Social and Marketing Aspects of Art Online

What do you mean by a true 'art lover'? It is certainly not an artificial word of appreciation on any auspicious occasion like exhibition or on the day of auction. Ideally, an artist means a package who is full of emotion. Every art work is original when it comes direct from the heart. So, as a true art lover one must be sensitive enough to understand the all forms of emotion. We are fortunate that we have such platform where we can meet artists and their art piece irrespective of their geographical and political identities.

There are few quality art online domains where art fans can find art price. Such websites offer art experts' suggestions which can be proved quite handy while you sell art or buy art. Apart from selling, buying or any other marketing theories; such websites have an amazingly wonderful social aspect. It has significantly strengthened relationship between an artist and art fan. Just think upon this concept and do remember if you can remember any name which have done similar work when World Wide Web was not existing. I guess we can hardly count any name. So certainly even artists can not blame that World Wide Web has neglected them.

If you have any information about any art work or about an artist you can share it with the rest of the world with the help of website like 'artpricechart'. Anybody can find here information regarding art events. Don't forget that a good work always deserves few words of appreciation. So, if you like some work then do not hesitate to express your thought on art appraisal boards. They are available on every website like 'artpricechart'. Each and every good word does magical job. It inspires and encourages every artist to create something exceptional.

If we minutely observe the significance of exclusive space artists on World Wide Web then we find that even social aspects are extremely attached with marketing benefits. Relationship between artists and art fans have created numerous impressive story. Such stories have been smartly showcased through movies beside that one can easily access them on Internet as well. Oh! don't be confuse and try to understand it with a simplest example. Take the name of any football player or Hollywood actor. Why do you know them? Why they are so rich? We know them because of social bonding and they are rich because of social bonding. Basically, their immaculate grip over their work have made them acquainted and eventually it turned into huge monetary benefits.

There is nothing wrong in monetary benefits. But we should never ignore significance of social aspects. We (including celebrity artists) should identify that artists & art fans are just inseparable and when we adjoin them we create an immortal history.

What Should I Shoot and What Sells Well?

Branding Microstock is filled with loads of imagery and literally millions of images so if you don't stand out you will be "lost in the crowd" completely. Branding yourself by having a unique style that is recognizable and consistent is probably the most important aspect in microstock and also something that makes it so hard for traditional shooters to enter micro. You cannot underestimate the importance of branding yourself! If you do, you will wonder, "why am I not selling anything?" The reason is that you have not made enough of an impression on buyers so that they go directly for your images when searching for material to buy. So here is the breakdown: Step by step plan for getting started 1. Find something you can shoot effortlessly. Your hobby, the sports you do, your friends, family and their life. Shoot the things you know something about, so you can make it look real, natural and genuine. Write down the things you should be able to shoot quite effortlessly. 2. Decide on a style and a limited range of subject matter and stick to it. Microstock is getting competitive so specialize yourself in your field so you can become very good at shooting it. A shoot never goes quite as planned and you often have to "play the hand you are dealt" to get some good shots out of it. You can do this with the things you know about from before but not very well with things you have little or no experience with. Write down the style and subject matter that you want to go with. Brainstorm! 3. Shoot something new and find your spot instead of duplicating successful images. Duplicating is probably the fastest way to be unpopular in microstock and because microstock agencies have forums (unlike traditional agencies), this can be highly damaging for your branding. Don't do it! There are a few overall categories of subject matter that are neglected in microstock:

* Travel photography, special places and extreme nature
* Really, really old people
* Contemporary fashion
* Policemen, military and state officials from all over the world
* Pictures of currency other than Euros and Dollars
* Aerial pictures
* Stylistic still-life in soft and low contrast colors
* Fantastic panorama shots in high quality
* Motion-blurred and lively pictures
* Artistically executed lifestyle, edgy
* Natural looking people, that don't look like microstock models

There are a few over-represented categories where you really have to know what you are doing to compete efficiently.

* Businesspeople (too easy to put a group of people in suits around a table)
* Isolated people on white (too easy to duplicate and too many shooting it)
* Anything with a laptop
* Nudes
* Spa (requires so little set-up and every model in the world wants a spa shoot)
* Medical (Too easy: a scrub and a model)
* Backgrounds and "lonely tree" kind of pictures
* Beach pictures (Really too easy)

Why share? Having been reading this, you might wonder: Why would he share this information with me? Why would he give any such information to a potential competitive photographer? Well the case is this: I believe in complete information sharing. I don't hold anything back and have no problem giving away my secrets to new photographers. This was how I was introduced myself to stock by my mentor and this is the mind-set I prefer. I can give you a helping hand and a few good micro guides, but you will have to do the hard work yourself.

How I Get Traffic To My Music Sites

I have spent the last several months learning all I can about driving traffic to any site of my choice and I have learned quite a bit. In this blog, I want to give you a way to increase traffic to your MySpace.com, SoundClick.com, OurMusicSpace.com, NiaRadioNetwork.com, CDBaby.com and any other place you may have music for sale.

After learning how the search engines work and then analyzing basic independent artist pages, I noticed something that was right there all the time but I kept overlooking it. But before I tell you what you need to do, I first must explain why and then it will all make sense.

OK, you are an artist and you have a few songs you want to sell as downloads. You have a music page on as many free accounts as you can but it seems like nobody's buying. Let's face it, even if you are on iTunes, Amazon or Rhapsody, you still aren't getting the sales you thought you would get and here's why.

Your page or information on any of the sites mentioned above is only one out of millions! So how can you make your page stand out? It's very difficult but not impossible!

#1.

You have great music, banging graphics, a well written bio and links to all of your other various sites.

#2.

You just aren't getting traffic. It takes traffic to get sales. If you had one million visitors to your page in a week, you are guaranteed to make a few thousand in sales but the traffic is not there.

Reason: Nobody really knows who you are! Let alone that you have music for sale! Therefore it's safe to say that if they don't know who you are, then they are NOT SEARCHING for you! Right?

Solutions:

This is what I feel you should do because once I realized this concept and implemented it, my traffic and sales increased!
Find five or more artist whom you sound familiar to and in your blogs on each of the sites you have, write about them, their latest release or how they may have been inspirational to your own sound. Now, I know you are asking your self why should you do that! The answer is simple ….. people are not searching for you because you are "unknown" but they may be searching for established artist whom your sound is familiar to and that will drive them to your site! Once your site gets re-indexed by the search engine bots and their is new information in your blogs, the search engine will add your blog to the search results!

WHALAH!

So if I as an artist sound similar to Whitney Houston, when people are SEARCHING FOR HER, MY BLOG WILL SHOW UP IN THE RESULTS! Since people are naturally curious, they may click on the link to MY BLOG to see what's it all about! INSTANT TRAFFIC!

How do I know this works? Because I did it to drive traffic to my site and it works like a charm! I have tracking codes on all of my sites to determine how and where traffic is coming from. Every since I used what I expressed above, I get daily traffic to my site all because they were searching for someone or something else that my site actually had info on.

So get started today, write those blogs about established artist whom you sound similar to and in about 2 weeks your traffic will begin to increase.

Hint: The more different artist you write about, the more cross-traffic you will get.

R. Howard and his blockbuster Angels & Demons

Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American movie director and a famous actor of the 1970s. Howard first became famous as an actor starring in the films of 1960s and 1970s. Since he quit acting, he has directed plenty of films, including the scandalous blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, and its loud sequel, Angels & Demons. The movie is grounded on the book written by Dan Brown, the author of The Da Vinci Code that made the humanity split into two groups - its supporters and opponents, including the Roman Catholic Church. Though The Da Vinci Code was forbidden in a lot of countries, a large number of viewers around the world have watched the film. The movie Angels & Demons renews to show the rivalry between the Catholic Church and science pictured in The Da Vinci Code film.

The plot of the film Angels & Demons features the desire of Harvard University historian and iconologist Robert Langdon to reveal the enigmas of a secret society known as the Illuminati. The Roman Catholic Church, particularly the Vatican, faces a crisis when the top four cardinals to replace the deceased Pontiff are abducted by members of the Illuminati that adhere to scientific knowledge. The Church is promised that each cardinal will be killed one per hour starting at 8 pm, culminating with an explosion of an antimatter bomb underneath St Peter's Cathedral at midnight wiping out the Vatican. To deal with this terrifying menace, the Church calls upon the services of iconologist Robert Langdon played by Tom Hanks who is very knowledgeable about the powerful secret society. He has to begin the investigation promptly, hasting to find the abducted cardinals by deciphering clues, symbols and other historical facts. Robert Langton accompanied by physicist Vittoria tries to uncover the death of the Pope and save the mankind.

The images of Rome in the film are glorious and breathtaking. The watcher has a chance to walk around the Italian capital and visit the most famous historical and cultural masterpieces together with the characters. The movie does well to involve interest through its explanations of historical facts and the inner workings of the Vatican. The plot keeps the watcher involved and interested till the very end of the movie. The story unfolds with unexpected twists and turns that leave the viewer thrilled.

Best comic books: it all depends on your perspective

When deciding on which are the best comic books what are the categories, all time, this year or only ones with supper heroes? Without argument Superman and Batman have been the favorites for so long that they will always be at the top of any list.

The two most famous do come from the same company, DC Comics. What is little known is that the first Superman was a villain. Back in the early 1930's Hitler was on his rise to power and was going to create a race of supermen. The idea was changed almost immediately because the second issue of Superman had him as a crime fighter. The original comic that Superman was in was named Action Comics.

Action comics #7 was when the alter ego Clark Kent was introduced to the world. Another little known fact is that the Clark Kent ego is a fictional representation of Clark Gable.

By the year 1941 when America entered the war, Superman was already in 300 newspapers worldwide.

Batman was a compilation of figures from the early part of the 20th century. By combining da Vinci's flying machine, the Bat Whispers, the Mark of Zorro and Dracula the creator Bob Kane developed Batman. What a wild combination, but it worked and was first published in the Detective Comics #27.

These two famous super heroes went on for years and are to this day still going strong in not only comic strips but in movies as well.

Superman and Batman were so popular back in the beginning that even Uncle Sam enlisted them in the war effort. They helped to sell war bonds that supplied the government with the money to beat the Nazis.

Superman might have been first but Batman was the first super hero comic to make it to be a live action film.

See what I mean, the best comic books depends on your perspective.

Progressive and free Bingo Games

There many people across the globe that enjoyed a game of bingo. In an attempt to keep the game in arresting and fresh some online bingo sites offer their customers progressive bingo and free bingo. Many players find this sort of bingo game appealing as they can potentially win a large sum of money.
Traditionally in the game of bingo various balls are selected from a hopper. Upon these balls would be printed numbers which are then called out to players. Players would then cover these numbers upon their bingo card and once they obtain the desired pattern they would be declared the winner. The twist provided by progressive bingo is that this game uses a specific number of bingo balls. The game would conclude once all of the designated balls have been chosen. You might wonder what happens if no one obtained the bingo. This is a rather common occurrence in progressive bingo. In this situation there would be no winner declared. The jackpot will remain untouched and go onto the next round of bingo. It is in this manner of the jackpot continues to grow. Therefore tell when the jackpot is one a player can win a substantial amount of money.

Players find that progressive bingo utilizes many of the same playing strategies as the original version. It is always best to play multiple cards during a bingo round as this will increase your odds of a victory. This is especially important when the progressive jackpot has grown significantly. You want to do all you can to provide yourself the best chance of winning the money.
In some traditional land-based bingo halls do feature progressive bingo however this is prohibited in many areas due to various regulations. Therefore many bingo players find that they can still enjoy all the excitement and thrill of progressive bingo at online bingo sites. Another bonus to playing progressive bingo online is that these pots can often grow larger in the pot you might find an additional land based bingo site. So next time you ready to play a game of bingo online look for a progressive bingo a jackpot. This variation is a great way to bring some new excitement to an old favourite.

There many people across the globe that enjoyed a game of bingo. In an attempt to keep the game in arresting and fresh some online bingo sites offer their customers progressive bingo and free bingo. Many players find this sort of bingo game appealing as they can potentially win a large sum of money.

Biography of a "Precedent"

Precedent = "an action or decision that can be used subsequently as an example for a similar decision or to justify a similar action". (Encarta dictionary). By this definition a precedent is defined by the use it is put to in order to establish the case of ‘similarity". Preceding, of course, means simply ‘coming before".
John the Baptist came before Jesus Christ. John was a prophet with a vision. When he first caught sight of the Messiah he knew immediately that here was a Man with a superior vision "the latches of whose shoes, I am not worthy to loose". He understood rightly that the man of vision is the man of destiny. Napoleon, Abraham Lincoln, the Buddha, Mozart, Charles Chaplin, William Blake, Rembrandt, Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong, Newton, Van Gogh, Picasso and so on, were all men of destiny, thrown up by the collective mind of Mankind to express great spiritual truths and elevate consciousness one rung further up the evolutionary ladder. ‘Greatness' is defined by a person's ability to do just that, to express a vision that has been given to them. We call them geniuses. Many of them suffer abominably for their vision because they usually run afoul of the establishment in one way or another. Galileo and Columbus, to name two of the better known, had it all to do. Others were hurried to the stake or the executioner's hatchet.
If The Baptist on meeting Jesus proceeded to pick his brains to find out what his vision was and then handed the Messiah over to the Romans to be crucified before His time so that he could take over His mantel as the Redeemer, faking miracles and concocting his own version of the Sermon on The Mount etc, the sad fact is he would have had many to follow him. Why? Because, he would have fulfilled a need. You would however have to say the man was motivated by jealousy and the greed for glory and power. And if the truth was never discovered John would very likely be worshipped today by millions who know no better, assuming of course that he would have seen ‘his' calling through to the bitter end, an unlikely but no means impossible scenario. Why should his success be so plausible? Because the vision of Jesus embodied moral precedents that are to be found in other religions including Buddhism and Platonism. His vision was born of ‘precedents' that most Christian believe were strewn ahead of Him like the palm leaves before Him as he rode into Jerusalem shortly before his execution. The Old Testament for believer and unbeliever alike is nothing but a Book of Precedents many of which are called prophecies. He Himself, as the long-awaited Redeemer, had ‘precedents' as there were many bogus Messiahs running around Judea in those days even before He was ‘born'. The God-Man myth was a mainstay of the Old Testament religion Jesus had been born into. The Roman emperors were all considered gods just as the ancient Pharaohs had been. The power of Jesus' vision lay in the message of truth He was born not just to deliver but to embody. John would have been clever enough to know this as it is stated and had enough savvy to ‘source' the relevant texts in order to bolster the ‘vision' of their Embodiment that had never been his destiny. You would have to say that such a man was Satan himself who was a "liar and a thief from the beginning". (Jesus). To steal a vision that was never yours is to steal a man's destiny. That is the work of the Devil.
Stealing a vision ironically has less weight in a court of law than stealing passages of text verbatim for instance, even if the passages are of a great deal less significance to the derived work than the fundamental ideas that subsequently endowed it with success. Let us consider how you could do it.
Let's imagine you are a failed artist living in the South of France, the Midi, and one afternoon you come across Vincent Van Gogh painting in the fields. You strike up a conversation with him and he takes you back to his little house in Arles to show you his canvases. You are smitten. This work is new, exciting and original and you know, better than Van Gogh ever did or could, what they might be worth in the market if and when they ever took off. You visit him often and get to know him. He is flattered by you appreciation of his paintings and tells you all, even shows you how he mixes his paints, what colours and brushes and media he uses, what stages he employs, how he goes about transferring his sketches to canvas. He even, under the influence of the cognac you have ladled him with, lets you into his biggest secret - that he gets many of his visual ideas from engravings he finds in English newspapers.
You know now how good, how very good, it all is. You want it. You have to have it. Now that you have his ‘master idea' and all the other information you need, you immediately set about to plagiarize his work. As you are a painter yourself, of no great shakes let it be said, you know you can, with a little practice, raise your game to emulate the master. You readily discern the various tricks he did not tell you, little touches and techniques he had slaved into the wee hours to perfect. You just have no vision, that's all; never had a vision and knew you never could get one either, even if you had the brains, because you are not The Chosen One that characterizes the man of destiny. You have no vision because you are not Vincent Van Gogh. But you can pretend to be, just like John The Baptist in the above illustration; and who is going to know the difference if they have not met the original? Your envy for him turns to hatred that in turn overrides whatever admiration you might ever have felt for him. He's a ‘nut' you conclude as the villagers said and as Gauguin was heard screaming as he made for the train. A reprobate who never left the drinking halls and the whore houses. No matter, you soon learn to paint in his style and the same subject matter as well and buy the same English newspapers to copy the engravings. You hide yourself away in a little village near Paris to wait your chance. You prepare your biography in between times that you know you will need. You make yourself visible everywhere as the threadbare artist slaving over his work, a man who looks like he cannot afford the next meal and must frequent bars and coffee houses in order to keep warm. Above all, a real artist dedicated to his work! The fact that you could never sell a single one of your own paintings is a truth you find easy to hide. Indeed the persistent thought of it drives you on. You'll show the bastards if it is the last thing you do!
When you learn that Vincent has been carted off to the insane asylum you seize your chance. You run off to Paris with your canvases and get a high-flying gallery to show ‘your' work. You are an instant success. You concoct stories to the press about what a rough upbringing you had and how you have suffered for your art. Reporters who make their way to the village where you had your atelier come back with tales, some true and some false, but all of which substantiate your romantic story. Your revolutionary painterly passion you explain comes from the guilt you have harboured for years because you felt somehow responsible for the death of your twin brother at birth. Why should you have lived and not him? You must justify your existence. You weep in public. The public weep in private as these diabolical lies of yours come hot off the press. Your parents are dead and your only sister is told to avoid the press whatever the cost. She has debts. She is happy to oblige for the financial help you lavish upon her. In press interviews, you turn out as many phrases as you can remember about what Vincent told you about his stint with the miners up in Belgium and how you had tried to help them even to the extent of going without food yourself. You know nobody is going to check, and even if they did, how could they ever prove you were not there? And those who remember Vincent may well think you are him. You remember the artists Vincent admired, Millet, Dorē, Rembrandt and you cite them as ‘influences'. Your favourite writer is Charles Dickens. He is English; you are French. It shows the world how cosmopolitan you are and even if you have only a few phrases of English it will suffice to get you through. You remember in particular the insightful phrases the late Vincent used about his work, phrases such as…..

• "A good picture is equivalent to a good deed."
• "As we advance in life it becomes more and more difficult, but in fighting the difficulties the inmost strength of the heart is developed."
• "Conscience is a man's compass."
• "Great things are done by a series of small things brought together."
• "How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be? "(courtesy of www.brainyquote.com)

Your words of wisdom are quoted in art books, newspapers and journals. You even remember the titles of the books that had influenced ‘your source', the various philosophers and writers who gave him inspiration. You tell reporters you even lived in England for a period even though you had never set foot in the place in your life. They are hungry for facts about your upbringing and early life because they believe, like everybody else, that you are a man of destiny. Your work speaks for itself. It brings pleasure and spiritual delight to all who see it. The gullible buy into your monstrous fabrication as you knew they would. You are famous. You are hailed as a genius and experts, who, as always, believe they know a thing or two about art and can tell the ‘real' thing when they see it, applaud the incredible influence you have made in the art world and the world of culture in general. You even reach the point of believing you are a genius yourself. You have taken the mad Dutchman's art further than he could ever have dreamt possible. Actually, you haven't. Dealers and critics have done that for you. As for the vacuous parodies of a style of painting you did not invent, the real Van Gogh would have vomited over them at your feet. You are festooned with medals and honours, with honorary degrees and a Papal knighthood. You can have anything you want or ever wanted and are not a bit shy of saying so as you PR people instruct you. In the darkness, before you sleep, you console yourself with the notion that ‘everybody steals from everybody else in the art world and that Van Gogh probably picked the brains of Gauguin who had stayed with him for a while in Arles. Van Gogh was just a bad Impressionist, that's all. There are ‘precedents' to his style that are glaringly obvious in the work of Millet; and the Midi was not his private stomping ground either even if he was the first to try and paint it. Anybody can paint there. It's a free world. To hell with him! Who did he think he was anyway? Me? He was a lamentable failure. I am a success! And if he hadn't been so fond of brandy he would not have killed himself either. Nothing to do with me. They're not pinning that one on me. My conscience is clear!' But you know all that has an empty ring to it. You never had a conscience to begin with or you would not have committed your heinous crime against another artist, a man indeed who trusted you with his innermost secrets.
Still, the richer and more famous you become the more frightened you get of the truth coming out. ‘Precedents' or no ‘precedents' you know you premeditatedly usurped another man's life, work and destiny. And so you hire lawyers and others to punish ruthlessly anybody who casts doubt on the origins of your 'masterpieces'. They advise you that the more people you punish the stronger you will be. Even reputable newspapers will back off asking awkward questions. You get a reputation for being tough and soon nobody dares even print one of your paintings, not even as a postcard, without your permission. You are king of your monopoly.
When you learn that Vincent Van Gogh upon hearing of your success shot himself to death in a fit of despair, you rejoice. The final threat has been removed. The heat is off. You can relax to enjoy your ill-gotten gains. But you gradually realize that you can only sleep in one bed as before, wear one pair of shoes and one suit as before, return to eating more or less the same food you have been used to all your life, that the rain still makes you wet if you try to walk through it without an umbrella and your ‘friends' are only your ‘friends' because you give them gifts. Indeed, you are still the same person you were before you got famous, only now you are twice as miserable.
And then one fateful day, a niece of Vincent's is told by his landlord to come and "fetch his paintings from the house as the local kids are using them to make tents and it would a shame to see them go to mending chicken houses and leaky roofs and the like, a fate that is inevitable if nobody collects them, as canvas is expensive in these parts". She goes there and steps into another world. The magical world of a vision that could only have been given to one man, and only one man, at a certain point in history. And she begins to think. There is something oddly familiar about it all. What if……?

Whether any of the above fiction or all of it is true or not will be seen when the Willy the Wizard case is heard in the High Court in London despite moves currently under way in the British press and media and on the internet to stop it. This author's contention is that the case has a right to be heard and all of us have a right to listen in the name of that most fundamental human right - the right to freedom of expression. He would also suggest that here is classic opportunity for Rowling to establish her right to "original creation" once and for all and she should seize it with gratitude instead of trying to stop it.