I think I want a dedicated macro lens. I try to take close-ups of bugs, but I can never get close enough with my DSLR. I can actually take better macros with my Canon A400. My inspiration? This guy takes awesome shots of bugs. Fascinating, really!

Traffic on Chromaticus has been increasing by almost twofold for the past few weeks. It was up to an average of thirty-five a day until the one day server outage last week. Since then it has been running in the mid-twenties.

I have been looking over the logs at Sitemeter. The following referral visits stand out.

• Contests I entered at Macro Day and Photo Friday
• Posts I made on the PixelPost forum
• Comments I left on other photoblogs
• Sidebar links from friends’ blogs
• Unknown

The last one on the list is encouraging, because it more than likely means that the site has been bookmarked (read: repeat visitor potential). Another encouragement are the handful of comments that I have received from perfect strangers.

What other tips do people have for promoting a photoblog?

Last night my friend Matt took me downtown for a lesson in night photography. It was a lot of fun. I will be posting photos from our excursion for the next several days. I always thought that taking long exposures was super difficult. However, once you get the basics down the rest comes pretty easy. We shot a lot of the same stuff, including this picture of the Delta Queen that Matt got published on The Chattanoogan.

A couple gadgets that Matt had made some of my shots possible. The first was a shutter remote. It is a good thing that we both have Canon DSLRs, or I would not have been able to take bulb shots. The second item was a little hot shoe level. In the dark it is hard to frame a shot, so the level was useful in preventing “wonky horizons.” One related tip that Matt gave me was to set your ISO really high and take a shot just to check the framing. I will have to try that next time.

I admitted as much on the PixelPost forum. I think I am going to take the suggested online photography course.

I entered another contest. I came across someone’s photoblog who had subscribed to my Flickr account. After surfing through her photos I stumbled into Macro Day. I like close-up photography, so this is probably a weekly challenge that I will enter often. My entry for ’scary’ is here.

Update: Vote for me if you think my photo is worthy. Scroll to Chromaticus, click on the link and hit the ‘vote’ button on the top frame.

I signed up for Photo Friday’s latest contest last night with this entry. The theme is ‘massive.’ I do not know if I will get any votes beyond family and friends, but at least my site traffic is up. Since the posting I have received almost thirty referral hits.

I also discovered this morning that I-Gizmo is now known as PXITE. The current theme open for submission is ‘love.’

Update: Vote for me. Chromaticus is #339 on the list. Thanks!

What? You mean you are surprised to find me at it again? You know I can never leave well enough alone. Actually, I was fairly satisfied with the previous template. It just so happens that I find the current one more to my liking.

What happened was I was ugrading from verison 1.4.1 of PixelPost to version 1.4.2. This new template (Simple) was included, so I gave it a test run. I like how the image notes and EXIF data are below the image. On the old template I bet no one ever read what I wrote unless they meant to make a comment. And since I get very few comments…

At some point I will get around to styling this blog page so that the header matches the PixelPost pages. I am in no hurry though.

Cool new feature: Style Switcher (check it out at the bottom of one of the other pages)

I posted an album on Flickr of 160 of 600+ photos that I took last weekend while doing hurricane clean-up and relief work in Biloxi, MS. You can access the photo set here. I may put up a second photo album in the future. In the meantime I plan on using some of the ones that I have not yet published to catch up the photoblog (9/2 to 9/6). I may post more, perhaps even one or two from the Flickr set, if I do not make it out to shoot new stuff soon.

It finally happened. I caved and bought a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT using the money I got from Internet Opinion Group. I did not want a Treo 650 as much as I wanted a digital SLR. Now I can go galavanting around downtown Chattanooga with Matt.