Janet Brien's most commented articles

One of the nicest things about online photography sites like ipernity is how it brings us all together into a close-knit community of like-minded friends. Flickr was my first online photography home and as I began to become a better photographer, I also made new friends. As important as it is to take pictures, it's also very important to look at other people's photography for inspiration, instruction, and often to see the world in a completely different way. Part of my daily routine (unless I…

ipernity has a unique and wonderful feature that Flickr doesn't have, which is the ability to put a picture into a note! This can be really useful to show your viewers related images without making them go to another page. Here's how to do it! :) 1) Go to the page with the picture you'd like to put a picture note on. 2) Open another tab, go to your stream on ipernity, and then to the picture you'd like to add as a note. 3) On the right side of the page, there is little bar which i…

UPDATE: I have edited errors, added many exceptions and corrected oversights in this article and really appreciate all of your comments and emails to make sure this information is accurate! Keep it coming! :) It has been brought to my attention that the article I just posted, Fast & Efficient Commenting Tactics , has led at least one person to believe that I am only interested in getting comments and don't care at all about the photographers behind the picture. That accusation really hurt…

My husband is an amazing cook and he loves to have fresh herbs when possible. I thought to myself, "How hard could it be to make some room for an herb garden?"

My apologies for the long wait on this article! This is the next part to my Helpful Guide for Flickr Refugees. My aim is to get people up and running over here and in a happy place so you can make this your new home. Please read this article first!! Ninja Commenting vs. Thoughtful Commenting #1 Rule For Getting Comments and Visits: Reply to Your Comments!* We all love attention. But more than that, we want our pictures to be seen and appreciated. However, this is a tw…

It's been a couple of months now since Flickr exploded, and there are still plenty of people who are moving to ipernity. I'm one of them, and after joining ipernity back in May, I can safely say that my home here is every bit as rewarding as it was back on Flickr...but it's even better! :) The mere idea of moving to a new home seemed like an impossible task, but I found out that it's very easy to transfer your pictures--even if you have thousands of images--and you can also transfer your alb…

How many times has it happened to you that you've uploaded some pictures but they're not in the order you wanted? And then you can't figure out how to change the position, and you don't even know if it's possible to do? HOW FRUSTRATING!! ARGH!!! Trust me, I've been there...it's totally annoying! The good news is that you can change the order of your pictures easily once you understand how it works. This is how to do it: 1. Choose "Organize" at the top of the screen to the right of the…

Aperture Sets and Focus Stacking without Rails or Tripod (Prerequisite: You must now how to use Photoshop or another editing tool with the same capabilities)

This beautiful seedling is a King Henry Hollyhock! There are 6 other seedlings and since I took this picture, each is showing off their second set of leaves. (I also have a section of Black Hollyhocks. Only one has sprouted so I will be planting more seeds in the hopes that more will germinate.) There's a Party Goin' On Round Here! I planted my garden two weeks ago last Monday, and a lot's been happening out there! It's really exciting to see seedlings push their way up and out of the g…

The bugs and critters have discovered my seedlings and they are laying waste to many of my precious little ones!

One of the most exciting parts of a new flower garden is selecting and planting all of the different bulbs and seeds. As you'll see, I went completely bonkers with all of the choices available!

Maybe the only way to get rid of these ants is to blow up the house...

Janet and Steve Brien diving off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico One of the many wonderful people I've met here on ipernity is my friend Jim Boynton (WJB1861) . He shares cool tidbits with each of his images, and he took a picture of a jellyfish which brought to mind a story about scuba diving. Here's the tale and his picture is below … ENJOY! There was a time when I was learning to dive off the coast of California, near Monterey. My husband was an…

Despite the attacks from insects and ground squirrels, my raised bed garden has flourished and is an Eden-oasis in the middle of our bone-dry property!

The vertical pumpkin patch is a success and I am slowly training the vines up the trellis that Steve made for me!

With the success of my front garden and metal feed trough planter, I began thinking about how nice it would be to have a large garden where I could plant many kinds of flowers. I realized that we already had the perfect spot, it just needed some work to prepare: our abandoned raised bed, originally built years ago for a one-time vegetable garden.

Well, as time has passed, Flickr has gotten a lot faster and this has made it possible for me to surf around at a reasonable speed again, but now that I have a home here at ipernity too, I have discovered that I now have two heads. :D I don't want to give up my account at Flickr, but I really don't like the way it looks at all. I may have gotten used to it, but I hate it. I feel very out of sorts on Flickr, whereas I feel at home on ipernity. Ipernity has the look I really like, but it also h…

Even though I'd pulled all the weeds out, I still had a lot of work to do before I could plant seeds, but I was now a juggernaut of excitement because my dream was going to come true!

I have been here now for a few weeks and I really love it! People are very friendly, and as I put in the effort, I'm getting more commenting contacts, which is wonderful, and I'm making new friends. I can see that if I keep it up, I should definitely be able to recreate the experience I had on Flickr over here on ipernity. That was one of my biggest concerns. I generated a very large contact list over a couple of years and a solid base of commenters have become my friends. I really care about th…

This is my master list of the flowers and bulbs I planted this year. I may add a sorted version below this one to identify which are annuals, biennials and perennials. I need to keep track of what species germinated (and how many?), which seem to be dead, and other notes. I may add pictures as they bloom or maybe I'll do that a different way. For now, this is my list. If you have experience with any of these flowers, I'd really be interested to know that you have to say! (Easy to grow, bugs eat…