On the previous page, some of my friends at the Pine Cobble School ask for advice as they consider launching a blog site similar to this one. My first advice is this: let the images carry the weight. I don't start a page saying, "I'm going to write about this today." Rather it's, "Let's take a bunch of pictures, and see what evolves out of them." To punctuate this point, the photos on today's page have nothing to do with one another--except that they work.

Group shots convey people getting along, which is a surprisingly powerful message. In fact, the message becomes stronger if the text doesn't speak directly to that point. We could be writing here about weekend activities, for example, yet the "take-away" is that the kids like each other.

Digital photography is a numbers game, in that one out of a couple of dozen pix is going to work for you. Lots of people are running around with cameras, so I invite them to send me some of their better stuff, and get images like this one, from Proctor Mountaineering Club.

While I believe that uncaptioned photos are most successful in bringing meaning out of adjacent text, some stories are delightfully specific. I mean, these kids are volunteering to pick up recyclables, which is pretty cool.

Here's the point: the more frequently you put up a new page on a self-managed site, the less you need to worry about near-perfection. In fact, the intrigue comes from the "reality-web" quality: we are sharing fresh images with some commentary that--together--provide a window into what's happening NOW.

Notice that no one puts a photo of a student on a skateboard in a school publication. That would be honest, but it might send the wrong message. I love to post pictures of kids on skateboards, because it's real.

And I have reason to suspect that prospective applicants notice the difference.

I was asked how much time I spend preparing each page. It's tough to say, because I am shooting images for many different purposes (gift stewardship pages) all the time. But once I lay out a couple of dozen new, fun images, it really doesn't take long, because I let the images do the talking, and simply tie them together with a very loose thread. Oh, thanks for asking!