Yahoo!7 Answers Blog Australia

Anyone who has ever watched television shows such as America’s Next Top Model and films such as The September Issue will know how important photography is to show off great fashion. The way the model wears the clothes and how the photographer captures the mood can make the difference between the outfits flying off the shelves and what’s in the bargain bin at the end of the season.

Fashion photography is a bit different to artistic photography, although many feel that it blurs the line. When chookie asked What is the difference between a commercial and an artistic photograph?, mike1942f responded with a very interesting answer:

A commercial photo is expected to show the product or the business in crisp detail and well lighted, etc. Usually.  An artistic photograph may be crisp or blurry, have an off centre focus, be a colour study. If very crisp and clear, it is expected to show some story or narrative or reveal something (”barrenness”) about the place. Some commercial fashion photos in recent times have been artistic. (excessively to my mind) Usually this means you have to hunt down in the corner to find the brand unless you know clothes to the point of recognising them. More

But maybe that is the point? As fivetoze says: “a picture is worth a thousand words… it sells you the idea before you see the pricetag” More. Therefore the more romantic and beautiful the picture, the more desirable the product will be to you, particularly when it comes to high end clothing.

So if you want to get into fashion photography, how do you get your break? Abe H recommends starting out by getting some schooling in fashion.

You need a art photography degree. and maybe a minor in fashion. You need to build you portfolio with great fashion shots. You need to spend every dime you can get your hands on and maybe money you’ll have to borrow on a camera and equipment. More

Teknodogg recommends putting your ideas into action:

Set up a photoshoot and snap away … you’ll find your direction through your view-finder. Plus it’ll build up your profolio and it’d be super fun to do especially with your friends as models. More

Paul Green is a Sydney based photographer who has worked with Sony, Vogue, GQ, Good Weekend, Disney, Saatchi and Saatchi, and Fairfax & Roberts Jewelers. When getting together a portfolio, he recommends:

1.  Preparation is key. Understand what you are shooting and what results you want to achieve.
2. Know your equipment. Experiment with your camera and find out what all the functions do. You may discover something very cool that you can apply to different situations you photograph.
3. Have fun. Let yourself be loose when you shoot and watch what is going on around you. This is when you find that interesting light or can capture that amazing look.

For more great tips from Paul Green and other photographers, visit our specialist Yahoo!7 Photography site thanks to Sony.

Caitlin
Community Manager

From today, some of you will start experiencing a slightly different page design when you visit the Category pages.

This is the new page design and over the next week we will gradually be increasing the number of people who see this page until it is the only version of the Category page you will see on the site.  We’re doing this cautiously to ensure your overall experience on the site isn’t affected.

No prizes for the first ones to see it – but we are very keen to hear your feedback on the new page when you do see it – please leave your feedback through the blog comments or directly through our feedback page

We will tell you more about the exciting new design once it is fully visible to everyone!

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

I love reading questions and answers about pets on Answers. I recently saw this question and laughed out loud when I read the answer:

Question: What’s the funniest thing your dog ever did?

My chihuahua ate my entire pack of bubble gum rappers and all and the next morning he was literaly blowin bubbles out of his butt i about died!!

What the??!  Delving into the pets category, there are many weird and wonderful questions about how to deal with pets that have a mind of their own. The best answer to this question is great and there are even accompanying pictures!

Question: Where’s the weirdest place your cat has laid?

Oh gawd Percy my Persian is the prince of weird nap spots! The recycling bin in my utility room. Not sure how comfy it was on top of empty water bottles, cat food cans, etc! He also loves to nap on top of my fax/copier which can make working at home challenging at times. Inside my bass drum. Inside a tote bag. Sprawled across my desk (I was on the phone with a client and trying SO hard not to laugh!!!) But the weirdest of weird place I found him once – on top of the giant coffee cup planter on my deck LOL And I was wondering why that lavender wasn’t growing! (Note the dirt speck on his nose LOL)

How about silly dogs? Answers devotee ‘Dragonfly: how do I love thee’ talks about her border collie who collapses his front end and sticks his butt in the air when you pat him. She wants to know:

Question: What silly thing does your dog do?

Get this – on 4th of July, I was playing with my younger lab (10 months old at the time) in the back yard. He started staring at the shed and high pitched girlie barking. So naturally, I went over to see what he was doing and just as I bent down – out shot a rabbit going about 90 miles an hour! Guinness let out a loud yelp – turned and with tail between his legs ran for the porch! Some retriever huh? It took me quite a while to get him off that darn porch.

So cute! If you want to see some adorable dogs in action, there are some great pet channels in Yahoo!7 Video . There’s the senile talking cat, the moonwalking dog and finally, a cat who is just too lazy to jump down so comes up with his own way! See the video below.

What’s the funniest thing your pet does? Would love to hear some stories (and even see videos if you’ve got any!)

Caitlin
Community Manager

Recently we’d had feedback that a few glitches on the site have been impacting on the overall experience for many of you, which we apologise for.

So, like an automobile that occasionally needs to be sent to the mechanics for some re-tuning,  we had to send Answers into the garage for a little bit of maintenance.

We’ve now taken it off the blocks and here are the fixes you will see since this latest release:

• Many of you were not regularly receiving immediate email notifications when your network posted a question.  We appreciate how vital it is to get your questions to your Answers network and we have now fixed this to ensure everyone should receive the emails on time.
• One bug that has been a frustration to many of you for a while now is the ability of people you have added to your `Blocked users` list to still be able to post answers to your questions.  This will no longer happen.  Blocked users will no longer be able to answer your questions – we’re sure some of you will be delighted by this!
• When questions are in voting, we’d noticed the total number of votes were not adding up correctly.  After sending the Yamster on a quick mathematics course, we now have the correct totals back on display again.
• A couple of months ago, we introduced inactive hyperlinks for Level 1 users.  To continue to protect everyone using our site against potentially malicious links we’ve made some improvements to this functionality to ensure the right to post hyperlinks really is only earned by trust
• One piece of feedback we regularly hear is that you want more information on why content has been deleted.  We’ve now refreshed the Violation Notifications that we send to inform you of your content being deleted.  These will now include more details about the actual violation that was committed and hope this will help you better understand why your content was removed from the site.  Remember, all content on the site must be within the community guidelines.

Finally, we’ve also laid the groundwork for some more radical changes to certain parts of the site design… so watch this space!

Keep your feedback coming, and we’ll continue to work on keeping the site well oiled!

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

We’ve all got a favourite category on Answers. Some of us like to discuss the latest footy match or the demise of our cricket team. Others like to ponder current events and there are many people who love to debate the pros and cons of their favourite celebrities. Sometimes our favourite category changes with our lifestyle. Newly pregnant? You’re probably pretty active in the Pregnancy subcategory. Just booked a big trip? I’m guessing you’ve been getting some advice from the Travel category. As for me, I’ve joined the hotbed of discussion, advice and excited planning in the Engagement and Wedding category. As a bride-to-be, the advice about everything from hairstyles to honeymoons has been invaluable and it’s fabulous to be able to share all my queries with such an active community.

One thing I’ve learnt is that there’s a lot of tradition that is associated with weddings and it’s quite the debate which traditions you should adhere to and which ones you can skip (without offending your Great Auntie Margaret of course). One of the most obvious traditions is the white wedding dress which most believe symbolises virginity. Actually it had nothing to do with purity – prior to the 1800’s women wore their Sunday best regardless of the colour. Queen Victoria, however, had some white lace that she wanted to wear so had her wedding dress made white to match. Her wedding portrait was widely distributed and as a result, it became fashionable in many high society weddings as only wealthy people could afford to have a dress in white that didn’t need to be worn again.

These days, the white dress is still popular however many are shunning it. One of the most popular questions in the wedding category is whether other colours are appropriate or should it only be worn for a second marriage? Can all girls can wear white or would ivory or cream be better options?

Actually much of the bride’s outfit is based on tradition. The veil? One theory is “during the times of arranged marriages, the bride’s face was covered until the groom was committed to her at the ceremony – so it would be too late for him to run off if he didn’t like the look of her!” Nice… As for the garter, it’s actually got a long history. It has long been considered that owning part of the bridal attire would bring good luck so prior to the 14th century, people used to try to rip off some of the bridal gown. The solution was for the bride to wear a garter so the groom could remove it and throw it to the male guests.

Most brides adhere to the ‘Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue’ rhyme but what does it all mean? According to Rachelle_of_Shangri_La, it actually dates back to Victorian times. “Something old represents continuity with the bride’s family, something new is the bride looking to the future, something borrowed is a token borrowed from a happily married friend or relative in the hope that their happiness will be transferred to the new couple and something blue symbolises purity“.

These are only a few of the seemingly endless traditions you can follow when planning a wedding. What do you think – which wedding traditions do you think should always be followed and which can you forget about?

Caitlin
Community Manager

We all like to play games, but there is a time and place. Yahoo!7 Answers is about a community of people sharing however it is certainly not about gaming and popularity contests. We’ve already discussed the fine line between offering a poll query and violating the community guidelines. But after seeing another rise of avatar games along with the ongoing annoyance in the forum over this type of recurring abuse, we have decided to go over the issue again.

What’s the difference between polling and chatting?
Polling questions, such as “Who do you think will win the election?” or “What kind of decorations do you post on a Christmas tree?” are ok. Advice-seeking and knowledge-worthy questions are more than welcome on the site.

On the other hand, low-quality questions such as “ What’s your name?” ,“Am I pretty?”, “ Vote for the best above/below avatar” or any sort of Avatar games, name games, guessing games, truth or dare, trolling games, etc. violate the community guidelines and should be reported as abuse. We also consider questions that call out other users by name to be chatting. If you want to chat with another user, use instant messenger or send email to that user.

If you want to ask a follow-up question in response to someone else’s question and that person is not available via email or IM, post a new question that’s open to everyone in the community to answer – there might be someone else who’s better equipped to answer it.

How do I report chatting and gaming question/answer?
Go to the page where the abusive question or answer appears, and click the “Report Abuse” link associated with it. To report abuse that does not appear in the question or answer (such as harassment, obscene avatars, etc.), you can still click the “Report Abuse” button and describe the abuse in the Additional Details box provided. Once you’ve reported the violation, you’re done! There’s no need to email the team, we will remove it.

When people use Answers to chat with each other, it lowers the quality of the site and inhibits knowledge-sharing. By sticking to the guidelines and reporting abuse, we can all make Answers an informative and enjoyable place to be.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cmgramse/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

There’s something so special about being able to capture a moment in time. I love capturing the instant when the sun dips below the horizon and the whole world is bathed in a bright orange glow or being able to get that cheeky grin on someone’s face. Photography is definitely my favourite form of visual art and one that I’d love to learn more about.

Personally I love taking travel shots. I’ve got thousands of photographs from my travels, ranging from blurry shots of my travel companions to rather startling images that capture the atmosphere of the location. I’m no award winning photographer, but I think the most important thing about art is the enjoyment you get from it. I love the process of setting up the photo and the satisfaction of it turning out the way you imagined it. Most of all, I love framing the special ones so I can be reminded of that moment in time every time I look at it.

Last week Sony Alpha asked you, the Answers community, What do you most like to take photographs of and why? There were some great responses and I thought I’d share a few with you:

Baby’s got blue eyes has a lovely idea for her photography:

I love to take photos of sunrise and sunset. Its the most beautiful and spectacular time of the day. My current hobby is to take a photo of the sunset every single day for 1 year, from my birthday this year to next year. Once finished, Im going to choose one favourite from each day and make a giant collage of sunset photos and frame it.

Regwah’s photography is slightly less traditional:

Well there is this one osprey that I can’t get enough of, he is my friend & allows me to get really close. I only have an 17-85mm lens so I have to get close.
Here I am in a tree with me old mate the osprey.

Stevo doesn’t like photography to be too easy:

Opals. Because it’s a challenge capturing their colour.

Pamela likes to consider the meaning behind her subjects:

I like to shoot bridges, stairways, and railroad tracks because they represent transition to me. I also like to shoot black and white photos that show light and dark contrasts. I like to take photos of people who love each other, whether it be a couple, family, friends. I like candid shots in public of people or of architectural statements.

For Ali, just getting her subjects to pose is the real challenge:

I absolutely love taking photos of people. Unfortunately this is hard to do, as there are not many people around me that enjoy having their photo taken

I can relate to Ali’s problem. I love portrait travel photographs like the one on the left by Wanderself that demonstrate culture of a country but I’ve never been able to capture it just right. Either the light is wrong or the person moves, or my camera just isn’t good enough. Whatever it is, I’ve never been able to get a photo I’ve been happy with.

What about you? What sort of photography is your archilles heel? Can’t master night time shots or are you never able to get the lighting right in sunset pics? Maybe you’ll get some hints from Sony Alpha’s Photography page!

Bono manages to use his celebrity to tackle serious issues

An interesting topic came up this week from the Canadian Answers team. They featured a celebrity question from Montreal based Associated Press reporter Amy Luft. She is asked the community What would it take to make people under 30 more interested in serious news issues than in celebrity gossip?

Many of the young people who have answered so far disagree with this statement. Adrymustdie says “I’m under 30 and detest celebrity gossip” and Jo confirms: “your stereotyping by saying people under 30. I am 18, and could care less about celebrity news!! I find it such a joke”

Perhaps it’s not just young people who are more interested in celebrity gossip? Having a look in the Celebrities subcategory (one out of the eleven Entertainment and Music subcategories), there are well over 700,000 resolved questions discussing things such as Who do you think is better Selena Gomez or Demi Lovato? and Do you think Kyle Sandilands should be sacked?

On the other hand, in the News & Events category, there are 400,000 resolved questions on everything from Will you stop buying clothes from Bonds & King Gee now they won’t be Australian made? and How will the Australian government stimulus package help?

Interestingly though, the most popular question in News & Events is from Bono, who asked What can we do to make povery history? 3 years ago. He got a phenomenal 26,000 answers to his question and, while he is a celebrity, his question also demonstrates that perhaps people do care about current events more than we think. It also confirms that combining the power of celebrity with serious news is definitely one way to get attention for the cause. On the flipside, the most answered celebrity question was What will you remember most about Michael Jackson? with 6,416 answers.

In fact, most of the News & Events questions have more answers, and those answers are well written and intelligent responses to some of the world’s biggest issues. It begs the question, do we actually care about more serious news issues but just don’t know what to do about them? Perhaps places like Answers is one of the few places where we get the opportunity to voice our opinions about important issues like World Poverty and is also a place where we can get advice about the more confusing aspects of serious news?

What do you think? Do you think we care more about celebrity gossip than serious news? And if so, how can we get more people to care about the big things in life?

Caitlin
Community Manager

Through this blog, our email address and the forum, we receive a lot of feedback about what you like and don’t like on the site. One of the usual comments from our users is about the content quality of the questions and answers. As you probably know, our community guidelines exist both to explain our daily moderation on the site and also to help you ask better questions and give better answers. Let’s check some golden rules to help improve your experience and obtain higher quality answers for your questions.

1. Start your question with who”, “why”, “how”, etc: Optimise your chance to get good answers with an understandable question. Don’t forget that people are coming on the site to share their knowledge and answer some questions, so make it easier for them to find yours! E.g. How can I successfully complete a rubik cube?
2. Use proper English for your questions and answers: Correct spelling and grammar and not using SMS language helps people find your questions. Not only that but you’ll get better answers when others can clearly make out what you’re asking. E.g. “I fink fat the solution is…” should be “I think that the solution is…”
3. Open the debate politely: Remember we’re a diverse community of people with diverse opinions. Feel free to introduce your point of view with constructive thoughts or examples or compare your vision with other’s personal experiences. By citing sources, using quotation marks, and including hyperlinks, you make the community stronger.
4. Categorise your question correctly: Placing your question in the right category helps it be seen by people who can give you better information and more accurate answers.
5. Respect the opinions of other users: Remember we’re a diverse community of people with diverse opinions. Everyone wants to be treated with respect and showing respect to others makes the community better for all members. Don’t ask or answer on subjects about another member. We’re here to share knowledge, not to gossip!

And remember, you can always do a search to check if the question on your mind has been asked before. If you want to know more, don’t hesitate to check our community guidelines or our help pages. Feel free also to share with the community some good questions or answers that you found on the site in your comments.

Take care !

Yahoo!7 Answers Team

Brett Lee is on Answers! He wants to know: Do you think Australia will win the fifth Ashes test? Why or why not?

After a fairly disastrous, rain soaked start to the Ashes this year, we’re finally in an optimistic place. The scores are level going into the fifth test and Australia’s chances of winning the series are looking good.

The rivalry between Australia & England goes way back and funnily enough, it was an English loss that was pivotal to the history of the Ashes. Apparently in 1882 during a test at The Oval, England won by a devastating 7 runs which the British press coined the death of English cricket. The subsequent tour to Australia in 1882-83 was dubbed as the quest to regain ‘The Ashes of the Dead’. The actual urn was presented to the England Captain Ivo Bligh by a group of Melbourne women during this tour.

The urn isn’t actually the trophy presented to the winning team. Whilst replicas have often been displayed, vakayil k explains that: ‘the actual urn has never been presented or displayed as a trophy in this way. Whichever side holds the Ashes, the urn normally remains in the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum at Lord’s since being bequeathed to the MCC by Ivo Bligh’s widow upon his death.’

We’ve got a very active cricket community at Yahoo!7 Answers from the four corners of the globe who like to discuss all areas of the game. Will England rush back Flintoff? Probably, according to Shiny Metal Ass, and his injury fears are easing as reported by Yahoo!7 Sport.  What do you think was the reason for England’s defeat in the fourth test? Good bowling or poor batting? Roger Ford says: “A combination of both but mostly good bowling I would say. The pitch helped a bit but Siddle and Clarke were right on the money yesterday making short work of the English batting lineup.”

How about Ponting? There has been a lot of discussion about him being booed by the English crowd and many are critiquing his ability as a captain. Julia L says: “He’s our most successful captain as far the win percentages are concerned.! He has led his team from the front through thick and thin! And never lost faith in team. Many will call rate him an average or lucky captain. But whenever he had faced a crisis he was able to pull off miraculous wins for his team. Any captain who had to face a mass exodus of great players will do worse than him.”

Currently there is no rain forecast for the fifth test, starting on Thursday 20^th August. Tell Brett Lee – Do you think Australia will win the fifth Ashes test? Will Australia manage to secure victory or do you think England will be back on form? Or is a draw the more likely proposition?

Caitlin
Community Manager