The Storm over the 'Storm over Garland' - updated
Here's the iPhone pic that started it all.
I'm doing some Event Photography and Social Media work for the good folks in the Garland Business District and their upcoming street fair. It's always a popular event and our goal was to get it a bit more attention and to have a number of great images captured so folks can remember the experience. In preparation for it and to build up a bit of buzz, I've driven and walked through the area a couple times recently to capture a few images for our Twitter feed.
On Tuesday evening, after a full day at work, I visited again hoping to get a few sunset images of the area. Just as I parked, I got a weather notification regarding a potential storm. Almost as soon as I got out of my car, I saw the skies to the south looking crazy dark. I also noticed that the town smelled of earthen dust, a very unique smell. It was the haboob being pushed by the storm. I took a few pics with both my phone and my DSLR and captured a few winners that I Tweeted out. They got a bit of buzz from a few friends and news sites but nothing too big. There were a lot of folks tweeting some really cool pics and weather updates.
I continued to walk around and captured a few more images including this winner of the Quinn Marketing building. As the storm got worse, I packed up my gear and was about to head home when I saw, to the west, the best ever cloud formation. I parked and grabbed my iPhone. It was raining too much for me to risk my good camera and there were too many cars for me to get to where I wanted (the middle of the street) so I just got the best vantage point that I could and took 3 pictures, including the one above.
Almost immediately, I knew that it was a great one, even for an iPhone pic. I quickly posted it on my Twitter feed, @danscaper, and the Facebook page of the Garland Business District. I'm familiar with how to monitor Facebook stats and I could see that the image got very popular, very quickly. It was going very well in Spokane but once KXLY Radio shared it on their page, it went crazy from there.
It almost died down when another popular local station, 92.9 ZZU, shared it, too. More sharing and liking ensued, the likes of which I haven't been involved with before. Really cool stuff and a great way to highlight both me and the Garland Street Fair.
What threw a wrench in the works is that KHQ posted the pic on their Facebook page as a submission from one of their followers. They admitted that they didn't know who took the pic but admired it enough to post it anyways. Not the way I would have liked but I'm pleased that they enjoyed it. It quickly got tons of play (571 Likes and 69 shares as of this writing). Again, I'm pleased but those are stats that I can't track because the images wasn't shared properly.
After a quick note to KHQ, they were happy to tag me and danscape photography and I'm grateful for it. Any attention is good attention and they certainly meant no harm. Plus, they threw in a plug for the street fair. Where it got screwy is how a few folks claimed credit for it in the comments section and another few folks doubted who actually took it. One guy went so far as to copy the image and then share it on his page. He said that he did it to make certain that proper credit was given so I guess he meant well. There, it went on to get more attention (268 likes and 25 shares as of this writing) that I couldn't track because it was now a copy of a copy. After a friend of mine reached out to him and let him know whose it was, he sent me a friend request and tagged the image. Again, I couldn't track it but it was still nice of him to share it and give credit.
So were are we at now? Many lessons learned about the etiquette and power of sharing, LOTS of positive attention, several new followers and friends and a fantastically popular image.
Oh ..... that image! I took it home, spent some time with it in Snapseed, Lightroom and Photoshop and came up with this ......
I'm working on a few different ways to make it available in print or poster form and I'm planning on using it to raise funds for a local charitable group, a civic organization that helps out those that have troubles helping themselves.
Spokane, thanks for the positive experience and the opportunity to take and share such a fabulous image of our town.
A screen cap from the fella that shared the image. Basically, my suspicion was correct, that he totally meant well and just liked the image and wanted the proper artist tagged.
Just further proof that if you're looking for cool folks and good stories, you'll find them. Thank you, Shauk.