The SmugMug Blog

HDR Master, Travel Photography celeb and SmugMug Pro Trey Ratcliff kicks the year off right: With calendars!

Check out his exclusive, all-new photo beauty here. Twelve famous photos are printed on high-quality, thick glossy paper and saddled stitched for durability. It’s the perfect way to stay inspired and plan your own around-the-world adventure.

Win Yours on Facebook

He’s sharing the love with fellow Smuggers and offering 10 copies of this lucious wallhanger to 10 lucky fans.

To enter:

1. Like our Facebook Page HERE.
2. Share this blog link or contest FB post with your friends.
3. Post one of your best Travel photos and tell us the story behind the shot. You can post your photo on our FB Wall or in the comments below.

We’ll pick 10 winners on Thursday, January 19, to win a calendar, PLUS free Smuggy swag for themselves and a friend. That means you AND a friend have a chance to win, so spread the word and share the love

Happy travels!

___________________________

UPDATE: WINNERS!

Huge thanks to everyone who entered this contest. We loved seeing all of your photos and hearing your stories. Here are the randomly-selected winners, in no particular order. They will each win a 2012 Stuck In Customs calendar, PLUS cool Smuggy swag for themselves and a friend.

–Phaeton Place

–Suzanne Kammann

–Jonathan Wilson of JawSnap

–Knapp Hudson of Stone Coast Photography

–Bernardo Franco of Framing Colours

–Shirley Ann Dees

–Sheena Leazenby

–Ashley Curella

–Christian Mejia

–Kyla Ford

Congrats everyone! Katherine from our team will get in touch with you in the next few days with info on how to collect your prize.

If you’ve ever held a DSLR in your hands, you’ve probably heard of Vincent Laforet.

He’s the Pulitzer Prize-winning mastermind behind some of the most incredible photos seen in National Geographic, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Time and more.

Vincent earns his bread and butter using the industry’s most coveted photographic equipment. He is a Canon Explorer of Light who breaks down the barriers between Photo and Video. We’ve been behind him since his his first HDDSLR short film, Reverie, and now he’s written a book that everyone should read.

Visual Stories: Behind the Lens with Vincent Laforet

Whether you’re an avid photographer or just someone who seeks a better creative process, you’ll love taking the journey through Visual Stories.

In it, you’ll find over 200 pages of inspiring photos, personal reflection and informative technical details to help craft your unique vision. The DVD contains over 60 videos that get you up-close and personal with the photojournalist himself.

"The image tells the story of her victory from the context of the thousands of people who had witnessed the moment. This perspective gives you an appreciation for the scale of the event that you don’t necessarily get with a long telephoto lens, where the background is completely blurred out." - Excerpt from Visual Stories by Vincent Laforet

Because Laforet’s experience began in journalism, he shows you how the principles of this genre can be applied to tell powerful stories in a single image. You’ll learn how to craft this energy into any type of photograph, include landscapes, close-ups, portraits, action shots, aerials and more.

Plus, get tips on using light, shape and color to create rich photos that support your story and add intense beauty and emotion.

Vincent Makes his Mark for You

We’ve got five autographed copies of this beautiful book, ready to find their way into your hands. Here’s how to get one:

1. Like SmugMug’s Facebook page HERE.
2. Post a message on our Facebook wall telling us why you want this book.

We’ll pick five lucky winners from the list on Wednesday, December 28, 2011.

So what will it be? You can keep grasping in the dark and taking the same photos, or you can grab a copy of Visual Stories and learn how a master works his craft. Check it out now at Peachpit Press.

What’s new with Publish to Facebook?

We’ve had some great feedback from Smuggers about the Publish to Facebook feature that we debuted a little while back. The number one request we heard from you was that you wanted to publish not only to personal sites, but to business pages, too. Your clients need to see the good stuff.

Hey, guess what?

Publish To Your Facebook Page:

If you’re new to our beta features, first check out SmugMug’s Darkroom:

http://www.smugmug.com/darkroom

Click the green Join button next to “Publish to Facebook.” Remember if you use a custom domain on your site, just add “/darkroom” to the end of your domain to cookie yourself in like this: http://www.example.com/darkroom

Once you’ve done this, click the Share button in your SmugMug galleries and click Publish to Facebook. You’ll get the choice of publishing your photos to a Facebook album on your personal profile, or to a Facebook Business Page that you own.

Make a new gallery for your photos, or just use an existing one.

Remember that you can choose up to 200 images from your SmugMug gallery to publish. If it’s a lot of photos we’ll publish them in the background and shoot you an email once it’s done.

Stay Safe, Secure and Sellable.

“Safety” is our middle name. You’ll be asked to set the maximum image size before you publish, and everything links back to your SmugMug gallery so fans will know it’s you. We’ll also include any watermarks you’ve applied to your photos.

Juicy Pro tip: Hook up a Buy Link and make buying downloads and prints a piece of cake. Don’t forget to tag your clients in your Facebook photos too so they get notified about your albums and spread the word!

We hope you love the new feature and that it gives your Facebook friends (and clients) ammunition to go viral.

And sharing is caring, too, so let us know what you think! Chatter away in our official Dgrin thread here or send up smoke signals. We’re listening.

Don’t miss:

• The SmugMug Darkroom
• SmugMugTab for Facebook
• Be Social on social sites
• SmugMug on Facebook

Hey, Facebookers! 

You already know that you can post a pic, but we’ve heard that you really, really wanted to be able to export your SmugMug galleries over to albums on Facebook. Our Sorcerers have been hammering away at this feature and we’ve got something we’d like you to see.

Opt In and Check It Out

To begin, check out our Goodies page:

http://www.smugmug.com/goodies

Look for the “Publish to Facebook” feature and help us test it out while it’s in beta. Just click ‘Join’ at the top and we’ll activate your browser (not your account) to display a new feature in your gallery’s Share button, shown at right.

Power or Pro Smuggers with a custom domain: You’ll need to hit that link on your custom URL, too. (Example: www.moonriverphotography.com/goodies)

Only you as the logged-in owner will be able to see and use this exclusive new feature. Try it now and see for yourself.

How to Publish

Visit any of your galleries and hit the Share button. You should see a new “Publish to Facebook” feature under the Owner Only options. This will let you push a set of photos from any gallery on your site to an album on Facebook, and you can do this as many times as you wish.

 1. First select a few (or all) of the photos in your gallery.

2. Next, pick an existing Album over on Facebook or create a new Album altogether. You can also adjust the Image size, Caption and Link settings to totally tweak how your friends interact with your pics.

3. Hit Publish and we’ll send them right over.

Pros: If you use our Watermarking feature to put your name or logo on your photos, the published images will include them.

Tip: Right now it’s only possible to post to your personal pages, not your business fan page, but we’ll look into options as they become available. Really want to put those pics on your fan page? Publish to your personal account, then ‘Share’ it on your business wall. Voila!

Publishing is an opt-in only feature, which means you must visit our Goodies page and click the green ‘Join‘ button before you can play. After we work out the kinks and get your feedback, we’ll release this like our other great tools for all SmugMuggers to use.

Tell Us What You Think

Had enough? Go back to the Goodies page and click the red “Leave” button. We’ll remove the “Publish to Facebook” feature from your Owner Share options, but you can keep the Facebook albums for as long as you want.

We’re eager to hear what you’ve got to say, so play around and publish as much as you like.  And don’t forget to share all of your ideas, rants, raves and bug reports in this thread over at Dgrin, or as a comment to this post.

PS. If you feel daring, try out the new Gallery Style that you’ll see on the Goodies page, too. We’re loving what Dgrinners have to say about it so far, so keep the feedback comin‘.

Hey, Facebookers! Now it’s easier than ever to embed your SmugMug galleries and sell photos to your fans on Facebook.

We first wrote about the SmugMug Tab app in December and how it can help you display all of your public galleries right on your business’ Facebook fan page. But now, Tabfusion.com has added a new “Store” feature that lets you sell your gorgeous prints and gifts there, too.

Simply tell the app which of your galleries contain photos for sale, provide products and pricing for display, then save it. Go to the Layout tab and click to “Include” the Store Option. The Store glyph will then appear on your Fan pages so fans can buy. Your clients will be sent over to SmugMug where they can complete their purchase and check out.

More New Updates on SmugMug Tab:

• One-click wonder: When your fans “like” a photo on SmugMug Tab, a thumbnail of the photo is posted to their Facebook wall that automatically links to the corresponding photo on SmugMug. No more intermediate page with cumbersome extra clicks to get to your site.

Thanks again to the folks over at Tabfusion for making it easy to embed your SmugMug site into your business Facebook fan page. If you haven’t already tried them, it’s just $10/year or $20 for a full three years. Check it out, sign in with your Facebook account and ping them if you have any questions. They are happy to help.

Don’t have a Facebook Fan Page for your business yet? You can set one up in just a few clicks here.

GIVEAWAY!

To celebrate the kick off of the newly improved SmugMug tab, we’re giving away one free iPad 2 (a $499 value, not including awesomeness points).

To enter, just “Like” SmugMug’s fan page here AND comment below on this blog post with a link to your Facebook Fan Page. You are eligible whether or not you are already a SmugMug Tab user.

Why an iPad? What better way to take your photos everywhere than with full-screen photos, dazzling slideshows and HD video right in your hands.

We’ll randomly pick a winner Monday, June 6 and announce it here on the blog and on Facebook, so be sure to check back to see if you are the lucky winner.

UPDATE! The winner is here! Congratulations to Candy Coughlin of Candy’s Photography. Enjoy your brand-new iPad and keep your eyes peeled for a message from Tabfusion.

Hello, happy snappers! Our buddies at Borrowlenses got a mad hankering to share some glass with you so they’ve put together a little giveaway: One lucky winner will win $200 towards any lens rental. To see how, keep reading.

You Want What They Got

If you thought the peeps at BL are hardcore, leather-clad, badass, glass-toting ninjas in their bunker surrounded by every lens your wallet dreams of… well, you’re right. It’s kind of awesome.

Check out their brand-spanking new security system, guaranteed to bring down the meanest, toughest, most savage thief in the industry:

“Mew!”

You can rent this bad boy if you win (sans fur, since they’re pros at cleaning gear), so all you have to do is:

• Like Borrowlenses on Facebook.
• Like us (SmugMug!) on Facebook.
• Post on Borrow Lenses’ wall and tell them what you’d rent with that $200 credit. (Just once, please!)

They’ll announce a winner this Friday, May 27th. You may want to start booking some events this weekend.

Sorry, but the kitten’s not included.

Our friends at Eye-Fi happen to be our neighbors, too, located just down the street from us at SmugMug Central. They’ve always been good to us and as friends do, they’re throwing a virtual party to celebrate the cool stuff that happens when forces unite.

After all, when you pair unlimited uploads, gorgeous galleries and effortless, wireless uploads that’s just about as sweet as it gets for turbo ‘togs like you. See for yourself:

Shoot, Upload and Share for a Year

They’re giving away three great bundles to three lucky people:

1. One collects a free year of SmugMug Pro and one Eye-Fi Pro X2 wireless memory card.
2. One enjoys a year of SmugMug Power and one Eye-Fi Mobile X2 memory card.
3. One scoops up a SmugMug Basic account and one Eye-Fi Connect X2 memory card.

Want more details about these cool tools? Review SmugMug’s account features and check out Eye-Fi’s offerings here.

Eye Fi is such an awesome way to wirelessly upload your photos and videos as soon as you shoot them… which lets you share them faster and stay organized. Never run out of space on your card again!

Enter By May 22nd*

Here’s how to play:

• Hop over to Facebook and become a fan of both Eye Fi and SmugMug.

• Hit the Enter Sweepstakes link on the Eye Fi Fan Page and you’re done.

Entries are open to legal US residents and your deadline is May 22nd, 2011 at 11:59 PM (PDT). So don’t be late!

NOTE: Earlier, we listed the incorrect date of May 29. The deadline is May 22nd. Sorry for any confusion.

Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun

Nothin’ says lovin’ like sharing our photo geekery with Smuggers. In our latest giveaway we’re joining forces with the inimitable Scott Bourne of PhotoFocus.com to give away two (yes, two!) Canon 60Ds, plus a free year of SmugMug Pro to two lucky people.

Scott’s a kindred spirit who is as crazy about photography as we are. His blog at Photofocus.com is a great resource for in-depth opinions and reviews on a huge array of useful topics.

What else can we say? Scott’s running the show on this one, so click here to see how to enter.

Hey, Smuggers! You’re our light, our life and our reason, so it’s high time we turned the spotlight on you. Post a pic of “Smuggy” (the SmugMug logo) or SmugMugPro on our Facebook wall for a chance to be Smugger o’ the Week.

Where in the World Was Smuggy?

Back in ancient times (four years ago), one of our customers painted a sheep green for us, which sparked our incredible Where in the World Is Smuggy? contest. In the following weeks we were buried in a deluge of creative, adventurous and often hilarious photos featuring our favorite grinning green mascot.

History shall repeat itself. We’re bringing it back… with a twist.

(Don’t worry, no sheep were harmed in the making of this pic. He’s smiling!)

Post on Facebook and be our Smugger o’ the Week

Grab your cameras! This time we invite you to take a pic of Smuggy or SmugMugPro in exchange for fame:

1) Find our little mascot hidden like Waldo in the big wide world, construct your own* with artistic materials, or creatively model a piece of official SmugSwag: hats, t-shirts, straps, stickers, etc. In short, we’re looking for Smuggy himself or our SmugMug Pro logo.

2) Post that pic to our Facebook wall.

3) Each week, we’ll pick one and dub the lucky winner our Smugger o’ the Week. They’ll get their Smug Mug featured on our Facebook page for seven splendid days. And remember that by posting your pic, you’re giving us permission to use it on our FB page or for promotional stuff. You still own it and the copyright’s yours.

Hit up the gallery of entries and view all the pics submitted so far.

Get Your Smug Stuff

No Swag? No problem. Log in to visit our free stuff page and we’ll send you a camera strap ASAP (one per customer). For more goods and gear you can check out our swag shop or come see us at a SMUG.

Our blood flows green. What about you?

* We hope this goes without saying, but while we know you love SmugMug, we ask that you don’t damage or deface property for this contest. Gracias!

News flash! We’re doing another giveaway on Facebook for an awesome, versatile and sturdy Lowepro Pro Trekker 600 AW bag and a genuine box-framed print by our superstar pro, Andy Williams. That’s a $700 value winnable with just a few keystrokes:

Don’t know Andy? Get to know him, his amazing landscape and street photos on Moon River Photography and see why he’s our often imitated, never duplicated House Pro:

The 16 x 20 print is high-quality art paper mounted on masonite for durability, then set in a glass-free black wood frame. It’ll look faboo on any wall. (Full specs here.)

To enter: Visit our Facebook page and post why you need a new bag for your loot. We’ll pick a random winner on Monday, 3/7 at noon PT.

Happy packing!