Large, blue garage door graces this fabulous retirement villa in Baja.
Terri Webster Schrandt

How to Use Your Photos to Generate Blog Ideas and Readers

January always seems like a great energizer to either begin a blog or to re-energize a current one. With January almost over, have you met your short-term blogging goals? Are you still inspired and keeping up with your posting schedule? Do you need a kick-start to your inspiration?

Use your images as inspiration for your blog.
One way I find inspiration is to look at my photos. Between my old digital camera and my Samsung phone, I have thousands of photos! They say a picture is worth 1000 words. I am here to tell you a thousand words (in a blog post) are worth a picture!

If you have a large file of digital images, take the time to go through them. Most images tell some kind of story, whether it is a memory of a special vacation spot, family photos from 20 years ago, or images that can be edited into “art.” Chances are, you have a great subject for your next blog post and the image to go with it!

Photography Challenges
Another source of inspiration is to take a look at the variety of photography challenges available. Several bloggers offer these as challenges to share photos that fit a particular theme. Here are some to visit:
Jennifer Nicole Wells’ Color Your World Challenge. 

WordPress’ Weekly Photo Challenge

Norm 2.0 Thursday Doors 

Cee’s Photo Challenges

Hughes News and Views Weekly Photo Challenge

Large, blue garage door graces this fabulous retirement villa in Baja.

Baja Doors
The photo above (featured image) is submitted for Norm 2.0’s Thursday Doors. Because of this challenge, I now purposely take photos of interesting doors. In doing so, I have guaranteed future blog posts with stories behind the images.

I took this photo while we were in Mexico. Several of our friends own properties and homes on the Baja peninsula. Most of these folks have retired and spend a few months in Mexico where they indulge in leisure pursuits like windsurfing, stand-up paddling, golf, hiking…you name it. Many of them plan their time so that they never have to see another winter day!

I also incorporated this photo into the color theme “cornflower” for Jennifer Nicole Wells Color My World. See? Two photo challenges with one photo!

Images can also be the source of poetry, prose or flash fiction. PJ at Beautiful Words frequently posts short flash-fiction inspired by a photo. You may be able to submit a photo for these challenges, which will create interest in your blog.

Photo challenges can also bring in more readers and followers to your blog. Many challenges have a link or a ping back which places the photo in a community where others can click on the image and read your post.

In fact, the Weekly Photo Challenge, which begins each Friday, is my biggest traffic generator and my best day of the week for blogging.

Photo Apps, Quotes and Text
Using photo editing programs/apps like PicMonkey or Canva; or Photoshop, for serious photographers, can add dimension to your images and the ability to watermark your image with your name/website. Using text on images, in the form of a blog title or an inspirational quote, elevates your photo to other social media sharing opportunities like Pinterest and Instagram.

I have used quotes on images with great success. Not only do they inspire another blog post, but the images shared in linky parties may get featured, shared and pinned, therefore bringing in more traffic to your blog.

Here is the same photo with a quote added to it as text. This adds much more dimension and potential for a post about the subject of retirement abroad.

use a quote on an image to generate interest

And then you can take the same image, crop and edit it further and make this your featured image. When I share this post in the link-ups I take part in each week, I will be able to select the photo below to help “sell” the post in the link-up photo gallery. I also add these to my Pinterest and Instagram accounts for more sharing opportunities.

using images as inspiration for your blog

If you find you are in need of inspiration, kill two birds with one stone. Go through your files and look for an image that tells a story and off you go. Add it to an appropriate blogging, photo or fiction challenge and have fun with it!

 

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58 comments

  3. What’s my perspective, you ask. Well, my perspective is that I have entirely too many photographs – many I’ve taken, some old, some in a black and white stack waiting for me to make photo books for my husband and his brother. And some, like my kids baby pictures, in a box waiting for me to find the box. I thought it was in the basement, but nooooooo. I cleaned the basement. So the box, no doubt is in the attic. Where it will stay, no doubt, for a while. Probably a long while. However, I do like Shutterfly online photo books and have managed to make several of those from trips. But not yet our trip to France some years back…. waaaaaa. They still wait. But I do have a store for blog posts, that’s for sure!!! (and have used same….) Nice to see your post, T.

    Liked by 3 people

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    • Thanks, Janet! I, too, have a boatload of “hard copy” photos and the idea of digitizing them, just makes me tired. I’ve seen those Shutterfly online books. Do you like them? Good luck on your search for the box!

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      • Hi Terri. Just found this side line bar and unanswered comments and oh, my goodness, how so we keep up with it all….
        Anyway, yes. I like Shutterfly a lot and have made several books. And still, these many years later, have one from Paris that isn’t finished but waits for me none the less. Online.

        Liked by 1 person

      • HI T erri, I love this post and will print out to remember it. I have to say, I have boxes of old photos too. After just having a birthday and only 9 more months to til I retire, I bought a small printer to scan the photos. It works really well and was only $50. I don’t usually promote things, but in case you want to try it. We were surprised at how fast it actually scanned.
        Avision AV36 Color Duplex USB Power CIS 600dpi Portable Compact Mobile Sheetfed Scanner 8.5″ x 14″ – 000-0669-00G
        Thanks for all the tips. ~Julia

        Liked by 1 person

      • I love Shutterfly and have made several books. I looked at all the other brands of books but like the versitility and final product from Shutterfly. I don’t think you’d be disappointed although with hard copy photos you’ll have to scan and digitalize first.

        Liked by 1 person

  4. Terri, thanks so much for mentioning my weekly photo challenge in this post. That is so very kind of you to give it a mention.

    Like you, I’m always on the lookout for some good photography opportunities. I also get a lot of inspiration for my short stories from looking at both my own and other peoples’ photography. They do say that every picture tells a story and I believe them.

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  5. Hmmm … loads of photos …. and loads of intentions to post. And somehow the two don’t seem to come together 🙂 . Guess I should do just take pen to paper – or fingers to keyboard and START !!! ..
    Great post, Generously sharing your tips to prod us on 🙂

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  20. I have the opposite problem- I don’t take enough photos! When I do, I almost always end up using them. Otherwise I use stock photos. One of my goals is to learn how to use a decent camera (which means I have to actually buy one, which intimidates me.) In the meantime it is my phone. I do find inspiration in pictures and I love everyone else’s photos with quotes.

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  21. Great ideas! I love utilizing photos but usually take photos after the blog idea has struck me. You have given me a new prespective and I am going to approach things the other way around. Get inspiration from photos already taken. I like pic monkey and have had a ball using it for edits. It is so user friendly.

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  22. Yess! I find that photos are my number one writing tool. I only started blogging a year ago, but I didn’t really hit my stride till I became actively aware that I had a habit of building posts around photos. I love interweaving my pics in the stories. Also, it’s an excuse to take photos! I love your tips about featured image.

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  27. I love using photo’s in my posts and really need to progress to learning how to take better quality pictures – it’s on my ‘to do’ list and my vision board! x

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