sure I don’t lose you. Everyone who has subscribed to the feed will be OK, the feed will still work after we move.

If there is content or if there are categories you would like to see more of at The Photo Playground, shoot us a message and we’ll do our best to oblige.

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Everything seems to be working as planned.  I don’t foresee any more changes being made unless you my gentle readers have any suggestions on how I can make your visits more pleasant.

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Some very exciting news, my DIY 35mm pinhole tutorial has been reposted at Four Corners Dark you can view the post here.  If you’re unfamiliar with Four Corners Dark you should go check them out.  They are without a doubt the best toy camera blog ever.  Their new online store, the Four Corners Store has just been opened and they have some good stuff.  There aren’t tons and tons of products, but there were a few things that I had to have (more on them in the future).

Thanks to Nic at Four Corners Dark for reposting the article.

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