New Website

[luxborealis]

After much deliberation, I've decided to move from a self-designed and published website (with all the inherent back-end work) to a hosted site for my photo galleries. I've considered quite a range of options - detailed in my blog post about it - narrowing the decision down to Zenfolio and SmugMug, both excellent options.

After trialling both for the last two weeks, I decided that SmugMug would best suit my needs. I invite you to visit my new site and offer C&C. Sometime soon, I'll move my domain (and more galleries) over to the site, but for now it's a temporary redirect.

There are still a few things I need to clean up, such as duplicate photos showing up in searches and the look of the menu on an iPad, but it's close enough to ready to go live.

BTW - If you are looking for a hosting service and are considering SmugMug, you can save 20% on whatever service you choose by using the referral code on my blog post.

[RSL]

Very nice, Terry. As you said, though, it needs work. The opening page is a big problem because the titles for the links are almost unreadable as the background shifts. But it looks as if there's some fine work on there.

[PeterAit]

Nicely done, I did not realize that Smugmug allowed such design flexibility. I will say that I do not like the home page to automatically start playing a slideshow. I get to enjoying a photo and suddenly it is gone!

I like your photos a lot, too.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Are't you concerned with a potential image theft, given the large display size? For instance, 1600 px, with a careful interpolation, would be enough for a perfectly usable and sellable 20x30 canvas.

[luxborealis]

Are't you concerned with a potential image theft, given the large display size? For instance, 1600 px, with a careful interpolation, would be enough for a perfectly usable and sellable 20x30 canvas.

Thanks for the feedback so far.

Slobodan, yes image theft is a concern. Limiting image size is one way to reduce the problem, but I also want to make a statement with my photos, so I need to find that balance point. 1600px is large. I can limit it to 1280, 1024 or 800px. I find 800px small on a large monitor, so perhaps 1024 would be better.

Peter - I know what you mean about just looking at a slideshow image and it's gone, but hopefully it will entice users to choose a gallery for more concentrated viewing.

Russ - another trade off, unfortunately. The other option is to use an opaque header. That may be the route to go. I do like the transparency, but can't find a way to change it. I was hoping that leaving as is would cause people to keep looking at the photos a moment longer, but perhaps not.

[Rajan Parrikar]

Terry,

The clean, uncluttered look is welcome as are the photos in large size.  My quibbles are the following:

- The band at the top of your page changes colour depending on the photo, sometimes making your links nearly invisible when a photo with a white overlaying background is displayed.  There should be a way to keep that static.
- The font chosen for the header does not look good (but I recognize this is a matter of personal taste).
- The appearance of the blog template departs from your main site (the font, the colour scheme, etc) and does not feel integrated.

[luxborealis]

Terry,

The clean, uncluttered look is welcome as are the photos in large size.  My quibbles are the following:

- The band at the top of your page changes colour depending on the photo, sometimes making your links nearly invisible when a photo with a white overlaying background is displayed.  There should be a way to keep that static.
- The font chosen for the header does not look good (but I recognize this is a matter of personal taste).
- The appearance of the blog template departs from your main site (the font, the colour scheme, etc) and does not feel integrated.

Very helpful, Rajan. Thanks. I must admit to having a penchant for handwritten fonts, but realize they are not formal enough for some uses. This may be one.

The blog is my next task, although it won't match precisely as I don't enjoy reading light text on dark for long passages.

[RSL]

Russ - another trade off, unfortunately. The other option is to use an opaque header. That may be the route to go. I do like the transparency, but can't find a way to change it. I was hoping that leaving as is would cause people to keep looking at the photos a moment longer, but perhaps not.

They might do that, Terry, but the problem is that the text for the links is virtually unreadable against most of the background pictures, so if you want to go looking for a particular picture you can't find the link to the category.