You are a photographer and you have heard that social media sites can help you increase your business, but how, and which ones? Many of you are probably already using Twitter but have you heard of Squidoo, and how it can be beneficial to you and your business?

What is Squidoo and how can it help your Photography Business?

Megan Casey, Editor in Chief and one of the Founding Members of Squidoo states:

“Squidoo is the popular publishing platform and community that makes it easy for you to create “lenses” online. Lenses are pages, kind of like flyers or signposts or overview articles, that gather everything you know about your topic of interest–and snap it all into focus.”

Marketing your Photography Business with Squidoo

Since you've mastered your photography niche you know it was work. It took time and work to learn the artistic and technical aspects of photography, as well as how to market yourself and your skills.

Squidoo is the same thing, it will take work, but it is a great way to market yourself and your photography skills. You can get an idea of some of the Lenses written about photography here. How you use this great platform is up to you, but many people actually make money from the lenses they build.

How Squidoo can help you Market your Photography?

1. First you have to sign up

2. Write about what you have experience in and what your target market is interested in.

3. You can write specifically for your zip code –Google will find you, and so will your customers.

4. People go to Squidoo and use the Search Button to find lenses on the subject they are interested in; why not let them find you?

5. You can search for topics similar to yours, and by including that lens (article) you are giving your readers a variety of information which is good for business, and helps you get known in the community.

6. If you use Flickr to showcase your photos, then you can easily move sets, or individual photos onto your Squidoo Lens. (tag the pictures first for Google). Here is a good Squidoo Lens that explains Flickr, and an idea of how to use your knowledge to make a Lens.

7. Just as in blogging, original content works best. Write about what you know or are passionate about, from your perspective. Give people a reason to read your content and call you. You are building relationships which again can translate into business.

8. Use your Squidoo Lenses to link to your other sites, or photos – better Google Juice for you.

9. There are different Modules, like Amazon or Ebay, that allow you to monetize your lens. You can sell your own work, or others.

10. And last but not least is people do business with people that are like them, and that they trust. Participating in the Squidoo community helps you let people know more about you, and vice versa.

Here again is the link to sign up for Squidoo. Go ahead, what do you have to lose?

This post was guest authored by Kathy McGraw. Visit her blog. Follow her on Twitter. She is an awesome resource on all thing Squidoo.

It was a magazine clipping that my mother handed me on my way back to the US that first introduced me to Homai Vyarawalla, India's first woman photojournalist. In a field that is clearly overrun by men, I was easily charmed by her tenacity and resolve to also bear witness to India's first waking moments as an independent nation.

Check out this film – it's rather long at 70 minutes – to get acquainted with a legend in the field of photojournalism.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com

Post your thoughts below in the comments section. I look forward to hearing from you.

What do you make of this advertisement? Like anything I know there are two sides to this story. What have you heard? I want to know. Yes, the natural environment must be protected. Yes, the nation's progress depends on manufacturing, jobs, infrastructure etc. But who has done a cost-benefit analysis here? Is there an environmental report somehwer that is free of jargon and easy to understand by the lay person? Do we give a shit one way or another?

Here is your chance to speak up. Tell me. Tell us. Keep the language clean and the discussion civil. And, when you do comment, please use your REAL name, a real email address and if you have a website, a real URL. If you are going to want to remain anonymous, I am afraid your comment will be deleted. Sorry!

Now, speak!

My wife's grandma passed away in January. Read about her and check out some images I made of her on a 2006 trip to Bangalore, India.

I am on Twitter and I think you should follow me.

Remember darkrooms? Yeah, the ones that you lost yourselves in for hours/days on end inhaling those amazingly toxic chemicals. I know, they are all but gone. Well, Richard Nicholson, a British photographer has gone and documented the last remaining darkrooms in England.

Tewfic El-Sawy, aka. The Travel Photog, recommends you check out The Foundry Photojournalism Workshop. This time it is in Manali, India from July 26 – August 1, 2009. And, yes, I would LOVE to teach there.

My mother gave kisses like satin and embraces like warm honey. Making Punjabi-style home-made yogurt every evening was a religious practice for her. I would hover, eye-level with the kitchen counter, and gawk in awe at her magical hands that never spilled a drop. With those same bare fingers, she would flip oily, gritty and hot parathas. One time in Randall’s (a chain grocery store in Texas), in the soda aisle, someone accidentally put an eggplant on top of a 24-pack of Pepsi. It looked so out of context, so unabashedly “eggplant” amongst rows of sodas, that it spurred giggle after giggle after giggle from my mother. (Of course, my mom didn’t see the eggplant but rather baigan bharta!)

Many called her Nancy, instead of her Indian name, Neroo.  She and I are inextricably linked through the times I skipped school to create ‘busy' tasks for her; through the times I bought her bunches of her favorite bananas and playfully called her a monkey, just to see her laugh; through the times I would stand in her hospital room and just hold her in my arms, oftentimes only letting go when she told me I was suffocating her. We are linked through the drops of coconut oil she rubbed into my hair as a child, and through the drops of coconut oil I rubbed into her hair as an adult.

Coming from India in the late 60’s, my mother found herself lost in America, in a country where she couldn’t find cumin seeds and where people didn’t sleep on rooftops during summer. The story is one which has been now immortalized in books, movies, our memories, and our childhood of mothers who always wore saris to birthday parties of our white or brown friends from school.

The rest of her story has yet to be documented, has yet to be said. In what’s proving not to be such a rarity anymore for Indian families in the U.S., my father’s sudden departure from the family when I was 8 triggered severe symptoms of depression in my mother. This, combined with a complicated, abusive and rather hateful relationship with her own family, eventually morphed into biploar disorder -manifesting itself through hysteria episodes, hospitalizations, screaming, fights, multi-car trains of non-logic, and numerous suicide attempts. 

Since my pre-teens, I provided care for my mother. I tried finding creative solutions, taking great joy in the small victories, tried every resource I had at my disposal. I knew she was battling something larger than her, but her condition was not recognized by members of her Indian family and close friends in the South Asian community. This pitted me in complete disagreement with my mother’s family. Mental illness carried a stigma, it was an “American” problem, it wasn’t a real condition.

My father was often held at blame, I was often held at blame for her condition, being told my nontraditional choices and lifestyle left my mother in an “extreme sadness.” What were my nontraditional choices? Choosing to leave Texas when I felt my mom could take care of herself, opting for travel in the world instead of staying in Texas, choosing colorful boyfriends over marriage. Their medium of blame was a simplistic and dismissive answer to a complicated issue. My mother’s mental illness fell silent to her traditional family, to the South Asian community and prey to the stigma – the problem did not exist, so how could the solutions?

In 2006, my mother’s hallucinatory break-down and months of hospitalization led to her sudden and unexpected passing. It didn’t have to get to that point.

In the summer of 2008, I realized I had something to SAY. I knew the residual pain and isolation from my mother’s loss to bipolar disorder was so profound that if I didn’t channel it towards positive means, it would destroy me. So, in July 2008, I started SAY Campaign, to recognize and legitimize the fight against mental illness within the South Asian diaspora community (Check this YouTube video as well). There are hundreds more individuals in the South Asian community in the U.S. like my mother who, due to the stigma and lack of recognition, do not receive proper care. I am hoping by saying my mother’s story, sharing my story as a caretaker, it will be a catalyst for others to say their story and begin to chip away at the stigma.

I have something to SAY and I know others do as well. Join us, and South Asian artists and supporters Midival Punditz and Karsh Kale, in the SAY Campaign. Please keep an eye (or ear) out for concerts showcasing SAY Campaign with Midival Punditz and Karsh Kale in Spring 2009. Feel free to contact me at: graj@saycampaign.com

Geeta approached me a couple of months back about blogging in this space. Tiffinbox is and probably will always be a labor of love and as my “online” baby, it was hard to open the front door and just let anyone post here. I was also transitioning Tiffinbox from a Typepad platform to WordPress, so I was able to stall the progression of events. All jokes aside, I exchanged multiple emails with Geeta to get a sense of who she is and what she wanted to say here. I was quickly convinced that Geeta would bring a very different perspective to Tiffinbox.

In her own words:

Geeta is new to blogging – she decided to start officially blogging after she realized the 5-paragraph messages she emailed her friends every day were essentially blog postings. Geeta works in humanitarian assistance and international development in Washington, DC, but has spent the better part of the last 10 years working in England, the Balkans, and Afghanistan. Her most passionate love is writing – you’ll often find Geeta balancing her time between her profession (which she strongly believes in) and her need to write for self-preservation and self-growth. Geeta holds a BA in Creative Writing and a MA in International Peace and Conflict Resolution and is giggly, intensely curious, and enjoys reading Paul Auster and Yusef Komunyakaa. A little more about her is at: www.idropseeds.wordpress.com. She is also the Founder of The Global Sleepover.

Please help me make Geeta welcome and at home here at Tiffinbox. I know her posts are going to instruct, inspire and perhaps even incite you into positive action.

I wanted to quickly mention two photography contests/grants that you should consider applying. The first is called Name Your Dream Assignment with a deadline of March 3, 2009. The other is called Emerging Photographers Fund, and is hosted at David Allan Harvey's burn magazine. That deadline is March 15, 2009. Good luck to all the applicants.

Tiffinbox is really about South Asians. Wouldn't you agree? Well, when I was referred to a potential wedding client who belonged to a group called South Asian Sisters, I had to investigate.

South Asian Sisters are “a diverse collective of progressive South Asian women dedicated to empowering our community to resist all forms of oppression through art, dialogue, conscious alliances, and grassroots political action.”

Check out their latest event, Yoni Ki Baat. This appears to be the Vagina Monologues for desis. “We needed to create a space in which South Asian women could express their own views on sexuality and their bodies – topics which are traditionally kept “hush-hush” in desi culture.”

High time. And sorry, guys, South Asian Sisters, is for only women.

Yes, it's been a while. No, a long while since I posted anything new under this domain. Much of that was due to a heavy photography schedule. Then lack of sleep and paucity of time took swipes at me. But I am back.

A huge THANK YOU to James and company at The Men With Pens for helping me move this blog from Typepad to WordPress. That process was daunting and I couldn't have done it without their expert, patient help. If you are considering a similar move, I wholeheartedly recommend their services because they are that good great.

Truth to be told, I am a newbie to WordPress. I love the interface and from the websites I have seen using this fantastic blogging platform, I know much can be done here on Tiffinbox. I am very excited about the possibilities to share the kind of information that you will find useful and inspirational.

Ok, so there have been lots of changes here. It will be back to the business about publishing those things that make Tiffinbox special. I will be working on fresh new content, thanks to my connections, friends and followers on Twitter. If you aren't following me yet, what are you waiting for? I am the one that calls himself, @seshuthephotog. Simple, eh? I have spoken to photographers, artists, authors who have all shared their enthusiasm about Tiffinbox and are willing to share their insights and give us a sneak peak into their new projects.

If you have a blog you want me to check out, let me know. If you want a book reviewed, send it to me. If you are working on art project or really anything you think would appeal to those interested in South Asia, ping me now. So, the big question is – are you in for the ride? If so, leave a comment.

Did I tell you that I am back?

The leaves have fallen. The winter chill has set in. More time will be spent indoors than out. That's just how it is going to be. I don't expect to be traveling much for the next few months, so I have taken it upon myself to make some changes. Small changes and big changes.

This blog will look, feel and be different. I am hoping for a mid-December re-launch; consider it an early Christmas present to you and myself. I don't want to over promise you anything. But the changes will be happy ones for photographers working in South Asia and for writers, artists and musicians of South Asian origin.

If my silence here has been deafening (grin), I hope the new website will be a symphony to your ears and eyes.

Meanwhile, email me with your suggestions and links to cool people and projects that I should know about and blog, at tiffinbox (at) pipalproductions (dot) com. I am looking forward to hearing from you.