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The PPC Webmaster Corner

Do You Know My Name?
By Bob Hare
Posted: 2019-04-10T17:45:00Z



One of the most valuable resources that our Pocono Photography Club has are our members - US!  We each have our own unique experience and knowledge about the art of capturing images. Knowledge about equipment, composition, lighting, where to go to find interesting subjects, etc.  Have you noticed how ten of us can go out to a location on a photo shoot and each of us captures unique images of the same scenes? We, each of us, regardless of our level of experience, has much to share with other members of our club.


Unfortunately, this opportunity is diminished if we don't know each other - at least a little bit - so that we can talk easily.  We meet formally only once a month. Once our meetings have begun, we often sit together silently while we listen to speakers share their knowledge.  Our chances to talk to each other are limited to very short periods of time. We wear name tags at our meetings to ease getting to know each other, but we don't have many opportunities to mingle before meeting demands our attention.


The club is now opening up the meeting room one-half hour early on meeting nights to encourage more time to visit with each other.  Those of us who attend shoot outs regularly have additional opportunities to talk, but even there the nature of photography is for each of us to wander off and compose images on our own.


The good news is that we do have one club feature that can aid in getting to know each other's names and interests.  The bad news is that we are not making good use of this resource. What resource? The PPC Member Directory.


Do you know where to find the Member Directory on our website?  Have you ever looked up another club member to find out more about him or her?  Have you added your picture and some information about your photographic history and your interests?  If you added a picture of yourself, did you choose something clever like the photo above - clever but not helpful to those of us who are not yet able to put your name with your face.  We currently have ninety-nine listed member entries in our member directory. Only sixteen entries have pictures posted. Three of those posted pictures do not clearly show the member's face.


I joined the PPC in 2016 and I am still trying to learn your names.  If I don't know your name, it is awkward for me to talk to you. If I don't talk to you, I miss out on the social aspect of our club and I don't learn what you have been taking pictures of that might be of interest to me.  And you miss tales of my latest photo adventure - opportunities lost!


What can be done about this?  The easiest, most effective thing each of us could do would be to get a good face shot and post it to your member directory page.  It can be cute or clever or artistic - if it recognizable as you so the rest of us can learn your name.  But a plain old passport photo would be far better than nothing.  Most of us probably knows someone with a camera who could capture our image.  ;-> I'm betting the problem is not a lack of means or will. It is the difficulty of trying to figure out how to post a picture (and perhaps some information about yourself?).  It's not obvious how to do this, but it is also not hard.


What To Do


  1. Log in to the PPC Website.

  2. Once you are logged in, click on your name in the upper right-hand corner of any web page.

  3. Click on the Profile link.

  4. Here’s the tricky bit:  Click on Membership Directory in the Personal Info box.

  5. Scroll to the bottom of the Membership Directory page and click on the Select New Photo link.  You can upload a personal picture from your computer as you might with Facebook or other online service.


Note:  Once uploaded, your ID picture cannot be cropped, edited or re-positioned.  Crop your ID picture to a square format as close to the face as possible to make it useful to identify you to others. If you don’t like how your picture looks, it is easy to Select New Photo and start over.  there is no need to delete your first picture.  It will be overwritten. Save cute and clever for the  picture albums you are going to add to share your photo adventures with the rest of us - a subject for a (not too) future blog.  Look at the great existing Member Albums while you are waiting for that blog to be published.  If you want to try making a Member Album yourself, you can find instructions here:


How To Upload Photos For Member Albums


Directory ID Photo Examples:


Useless Default

Cute But Useless

Difficult To ID

Not A Pretty Picture - But Identifiable


It would also be helpful to add some brief biographical information on the same web page, but adding your picture to the directory will provide the most to help in getting others to know you.


Author’s Note:  The picture at the top of the page was taken after a long walk on on January 31st of this year on what, I think, was the coldest day of the year in Stroudsburg.  It was minus 5 degrees F with a moderate wind chill factor making it more interesting. It was a beautiful day though, and I was wearing “suitable clothing”.


There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”  — Nordic proverb attributed to Roald Amundsen, first man on the South Pole.

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