Washington, WA

Washington is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The state is named after George Washington, the first President of the United States.

It is the only U.S. state named after a president. Washington was carved out of the western part of Washington Territory and admitted to the Union as the 42nd state in 1889. In 2006, the Census Bureau estimated the state's population at 6,395,798.

Residents are called "Washingtonians" (emphasis on the third syllable, pronounced as tone). Washington is sometimes called Washington state or The state of Washington to distinguish it from Washington, D.C., the U.S. capital.

Geography

Washington is the northwestern-most state of the contiguous United States. Its northern border lies mainly along the 49th parallel, with the Canadian province of British Columbia to the north.

Washington borders Oregon to the south, with the Columbia River forming most of the boundary and the 46th parallel forming the eastern part of the southern boundary.

To the east Washington borders Idaho, bounded mostly by the meridian running north from the confluence of the Snake River and Clearwater River (about 116°57' west), except for the southernmost section where the border follows the Snake River. To the west of Washington lies the Pacific Ocean.

Washington is in the region known as the Pacific Northwest, a term which often includes part or all of British Columbia in Canada and part of Alaska. Sometimes it refers only to lands within the northwestern United States, including Oregon.

The high mountains of the Cascade Range run north-south, bisecting the state. Western Washington, west of the Cascades, has a mostly marine west coast climate with relatively mild temperatures, wet winters, and dry summers.

Western Washington also supports dense forests of conifers and areas of temperate rain forest. In contrast, Eastern Washington, east of the Cascades, has a relatively dry climate with large areas of semiarid steppe and a few truly arid deserts lying in the rainshadow of the Cascades; the Hanford reservation receives an average annual precipitation of between six and seven inches.

Farther east, the climate becomes less arid. The Palouse region of southeast Washington was grassland that has been mostly converted into farmland.

Other parts of eastern Washington are forested and mountainous. The Cascade Range contains several volcanoes, which reach altitudes significantly higher than the rest of the mountains.

 

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Washington".

Facebook, Twitter and Optimized Websites for Stock Photos

by John M. Lund

Facebook, Ping Pong and Coffee

I have a confession to make. I haven't looked at Facebook in two weeks. I don't miss it (and I don't think it misses me either). Its funny; I sort of wish I missed it. I like the idea of being more connected with my friends. And yet, when I am reading the writing on the wall (little humor there), it just isn't that compelling to me.

I would much rather be having a spirited game of ping pong with a friend than sharing tidbits over the Internet. I'd rather be having a discussion about, well, anything over a cup of coffee with a friend, than sharing those thoughts via twitter.

Twitter, Tweets and Limits

Now twitter; I use that to let those following me know when I have posted a new blog entry or interview...and hoping that a lot of RT's generate traffic and grow my audience. Sometimes I peruse twitter looking for the interesting tweet. But the 140 character limit on twitter I find, well, limiting. E-mail or the phone actually makes more sense to me. To me, twitter is a mini-press release. Oh well, maybe I am showing my age.

A Toe in the Water

What does make sense to me in this digital era is optimizing and fully utilizing my web site. Maybe someday it will be different and people will look for photos through Facebook... and that is why I think it a good idea to at least have a toe in the water with social media. But right now, today, people are searching for images and finding my site via search engines. They are licensing images, buying prints and merchandise (though not yet in the quantities that I want), and finding me with interesting business proposals. Oh yeah, and I am making ad revenue from the ads on my site (but again, not yet in the quantities that I desire).

Text Heavy Sites, Finding Images, and Advertising

I made a decision that the look of my site was secondary to the optimization of it. It was a difficult decision to make...to create a text-heavy site. I even resisted it for several years. But eventually I came to believe that if someone was looking for an image, for whatever reason, then having them find that image, on my site, was more important than how the site looked.

The way to help people get to those images on my site, that they are looking for, is through text. I further came to believe that if they were looking for an image, and found what they were looking for, then having advertising on my site would not deter them. In fact, if they did not find the image they were looking for, then at least they might find something else that interests them in one of the ads. Providing relevant ads is actually doing a service for them.

An Ear to the Ground and an Eye on the Future

I won't abandon Facebook or twitter. I'll keep my other toe in the video water (the one not in social media), and I will keep my ear to the ground (as opposed to my head in the sand) and an eye on the future trying to understand where the stock photo industry is headed.

I am striving to create images that the market wants (whether they know it or not), and to be as creative as I can in order to fulfil both my monetary and artistic needs. I have a deep faith that the world is always going to need good, relevant photos, and that if I can create such images I will be fine; actually, I will be better than fine, I will thrive.

About the Author

Stock photos and funny pictures: Woman Hitching A Ride On A Lonely Road

Stock Photos and Images: Ready To Seal The Deal

Funny Pictures and Stock Photos: Solitary Foot Prints Across The Sand