Portraits of Africa

Within my photo series “Portraits of Africa” here is the image of a young African boy.

Portraits of Africa

I just love Black & White Photography and how it adds depth to a picture, especially portraits and expressive faces.

“Portraits of Africa” are shot on a simple NIKON Coolpix P90 with a minimum of post-editing, ideally nothing at all.

Touched by Gorillas

I was always touched by gorillas and I just love Nature and its wildlife, however, this short video about a close encounter with a family of gorillas in Uganda was sent to me by a friend and mutual wildlife lover… I invite you to see this and admire what a wonderful world we are living in! I just love Africa, where you feel the heart beating deep down from the earth and each single day is filled with surprise, magnificence and thrill.

Touched by Gorillas

Here’s the video that I simply call “Touched by Gorillas” – no need to explain or say anything… and especially those of you who know game reserves and camps can appreciate this wonderful experience to the fullest.

Imagine you sat there with your camera… I had quite a similar experience in the mountains with a wild troop of baboons… but gorillas are something else!

The above picture leads to the original website – thank you for allowing us to share this with the world!

Happy New Year 2012

This is definitely going to be my last post in 2011 – wishing YOU a very special, prosperous and fulfilling Happy New Year 2012 on a special and typically funny South African note! Right from Nature – what else?

Happy New Year 2012

Wishing YOU a Happy New Year 2012 gives me the opportunity to thank you – my dear friends, customers and readers – for your continued interest and loyal support over the past twelve months, which I know have been an extremely challenging experience for many! Here’s hope that we will all start with new energies, love and devotion to accomplish what we have come to do and excel with it!

Ta ra ta tata

Ta ra ta tata has become a known signal for our daily workshops and monthly seminars at Ycademy – so we will end 2011 on that note and shout it loud and clear at midnight – dancing to LIVE music that is! YEBO GOGO!

CHEERS!

Happy Christmas 2011

As every year around this time, we had some lovely rains for Nature to breath and rejoice – followed by beautiful sunshine and an almost tropical heat inviting everybody to relax on the beach!

Many friends have arrived from overseas to spend a Happy Christmas 2011 on the sunny side of the globe, i.e. in South Africa.

Happy Christmas 2011

It’s not easy to write “Happy Christmas 2011″ when being aware of so much desaster in the world right now. I am thinking especially of our friends in Mindanao – but not only there…

In those situations it takes strength and courage to believe in ourselves as part of the universal “All that Is” – and with it in the promise the light at the end of the tunnel brings. As long as you keep seeing it! The people in the Philippines are strong in their belief and it’s part of their beauty… but they as many others need our loving thoughts and, where possible, our care and attention. This is what the real Christmas Message is all about… like a candle touching and setting alight the next candle…

I will take this picture into the night – magandang gabi.

Follow Us on Twitter and Facebook

Finally, Monkey Valley Resort can shout loud and clear: “Follow Us on Twitter!” and “Follow Us on Facebook!”

Follow Us on Twitter and Facebook

While it may be totally normal for Internet Marketers and Social Network professionals to have a Twitter and Facebook account and to invite everyone to “Follow Us on Twitter and Facebook”, this is by far not the case – yet – with many of our customers. In fact, it can take quite some effort and persuasion to get the accounts set up and then  connect the new website to both Twitter and Facebook!

While we want to automate the posting process itself from one end – for instance with a plugin – visitors to the website need to find the famous little blue bird to ‘tweet’ or the big blue “F” to follow and like – or a personalized version to “follow” as I designed for the new Monkey Valley Resort website, using the branded little logo with the monkey on the golden triangle.

More on the branding issue in a minute…

Noordhoek Sunset Photo

In general, people like nice photos and – from what I see on Social Networks – they like good quotes. It may be thoughts they agree to and that they can easily endorse – LIKE -, something funny or witty that might make them laugh, something uplifting for the soul … ergo: something that appeals and they just want to share it with their friends.

To ‘share’ in the virtual world means to “Like” – and as “likes” bring advantages in one way or another, especially on Facebook – it’s all about collecting “likes”. So I hope you like my Noordhoek Sunset Photo with an unknown quote I came across this morning and that I personally like as I believe it’s something we should live by.

Noordhoek Sunset Photo

In today’s fast moving digital media world, people don’t like to read as they are already swamped with information from all sides – it’s simply impossible. Mass triumphs over quality… and often simply squashes it! How can we find what’s original and precious amongst the many heaps of re-tweets, re-publishes, re-I-dunno-what and all of this… re-gurgitated stuff?

Most definitely we have to learn to reduce and compress what we wish to express into something that’s easily understood, has the key elements and the message and most importantly: it’s absorbed in a snap!

Like a simple element – like my Noordhoek Sunset Photo -  with a thought added to it. It’s simple, human and it may just resonnate more with those who look at it – creating a reaction, a like, so-called conversation.
But that’s just a first step within the process of understanding basic human behavior in the digital era.

Time for Infographics

It’s time for Infographics.

While it’s really not new and we used to call it ‘illustrations’ … and I’m sure that’s what they are still called in the traditional advertising and publishing environment (you will book an illustrator for a job… as simple as that) – what’s new however, is the quality we can produce today on the Internet in terms of digital media design!

It’s smashing!

Amazing too as to how fast this is being accomplished by those with the knowledge and the skill… and with comparatively simple means.

This was impossible a few years ago and it is indeed wildly exciting in terms of future developments we can expect… and the oeuvre produced by some of the major illustrators out there…

Basically, it’s about a picture that’s meant to tell a 1000 stories. It is in most cases composed of an array of pictures, stats, graphs, text, headlines, images both simple and/or complex – all this arranged on a minimum of space to bring a message over fast and furiously.

First of all and most importantly however : it all starts with an idea we want to express… followed by the creative process of converting the abstract into something visual and making it understandable in a reduced and often – but not always – simplified way – always in excellent quality – that catches our attention in a snap!

When I see this work I just can’t help thinking: “WOO! Quality does count… again!” – only talking of the Internet now of course. And this I really … LIKE!

An interesting topic for the future that will definitely have an effect on Social Network Publishing – I will be back with more…

Happy Weekend

Just wishing everybody a relaxed and happy weekend right from my webcam!

Happy Weekend

Also thinking of all our European friends who are going through some rough moments…
May the right solutions be found with Vision, Wisdom and Peace; may People discover themselves in other People and realize that there is only ONE way: together… with mutual respect and understanding!
In South Africa we say “Ubuntu”: “I am because you are. ”

Tough times are for our Growth – Happy Weekend!

World Design Capital 2014

Truthful to our mission to regularly monitor the results of our articles on our WP based Semiomantics Scripts in terms of their Google performance, let’s have a look at the latest buzzword especially down here in Cape Town, South Africa: “World Design Capital 2014″! WOOHOO! That’s the award the Mother City received today… and the town is shaking!

World Design Capital 2014 on Google

Despite the fierce competition following the exciting announcement this morning, you see on the above screenshot to which rank exactly my article earlier today – READ HERE -  has made it: Position 3 on Google Top 10! That’s worth a celebration too!

The Importance of being part of a Network

As you may notice, the article is carried up to this high rank through the YORGOO Publishing Network, of which I am a Co-Founder. So far, the article on my Author Blog has made it to page 4… and it will probably continue to climb.

We see very clearly the importance of being part of a Network: whether your article reaches maximum exposure on Google Top 10 with your own blog or whether it’s been carried there through your network – all links and credits staying intact of course – does not really matter here… as long as you get there. From experience we know that – ultimately – the original article makes it there and… it sticks.

This exactly is the interest of everyone who has a product or service to sell online: to be visible on Google Top 10 to attract people looking for them – provided they target correctly in terms of keywords. Being part of the YORGOO Publishing Network has its merits – all our Web Design customers know that and benefit from extra exposure… meaning more traffic… meaning more visitors… meaning more conversion… meaning everybody is happy!

Cape Town World Design Capital 2014

Congratulations: at about 6:30 am South African time this morning, straight from Taipei in Taiwan, Cape Town was awarded the prestigious crown of World Design Capital 2014 !!!

What a feeling! Having seen and been part of the dramatic changes of this amazing country especially since 1994, I can just say: WOW! A very, very happy WOW… and I know Table Mountain has been shaking from all the celebrations… probably it still is!

What an evolution… and if you click on the picture below you see the short video that was  screened at the International Design Alliance (IDA) Congress in Taipei during what was called “… an electrifying announcement of the Mother City’s win”. The brief clip was created by Muti Films with Freshlyground’s young, vibrant and unmistakeably Capetonian Mowbray Kaap music. It’s just a mere glimpse of what Cape Town and its multi-talented people have to offer – so watch out what’s going to happen over the next 3 years! An amazing achievement given the fact that the big cities of the world competed… and considering the shortlisting against Bilbao and Dublin… Earlier winners of the award, that was created eight years ago, were cities like Seoul and Helsinki…

Cape Town World Design Capital 2014

Being “Cape Town World Design Capital 2014″ will bring many advantages for Cape Town!

Besides getting global exposure and attention… and with that free marketing of the highest order, there will be huge economic benefits as the local government will be committed to investing in a better and so much needed infra-structure of the famous garden city – which will in turn benefit Tourism.

And there will be creative solutions! In that respect I like what Fred Roed expressed so well:” Design will be proactively used to bring us together. This award brings an increased awareness of the power of creativity to solve problems – from traffic, to overcrowded townships, to informal trading areas, and to the environment. Thinking creatively brings about positive change, and ultimately profit to society and to business (ask Steve Jobs about that last point).”

A great day for Cape Town! Well done to all who worked so hard for this!

Vote for Table Mountain

As we’re in the official limelight, let’s all Vote for Table Mountain – let’s just do it!

Good Morning from Noordhoek

Good Morning from Noordhoek is an inspiring greeting showing Life in a Day, each day, in Noordhoek, South Africa… and who hasn’t been dreaming of a real wild and wondrous “African Experience”? Here you have it… solar radio en al and thoroughly ignoring anything beyond the ‘normal’ way of life: what’s that anyway?! Yeah… Noordhoek is idyllic… and we Noordhoekers just simply love it…

Good Morning from Noordhoek

Once again, the day started with some heavy rain – but contrary to the rest of the world we are extremely grateful for it as you can literally feel Mother Earth breathing and the plants and flowers reaching out for more in unison! Probably my “rainmaker dance” with a “rain stick” bought just aside the boutique on the picture here, the so-called “Pompous Fly” in Noordhoek Farm Village, did its magic… besides all the Noordhoek trolls and fairies :)

Actually, I had rushed down to the beach hoping to spot some of the many dolphins said to still be in the bay… but despite the awesome colors of the sea they seemed to be frolicking somewhere else. I will keep checking… they are just too lovely to watch and well worth the effort!

Wishing YOU a cheerful day and sending tons of sunshine!

Good bye Steve Jobs

Opening my Safari browser a few minutes ago just made my heart stop for a few moments: there he was, one of the true visionaries and movers of our digital era, a man who has transformed the way we communicate on the mobile web and this with incredible style, efficiency, functionality…and financial success: Steve Jobs, looking straight at me through his fine-rimmed glasses in clean, elegant black and white Apple-style. Even before I saw the dates: 1955 to 2011… I knew the Apple legend had passed to the next level:
Good bye Steve Jobs.

Good bye Steve Jobs

Once again, Steve Jobs grabbed our attention and all the world is watching!

In my case here in Noordhoek at the tip of South Africa – full-screen on the highest valued real estate in the world! Again he demonstrated that with being on the Internet and having joined the virtual reality there is no escape; here we are all one. At least here it becomes blatantly visible… which all has both sides, good and bad and it certainly accelerates our evolution at an incredible pace. It often made me ponder as to how all this connected to our spiralling and accelerating path towards a higher consciousness… as I have no doubt that we too are on a transformational journey. Comparing the terminology both environments are using – the spiritual and the digital – is revelatory alone…

Is this too a look into the future?

Strangely enough – this picture has no finality to me…

There’s much more to come – but for the moment and leaving the real laudatio to the big boyz, I just say “Thank you” as I too have learned a lot…and : Good bye Steve Jobs!

Listening to Silence

Earlier today, I was asked as to whether the Internet was good or bad – and all I could answer was that it was a matter of perspective and our clear decision as to whether we would use a rather neutral tool in a positive or negative way. Meaning for a good or a bad purpose.

Not always the choice is that easy – and that may cause inner conflict.

Within the loudness of the virtual world … of Social Networks like Twitter, Facebook and so many others with their distinctive Social Media Marketing glitz and glamour… an environment where so much is spoken with so little being said… it’s essential to stop spinning from time to time, realign, anchor oneself and find that inner space where we are still.

Whether we go out into Nature… practise yoga or meditate… we want to reach that level where everything ebbs away… where we start flowing… where we are listening to silence.

Listening to Silence

Ironically, it is this loud and dizzying virtual world that offers us incredible opportunities, bringing us into contact – almost direct contact – with some of the most evolved minds, allowing us to listen, learn and expand our horizon.

Here is one of those rare pearls that gives me something more each time I listen… with so much being expressed between the words. I’m talking of J. Krishnamurti, one of the world’s most influential thinkers and teachers.

The below memorable Interview by famous controversial British journalist and broadcaster – Bernard Levin – took place in Brockwood, UK, on 20th June 1981 – about 30 years ago. Thanks to the Internet, we have the privilege of listening to it today – and nothing has been lost in terms of meaningfulness and quality… it’s incredibly direct, it’s loving and encompassing. In our world today – filled with conflict and going through dramatic change -, Krishnamurti addresses fundamental values, our thoughts and our thinking, the importance of being light and … without conflict.

Love to share it with you.

I will add the next part of the series as time permit. The direct link to YouTube is HERE.

Black and white Seagull Photo

It’s great if we can design a photo in a way that it reflects the character of whatever or whoever we portray; it just adds more depth of expression… even though it could be understood as an interpretation. Well, each picture is an independent individual’s view – luckily so… otherwise we wouldn’t have so much amazing diversity within photographic expression.

You don’t need a major setup for such an exercise, anything around your garden or favourite hangout place can serve the purpose: here I just did a simple Black and white Seagull Photo in Kalk Bay Harbour.

The black and white seagull with a distinctive yellow beak marked with a dash of red was sitting at a distance on the greyish-blue plastic cover of a boat rocking gently in the sea. Her greyish-blue eyes observed me all the time.

Black and white Seagull Photo

If you compare the two birds you immediately spot the more aggressive one. Accordingly, and depending on what you want to express as a digital photographer, the rather placid background of the black and white Seagull Photo is more suitable here – compare it with the aggressive species HERE.

Relevant Online Marketing Seminars

Relevant Online Marketing Seminars like those offered by Ycademy since 2004 are in high demand by people who want to build a successful business online or bring their offline business to the Internet.

Following my article on How to do Online Marketing on Friday, here is some feedback with my personal conclusions from the first day of this astonishingly clear, quite complex yet efficient and hands-on Ycademy Workshop that provided each Seminar participant with a relevant Email Marketing setup on their WordPress based Author Blog on Semiomantics XO.

The above photo was taken at the V & A Waterfront in Cape Town, South Africa – a traditional Marketing eldorado of its kind!

Relevant Online Marketing Seminars

What emerged as a key element from the first day of this relevant Online Marketing Seminar by Ycademy was that today online marketing has to be “relevant” and “contextual”. These two words have to be remembered, specifically when focusing on Email Marketing and the integration of Emailing with Newsletters and/or Autoresponders into one’s CMS, eg. Author Blog.

With our high performing Semiomantics websites and blogs this is no easy task to start with.

It needs careful thought and weighing of what is needed versus what’s not needed and a close look at what serves our purpose best: free or paid solutions? On the surface, it looks like concessions will have to be made between the mailer and our website optimization… however, that’s obviously not what we at Ycademy will settle with!

Relevant Emailing

Relevant Emailing in a smart and contextual form is what the Ycademy Brainwave came up with despite some rather frustrating research into various unsatisfactory avenues. Relevant Email Marketing in a way that’s modern, permission-based, contextual and far beyond the batch and blast approach of the old days.

With all of us thoroughly fed up with the clutter still reaching our mail boxes despite spam filters, we need to know that this is only around 20% of the spam that actually goes out – and this still seems to serve a certain market… an indicator that even that still works.

However, for the marketing professional in today’s economic climate everything turns around customer retention – and emailing is a powerful way of keeping in touch, communicating and ensuring growth through customer retention. We all learned that it is more cost-efficient to work on retaining an existing customer than winning over a new one.

Bearing this in mind, we move away from large broadcast campaigns to more targeted engagements. However, delivering that relevance requires more sophistication and here the challenge is to invest in the analysis of response and behavior data in order to assist us in directing our marketing strategies in the most beneficial ways – beneficial for us on one hand to avoid losing our time and efforts and risking spam complaints and optouts – as well as for the customer who may well be interested in receiving hot information on the red sunlasses we offer but not the green bikinis we sell in a different chapter. This needs to be realized and attended to accordingly. This is what relevance and context in terms of reaching out to our readers and customers is all about. That we give them what they want without throwing anything else at them. Graceful Service with the right Attitude in my eyes. Just as an example.

Looking at our website publications – eg. Author Blogs – it appears that the Email channel is a natural extension to distribute and monetize content – however, it needs a customized approach and it needs a soft approach to ensure that our mails get delivered and… opened… and maybe even passed on.

Therefore, our goal as publishers must always be to deliver a relevant, contextual and personalized quality experience that our readers and customers enjoy!

How do we achieve this?

Ycademy Seminar on Online Marketing

While day 1 of the Ycademy Seminar on Online Marketing provided the conceptual understanding, the basic setup and the tools, day 2 (today) will complete this important chapter in order to not only serve our own purpose in terms of promoting our own products and services, however, for those of us who focus on customer satisfaction when it comes to Web Design and Customer Follow-up, to offer our customers a maximum of value and safety in firstly reaching out and staying in close contact with their customers with their highly search engine optimized WP based Semiomantics CMS.

I am looking forward to a highly informative Workshop at the Ycademy Seminar today.

How to Create Personalized Photo Albums

Here’s how to create Personalized Photo Albums via WordPress based Photo Blogs on Semiomantics XO – certainly one of the best WP Photography Themes if combined with Semiomantics Web Design.

Here’s a screenshot of my sketch on Photoshop earlier featuring a main slide for the category “Art” with a photo I shot at the exhibition on ‘The Human Abused’ by Guenther Uecker, for which I created a website HERE.

Followed by the execution on Semiomantics XO so far:

How to Create Personalized Photo Albums

After exposing their private work to the world in Social Networks like Facebook without any control, more and more Internet users look into ways as to how to create personalized Photo Albums and Photo Blogs where they are in the driver’s seat and decide what to show how, when, where and in what shape, size or color. Once we got our neck around the fact that nothing on the Internet is private… and that we should simply not publish or expose online what we want to keep ‘secret’, it’s definitely more creative, more exciting and more fun for sure to create one’s own online photo environment, learn some skills and have something beautiful to show and to be proud of – be it your wedding pictures, your great amateur or professional photography, your kids, hobbies or even just photographic illustrations of your thoughts, poems and articles.

Ever thought of that? Publishing Online?

How to start your own Online Photo Album

Your first step in starting your own Online Photo Album is definitely to think of a good name you can relate to, that’s short and punchy and that you can buy for only $12.95  HERE. No, I don’t earn a cent on giving you this tip – but I know why I use that provider and not another… I’ve learned my lessons and I’m happy I don’t have to worry about anything here – so that’s just a tip. Go to that site and do a search on nice names you like… always as a .com. See if what you want is still available. And don’t buy into anything ‘free’ on the Internet; being in control of your own name or the name of your business is fundamental and simply a professional must. So let this be your first investment into your Online Photo presence; this is where you should start.

If you need any assistance let me know! I will be back with more as my Photo Website evolves. . .

Guenther Uecker Exhibition

Having a background in the Fine Arts myself and knowing many artists and having documented and portrayed some for German TV, I was often asked as to how to ideally document an Artist online? How to make his Art available to many people in an attractive format, especially as the beautiful books on artists have become so expensive that only a few Art afficinados can actually afford them?

The fact is that there are so many people out there who would love to see grand Art presented in a way that is as direct as possible, given the truth that nothing can ever be as powerful as seeing a work of Art live, almost touching it… But not everyone can simply fly to a Vernissage… and the funds for Cultural contributions on TV are even meaker today than they were 20 years back, meaning less and less is being produced… so what is the answer?

Well I would say: the biggest pond out there to swim in to wherever our inspiration leads us is the virtual world, the Internet… and while it may still be in its early beginnings and we have no idea as to where this exciting journey will take us… the fact is that this is where we can reach a maximum of people… and this is what an artist needs: to touch, impress, share, shock… and in any case reach people to get his or her message across.

The powerful Guenther Uecker Exhibition of “The Human Abused” (Der Geschundene Mensch) in the District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa, on 3 February 2011, gave me an impromptu opportunity to show an attractive way of how it is possible to document an expressive sculptural installation using various media and combining all in a Website. A gobal Showcase… here to last. Here to be reached and enjoyed at no cost. Click the image above and it takes you right there – on a virtual journey… direct it with your mouse and let the movie play :)

Guenther Uecker Exhibition

My documentation of the Guenther Uecker Exhibition was not planned, but grew out of a series of snapshots and a wave of enthusiasm and memories that flooded up when we met again after some 15 years… with his birthday just around the corner. I always had an admiration for this truly ‘hu-man’ who remained loyal to expressing his feelings in his significant personal style, where the mental process transmuted into physical expression resulting in a universal language of signs and signals that could be equally understood in Germany, Israel, Russia and China. A man whose enormous and restless creativity spanned most of his life, a man who can listen and whose smile is authentic.

Brief, the Exhibition inspired my creative muscle called “Web Design with Passion” and resulted in the contribution you can see HERE.

The Human Abused on Semiomantics

Coming back to how an Artist could successfully present his Oeuvre Online, one needs to know that there are two important aspects to creating a website: the visual side and the hidden side.

The visual side is what attracts and captures, the layout obviously, but most importantly the media… photos, videos, pictures. The so-called content. Of course, that’s what we want to see especially from a visual artist – right?

However, first this artist must be ‘discovered’. No – I don’t mean by gallerists and museum directors etc… I mean on the Internet! On the Internet there’s – to this date – only one main place where even the most famous artist has to be found, i.e. ‘discovered’ by his fans or potential fans and buyers – and that’s on Google.

Google Top 10 to be precise. No exception! Once there, it’s the place to be for the next 35 or so years minimum. . . think about it!

So if you are an artist and you want people to find you in your specific niche or that they see where you have an Art Exhibition or simply where they can buy your Artwork – paintings, drawings, photos, sculptures, whatever the case may be – then you need to establish yourself – ideally with your name or artist’s name – on Google Top 10. Not beyond! Noone has the time today to look further – it’s where you have to be.

So how do you get high search engine rankings?

See, you may be a Master in the Fine Arts – but online this needs to be matched by the Master of SEO and Web Design. That’s the most efficient combination. So how would you start out to achieving this?
The answer is: With the best WP powered theme out there, called Semiomantics. Semiomantics Web Design stands for Excellence in Publishing on the Internet and it has an impressive track record.

Frankly, the proof is on Google! So let’s take a look at where my recent article “The Human Abused” on Semiomantics went on Google? Here’s today’s screenshot, just click on the image to see it in a bigger overlay:

What you see is that my article on my Author Blog, http://biancagubalke.com, made it to Postion 2 on Google Top 10 versus 643,000,000 search returns, in other words competitors! An earlier post showed that the high ranking was reached within minutes… interestingly, even after a few days and such fierce competition, and without any real focus on the theme, we have improved the position and we hold many more on related keyword clouds.

Impressive, isn’t it?

So you have 2 choices: either you buy Google Ads – or you invest in Semiomantics Web Design. Each website is custom designed and depends entirely on the needs of the artist – and his or her budget. Contact me and we can discuss it. Art is my passion… so if the above makes sense to you, let’s talk! Let’s get creative!

The Human Abused in Cape Town

Current developments… not only in South Africa but world-wide… remind us of the important message in German Artist Guenther Uecker’s Exhibition “The Human Abused” (Der Geschundene Mensch) in Cape Town as well as all the different locations it has been travelling to since its creation in form of 14 pacified implements for the Institute for Foreign Relations between autumn 1992 and spring 1993.

The “abuse of man by man” is a recurring subject in Uecker’s work and expresses his reaction to violence against foreigners in Germany… while reaching out in ways that help to overcome the pain and find ways for reconciliation.

Guenther Uecker’s message hasn’t lost its actuality… and I invite you to take a meditative journey through the exhibition of “The Human Abused” in Cape Town – in a most appropriate historical setting at the District Six Museum right in the Mother City. Click on the image or HERE.

The Human Abused in Cape Town

Loyal to our committment to ensure best website performance for all our customers on Semiomantics, our focus is not only on “the look” and attractiveness of a website or blog, but most importantly on its performance. Thus we monitor the achievements of the articles and posts we publish very regularly. Accordingly, let’s look at how yesterday’s article on “The Human Abused” performed on the principal search engine.

Interestingly, even without any further reference to “The Human Abused in Cape Town”, we find the brief article I wrote on 6 February 2011 still on Position 3 on Google Top 10 … and again on Position 2 with yesterday’s post – and this on 8,94 Million search returns on Google – have a look at today’s screenshot here:

The Human Abused on Google

Incredible results after just a few minutes of “The Human Abused” on Google Top 10 ahead of almost 300,000,000 search returns: carried to position 8 by a syndicating website of the YORGOO Publishing Network and just arriving on position 10 via this, my Author Blog – on Semiomantics XO of course – see for yourselves:

Semiomantics Web Design

Making it to Google Top 10 is the most important goal of any business-oriented marketer or website owner on the Internet. Noone looks beyond, really.

The SEO results of websites and blogs created by Semiomantics Web Design are and have been outstanding. Semiomantics Web Design stands for Excellence in Online Publishing and can only be setup by a few Semiomantics Website Developers who have acquired their knowledge and skills over many years of consistent studies and ongoing workshops and seminars to ensure they are always up-to-date with the latest Internet Technology.

Higher visibility on Google ensures more traffic, meaning more potential customers and, eventually, more sales. At Semiomantics we don’t sell a script; we sell results.

You are welcome to contact us via the Contact Form if you are interested in getting similar results in your own online marketing efforts.

The Human Abused

The Human Abused (Der Geschundene Mensch) – was an Exhibition by German Artist Guenther Uecker in the District Six Museum in Cape Town, South Africa – documented by Bianca Gubalke.

The Human Abused

The current anti-xenophobia march in Gauteng, South Africa, reminds me of the documentation on “The Human Abused” I did just a few months ago, beginning February 2011.

The significance of this exhibition that travels around the world is that it translates into a different meaning in each country, city… or even place – while addressing the same problem that seems to be deeply rooted within all of us humans… it actually puts into question what ‘human’ actually really means… be it on a simply private level or on a larger, if not national or global scale.

If the topic is of interest to you, please click on the image above or simple go HERE and enjoy the journey that brings the past alive and might make YOU think.

How to Create Interesting Images 2

Yesterday, I showed you the first part of the exercise we did on “How to Create Interesting Images” – as promised here follows Part 2 – with another variation of my “Noordhoek Symphony” – all based on the exact same two images of Noordhoek Beach and our Photoshop Tools!

How to Create Interesting Images 2

In our quest on How to Create Interesting Images, we worked with two Images, the first of which we went into in PART ONE – HERE for some horizon, noise and toning corrections.

The question now is how to combine Image 1 and Image 2 to obtain the original Artwork that resulted?

The answer is: with some imagination… and some technique… and of course: Photoshop and its brilliant tools!

One could do many things, however, for this exercise, we chose to keep the sky and the Chapman’s Peak mountain range in the back (the top half of the photo) while kicking out its bottom part and replacing it with parts of Image 2.

In other words: the image would show the sea with the seaweed in the lower section and the mountains and seagulls in the sky in the upper section! As we have straight horizons in both images, this is making life very easy.

How to Fade Images into one another

This is a simple Tutorial on “How to Fade Images into one another” – just follow each step and observe what it does… then do the next:

1. Make sure you have both images in your Photoshop Layer stack, put Image 2 on top of Image 1.

2. As we wish to keep the mountains and sky (upper part) of Image 1, we need to fade out the upper part of Image 2 – the image that sits on top of it – meaning: if we get this part transparent then the image from below shows through – logic and simple, right?

This is what you do:

3. Make sure that you see foreground color: black and background color: white on your Tools Menu to the left. Fine!

4. Make sure you are on the Image 2 layer (eye is open, layer is blue).

5. Now click the Vector Mask icon just underneath (3rd icon from left… between the chain and the bin). You will immediately see a white mask appearing to the right of the thumbnail on your layer with Image 2. Bravo!

6. Now click on Gradient Tool (G) on the left tool box. You see some little editing tools open at the top bar. Make sure you are really on the black to white gradient there and that the linear version is selected (the one to the far left of the 4 variations). Almsot there!

7. Now you simply place your cursor on top of the ‘sky’ on Image 2 9outside the image, anywhere!) and pull it down vertically as far as you think the fade of the sky of the top Image 2 should go. It’s like pulling down a curtain of transparency! Just try it and experiment to get the hang of it. You can push the top layer up or down as you feel it… and you can use the eraser (large brush, low opacity to progress gradually) to wipe out everything you don’t want to see. You can even paint with an eraser!

Continue refining both images – 1 and 2 – until you have the desired effect. Duplicate each to be on the ‘safe’ side and merge Image 1 and Image 2 to one image that you can now work on with any Photoshop filters or PhotoTools.

Look at your picture and let your imagination tell you what it could be about – then add some text in fancy fonts, like a headline. “Noordhoek Beach – Gene was here!” could be fun! We would all recognize Chapman’s Peak in Noordhoek, South Africa – but depending on the emphasis you place where, the rest could be astonishing!

There’s nothing than going ahead and trying it all out yourself – with my 2 images or your own. The principle of fading one photo into another by using the Photoshop vector mask remains the same.

Have Fun! I am looking forward to seeing our Team members’ results at tonight’s Ycademy Call!

How to Create Interesting Images

With all our birthday kids out and about last night, we decided to do some Photoshop work on “How to Create Interesting Images” – including some issues some members had asked me about. While I had prepared the exercise as explained further down, I followed it as anyone else. We were all captivated by the creative process – and here is my version of “Noordhoek Symphony”.

How to Create Interesting Images

How to Create Interesting Images – the exercise… started with two simple untouched digital photos I had taken on Noordhoek Beach:

Image 1

Here the exercise was how to correct the horizon and give the images some quick punch with simple Photoshop possibilities, especially using Levels. There’s also a fine noise reduction filter that did its job when correcting some speckles in the blue sky surrounding the top seagull. Worked just brilliantly – and fast!

Try this with the small version of my image above and see the difference.

How to correct a horizon

If you never knew how to correct a horizon, then this exercise was a fast and easy way of doing it.

We normally have an inert sense of balance and immediately perceive if lines are not the way they should be in an image. Well, I sense it instantly – and while it may be a creative element when placed and calculated correctly, the rest is just an excuse for not going the extra mile to get things right in a picture. An educated eye picks it up – always.

Unlike most people, I seem to have a little “eye factor” that makes my horizons slip to one side, always the same side. So I have to correct these errors immediately, when taking the image… or afterwards as I showed yesterday.

To correct a horizon this is what you do:

1. Pull down the ruler over your image in a way that it shows how the straight horizon should be.

2. Then pull a frame (marching ants) around your entire picture with the frame tool.

3. Now go Edit > Transform > Rotate and, with the little markers that appear on the corners and center points of the frame – and your mousetip turned into a little handle, rotate the image until the horizon is ‘straight’. It may now be higher or deeper – that’s OK as – once you’re fine and you go back to “Move Tool”, you can now move the image as you wish.

Just try it.

But we’re not finished yet! Depending ont he size of the correction, we now see that the picture goes sort of ‘overboard’ here and there as we rotated it. This is what we do now to get a fine, clean image:

4. Pull down the top (horizontal) and left (vertical) rulers and enclose the image in a way that all the bad parts are outside the ‘frame’.

5. Go Image > Crop.

Finished! You have a somewhat smaller picture – as we had to cut away some of it – but it should now look absolutely balanced and fine.

The Golden Rule of Thirds

We also mentioned the ‘Golden Rule of Thirds’, that we had worked on on Monday as well. You don’t normally want a horizon to pass straight through the center of an image… although it can work out if there is interesting ‘stuff’ lined up to lead towards it. . . as here we have the curves of the waves, but it’s not ideal.

So, in creating my final Artwork as you see above, I worked with this in a different way.

The question now is: how did I get from Image 1 to what we see as the final version above?

The answer is: by adding Image 2 to it in a spiffy way… which I will explain to you in my next post!

Hang in there if you are interested in creating interesting images from your digital photography material!

Comments are most welcome!