How I compose a blog post...

Since taking over posting the blog on a daily basis, I have developed a approach to it that I find sustainable (and that gives me quite a lot of satisfaction in the process). I have decided to share this -without suggesting that it is the only, or the best, way to do it.

I typically start with my camera, which is the one built in to my iPhone 3GS.  

This is not particularly high spec (2 megapixels) - iPhone4s and 4Ss have higher resolution (Annie Liebovitz rates the iPhone as a portrait camera, so it is not seen as just a toy!). It only has a digital zoom function, which I never use, because it only results in pixellated images.  I used to use the Camera program supplied with the phone, but now use the Camera Genius program (£1.49)  - or sometimes Camera+ (£0.69). Both of these have an image stabilisation function, which means the shot isn't taken if I am waving the camera about.  This avoids fuzzy images that I can't use and is really helpful when taking a series of shots to put together into a panoramic composite.

Because the phone generally goes everywhere with me, I always look out for images to put on the blog. They don't always work out - often because of the light levels. Camera Genius gives a little control over this, as well as on the focus  snap point of the photo. 

I will use yesterday's blog post as an example:-

This is an original photo I took yesterday morning, just up the road. I downloaded it, along with all the day's other photos, into iPhoto onto my computer (a MacBook) yesterday evening.  

Onscreen, it was clearly off vertical, so I used the Straighten function to correct this.  In this "Quick Fixes"tab, I most often use the Crop function. I never use Enhance or Retouch.

Having straightened the image, I then switch to the "Effects" tab.  I typically just Boost all images to a value of 1 - this corrects for the slightly muted colour that the iPhone camera gives.

Switching to the "Adjust" tab - typically I leave Exposure, Contrast and Saturation alone, and simply boost Definition and Highlights to 100, and increase Shadows as necessary.  It is easy to overdo Shadows to get a grainy effect, and sometimes Highlights can look odd - so some judgement is needed at this stage. Photos are generally ready to use in the blog after these steps.


Panoramas are assembled in the phone, using a program called AutoStitch (£1.49). I typically take a series of overlapping photos in CameraGenius and then get the program to combine them. 30 is the greatest number of separate photos I have used so far in making a single panoramic image.

Yesterday's panoramic sunset image was built up from 7 separate photos (cropped to give a rectangular image). It had the same Boost, Definition and Highlights adjustments as the other photos.

I take anywhere between 10 and 100 photos a day. The processing time to get them ready for use on the blog is generally around half an hour to an hour a day. I select the photos that I think might work on the blog and Export them to the desktop of my computer. Then I start composing a blog post for the day by logging into Blogger,

uploading the photographs

and placing them on the screen.  They get placed at Medium size, which is quite small. I resized the blog screen recently to allow X-Large images to be used without overflowing the blog post boundaries.  Most of the examples in this post are Large.

Having got the images onto the blog, I may move their order around and then typically write a descriptive or explanatory piece around each one

I then proofread (not always as well as I should!) and then change the font from Times Normal

 to Georgia Large

Another quick read through, edit - and press the Publish Post button.  I then post on Facebook and Twitter that there is a new blog post for the day, and wait for people to read - and sometimes respond with comments.


Now I've got that off my chest, time to finish my glass of wine:-)!