5 Million Views since 2021 June.

So, do I start out by apologizing for skipping month after month or get right into it...

Ok, I’ll get right into it.

Here is where I am probably many artists or in my case Photography are unsure of our talent, do I see things through my viewfinder that others will enjoy? Has my talent diminished as time passed and without much critical input on my photographs from others? Heck, that is why I started up Tedmcdonnellphoto.Net and later Tedmcdonnellphoto.Com.

Then I realized, how am I going to get other people, online, to come to my websites?

• Do I advertise but I am not making money to do so? Nope.

• How do I promote my sites without pissing off friends on Facebook and Instagram? Forget Twitter or X it turned into a toilet bowl. I am trying Threads now.

• On Threads and Man….is new so stay tuned for the results.

A camera shop friend told me to join Flickr but I had loaded photos of her students, for my wife’s ballet studio and it had little effect or viewership as far as I could tell. But it turned me to search for similar sites. Behance, Pexels, Pinterest, and a number of other sites came up.

Behance is owned by ADOBE and a lot of photographers here were using Photoshop. ( A future blog on why I do not use Photoshop but maybe you could tell from my company name ‘Pure’

Pexel’s site impressed me as it was based in the UK and a majority of photographers were outside America. Nothing against Americans but it’s good to have overseas eyes on my photographs. Another big point is they had Curators that would review the photographs and if it passed several criteria it was awarded a Star. And would be highlighted in the category the photograph was set.

Flickr, I found it to be nice and gave your pictures a good platform. I was not crazy about the competition every week per category. But that is their unique proposal for photographers.

Pexels: It was 2021 June when I decided to take action on Pexel using my South African Wild Animals: Lions, Cheetahs, Elephants, Rhino, and so many others. Immediately my photographs gained attention and critical notation. In fact, to this day people still download my Safari photographs. I then moved on and downloaded some of my images from the Vintage site and they too gained attention far more than I ever thought possible.

Within 1 year people’s viewership of my photographs, 300 images, jumped to 2.1 million views.

Ok, I was busting with pride and laughing out loud with thoughts: I should have stuck to my original plan to go to Savanah School of Arts, which had accepted me. But I listened to my Dad and carried on with the traditional University path. Don’t tell him but I did spend a lot of time in the darkroom over the 5 years. Yes, for 5 years, I had a bit of an issue cooping with the first year at UGA.

The negative film and prints were not getting downloaded to digital images and onto my Vintage site and a few onto Pexel. People loved these Vintage images but I felt my challenge was new work. Since 2021 as COVID-19 moved on I loaded more images onto Pexels.com and witnessed the new work gaining critical notification and viewership.

This past September my photography work gained 5 million views, thousands of downloads and so many favs…Sept 30th I received an email from Pexel’s main office congratulating me on joining the 1% Pexel club of photographers wth so many views. Wow…onto my next Challenge.

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2021 Ted McDonnell Photography Dreams come true

Wishing everyone Happy Month of December and the magic week at the end of the year, where out of the blue, you’ll remember someone that you might not have thought of this year, but for some reason…here we are.

   Last few years, I have told myself not this year, you’re not going to send out Christmas cards with a personal message, but I could post it to my Photo-Blog.

   No traveling this year made it difficult to feel connected with anyone, and zooming has not turned to be as exciting as I recalled it on Star Trek. And I don’t think I ever mastered my best zoom camera angle over the last two years. Do you know what I mean?

  We continued 2020 indoor programs as much as possible, but by May 2021, we slowly started to gain back some of our freedoms to move around, but not too FAR! I hope you found the same in your hometowns.

The friends I have heard from all seem to have a new self-awareness. A good share appears to have realized they work way too many hours when it all could get done in less time. Another new promise I heard was working from home is not so bad, and it sure beats driving the 60-80 minutes to and from work five days in the week.             

     A number have told me how they came back to old passion from years past. It could have been picking up a pallet, paints, and brush or dusting off that ole banjo, and some have made a move to a new location, be it a new city, across the bridge, or the country. All seem to indicate people want more from life that reawoken parts of themselves that had gone dormant. What did you discover about yourself?   

   The best thing I could have ever done was to dig up several photographic files from the basement—images dating back to the 1970-80s-90.

Talk about self-examination!

   Besides, finding pictures of myself from over the years has me building back better by focusing on a healthier life.

    Last year, November, I fulfilled a personal dream that had been gnawing at me for more years than I want to admit. I was storing away in cabinets and cupboards with photographs taken and rarely visited again. My digital pictures on CDs/DVDs; s that were examined, edited, and printed were then placed in a draw and not seen for years. The dream was always trying to find a way to present my work somewhere for everyone seeking photographs under key searches or specific subjects.

    The year 2021 has been like going back to Uni, learning to edit photographs, create a website, design a gallery, and other website layouts. The key and unknown to me at the time was how to maintain my digital footprint via social media and S. E. O - search engine optimization.  

    (I won’t say this out loud, but I wish I had not informed others to visit my websites in its infancy, February or April 2021. I acted like an overly-excited child eager to launch his new Christmas Rocketship, but in this case, a photo site. Oh my!)

    So, now I think I got it right for the two Ted McDonnell websites. Here you’ll find memories maybe we shared, unique places traveled, people, events, arts, and some fun. Perhaps it’s the journeyman or my Irish heritage when I say, what is life without smiles, some scary associations, curiosity, and questions still might be left on the table, sad memories of what was left behind and unsaid. To my surprise, I even rekindled that childhood glee amongst the photographs.

    So, we are a year into me returning to Photography, and being ole marketing and salesman, I enlisted social media to get my message-photographs out to the world.

    Social Media sites (first year) such as Pexel.com have inspired me to see my work and gain a healthy following with 707,500K (Dec. 31) Global eyes. Surprisingly, most of those who have downloaded/likes, or sent me messages are outside the USA.

Flicker.com, with its numerous galleries, Behance-Adobe is a fantastic site, and Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. (see links)

ONE TIP: Do your photographic marketing via social media websites but be a bit conservative with the number of photographs posted to these sites. Your goal is to have people visit your websites. I have posted about 350 pictures or less on these sites yet gained a healthy following.

     Maybe by Christmas 2022, you will be showing me your paintings, sending me your first recordings, or perhaps you’ll be selling your ceramics at the weekend market or just spending more time with your family. I wish you and all of your dreams the very best in 2022.

 Please come back and visit me here for my next blog, new photographic posting, and further updates in 2022. Maybe I will  start up a third website with new focuses: http://www,TedMcDonnellphoto.gallery

            MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR 2022

See you in 2022