12/02/09
Welcome to Pictory!
I love photography. Few things make me happier than a beautiful image—online or in print. That said, I’ve become a little complacent about some photos. The Internet is brimming with eye candy, but the vast majority of these images have lost their original context. Photo credits are rare and captions usually garbled, so I find myself often wondering: Who made this? What does it mean? The forces of the Internet can sometimes turn good work into confusing shrapnel.
I hope to do the opposite with Pictory. I want to collect images and stories directly from their sources: the people who create them. And then I want to make the best work that much better by editing, proofing, and compiling submissions into glossy online showcases. Big images. Careful details. Practical design. Credit and context.
Maybe it’s a new model for online magazines. Or, maybe it’s just the best I can do from my living room.
In any case, it’s a humble start, and it needs you. Enjoy the features, share Pictory with your friends, submit to the themes, and don’t be afraid to tell me what you think the site needs.
—Laura Brunow Miner, Editor/Designer/Founder
12/11/09
Submit to new theme Local Delicacy.
12/14/09
Read about the next showcase, and schedule going forward.
Hello, Pictory viewers!
I can’t wait to show you the next showcase, Portrait of a Place: San Francisco, which will be released this Wednesday, December 16. The submissions were fantastic, Sarah Rich of Dwell Magazine helped me edit, and Naz Hamid of Weightshift did the guest design — all in all, it’s looking great.
After the holidays you can expect a regular schedule for new themes and showcases, as follows:
- January 6 - Showcase published, My Most Meaningful Image (note, I moved the submit date to December 23)
- January 13 - New theme opens, The House I Grew Up In closes
- January 20 - Showcase published, The House I Grew Up In
- January 27 - New theme opens, Local Delicacy closes
… and so on. You can keep track of this through our new RSS feed, the Pictory twitter account, our newsletter, or the site itself.
Happy Holidays, and don’t forget to photograph the House You Grew Up In while you’re home! (And a Local Delicacy?)
—Laura Brunow Miner
12/18/09
How the new links in the showcases support Pictory.
Hello!
I hope you’ve had a chance to see the two showcases we’ve published so far, Overseas and Overwhelmed and San Francisco. You may have noticed something new in the last showcase: information about what kind of camera was used to capture each image.
This added layer of information on the site gives insight into the types of images that come from different cameras: film, digital, point and shoot, dSLR, etc. — and it also helps support Pictory. If you buy anything from Amazon within 24 hours of clicking that link, a small percentage of the purchase price is given to Pictory (at no additional charge to you).
If you’ve enjoyed the site, please consider doing holiday shopping through this Amazon link.
Thanks, and happy holidays!
LBM
12/23/09