Exhibition Images

We are currently planning our end of year show and I am unsure about which photographs I want to include. I have taken several photographs that I am proud of this year and cannot decide which to use for the show…

Beverley Races

Hull KR

Landscapes

Holland on Sea

Or maybe some photos from my visit to India earlier in the year?

Playing Carrom Board

Boys in Dharavi Slum, Mumbai

I have already promised a couple of people that I will include their portrait in the show, probably just two images from the following collection, but I am hoping this will be a smaller aside to my main images.

I plan to ask my classmates and see what their response is.

Website Ideas

In order to decide the format of my website I have looked at a few examples of other photography portfolio websites.

www.worldinmylens.com has been designed by someone who runs a web design agency. It is a very glossy travel photography site and I really like the nice clear galleries split by continent and country. However I don’t like that at the top you scroll horizontally but you are also able to scroll down the page vertically too, it makes it a bit confusing. Also on my mac when I scroll horizontally I keep accidentally opening the preferences panel. Its a bit annoying. It also isn’t very clear how to get back to the home page.

www.stanseatonphotography.co.uk is a lovely wedding photography site. I really like the clear, straightforward, elegant layout with a large display photo and smaller photos used as links to other areas of the site. The menu is simple and it feels like there are not many pages. My only concern is that the Journal section seems to lead to another website – I would prefer everything to be in one place.

Initially I thought I was going to like  www.jeremycowart.com but I didn’t really. The thumbnail that I clicked on from another site showed an image with four images below labelled Artist, Humanitarian, App Creator and Teacher. When I actually clicked on the thumbnail, the site had clearly been updated and all the photographs on the home page were displayed in a collage which looked smart but felt a bit muddled. I had liked the idea of galleries that were a labelled according to activities rather than subject area or style of photography.

www.ericryananderson.com has a simple clear website that looks a little more contemporary than Stan Seaton Photography. I quite like the short, snappy, honest bio that he has.

In summary, I would like my website to:

• scroll vertically and not horizontally
• Include clearly labelled and defined galleries
• Have a simple straightforward menu
• Include a larger display photo and smaller photo links
• Everything to be on one website
• The galleries to be labelled according to my activities
• Short, snappy, honest bio

I have several target audiences for my photographs so my website needs to appeal to couples planning to get married as well as commercial businesses, travel companies and stock images businesses. Therefore I think I would like my website to have three or four main menu pages and the following sub-pages and galleries:

I think I would like to borrow heavily from Seaton Photography and for my website to be laid out something like this. I will use the branding that I developed last semester and use the colours I have chosen previously for each of the main areas.

India Book

This week, while there was an offer on books at Photobox,  I very quickly put together a 100 page book of photos that I took in India earlier this year.

Usually I would say that less is more, but on this occasion I wanted to include as many of my photos as I could. As well as an aide to my memory, it also needs to be a tool that I can use to tell other people about what happens on these type of trips.

http://www.photobox.co.uk/creation/3069625604

I only had a couple of hours to put this together and I have since spotted a couple of photos where they haven’t been centred all that well but overall, I’m quite pleased with it.

Update: I received my book this weekend and am very pleased with it. The print is so much better than I had with the KCFM blurb book. It is a hardback book with a lamination on the cover and the pages are nice and bright with good clarity. I would definitely use Photobox again.

Grandad’s Biography

Very sadly, this summer my Grandad passed away. He was 97 years old and his mind was as sharp as a pin until the day he died.

For some time the family had been trying to get him to write his biography, to tell the story of his early years in the East End of London and his trip to Australia in the 1920s. Sadly he didn’t finish it but after some conversations with his nieces and nephews and some of our own memories I have been able to create this momento of his life.

http://www.blurb.co.uk/books/5790992-reginald-thomas-silk

I’m really pleased with the final product and have received positive feedback from family members that have received a copy so far. It’s a great way to display some of the many photos we have of Grandad and something we will treasure and pass on to his great grandchildren and, hopefully, their children too.