I started the week thinking I would host my Gallery on Word Press in my Critical Research Journal but was influenced by the guidance which suggested there were limitations to setting up a Gallery in this way and I wanted to create something which was sustainable and appropriate for the duration of the course and beyond.
I had previously had a Clikpic website and decided to revamp it for this task. Having not used this package for a long time and with a lot of old images on the site it turned into a larger task than I had envisaged and what I have to date is a work in progress rather than the finished article. I have nonetheless loaded up some images of The Road to Elgol taken last weekend. More to come on this in my Research Project blog this week.
Here are a couple of screen shots of my work to date
As part of my research around this topic I looked at a number of providers offering website and gallery services: Jimbdo, Wix and Zenfolio. For me, Jimbdo did not offer enough website templates while Wix did provide more choice and offered tailored templates for those pursuing different genres of photography. Without a doubt my favourite was Zenfolio, and it appeared from their website, that they were popular with photographers. It was also reassuring to see that they were partnered with the RPS. The drag and drop functionality to upload photographs was particularly attractive.
I reviewed a number of websites and galleries of photographers I admire including Art Wolfe, Freeman Patterson, Charlie Waite and Paul Nicklen.
For me the best by far was Paul Nicklen. It was modern, simple and had full screen images. He had also added an attractive signature/logo and the photographs, of course, were amazing.
I also liked Art Wolfe’s website and his extensive galleries. Again, the design was simple with a black background and easy navigation. The design of my Clikpic site is similar to this.
Freeman Patterson’s website was a little disappointing and was very traditional in design and had no galleries. The sections were “Appearances”, “Biography”, “CV”, “Honours and Awards”, “Workshops”, “Books” and “Prints” which were functional but not really focusing and showcasing his image making.
And finally, I reviewed Charlie Waite’s website as I am planning to develop my landscape photography. Charlie had chosen a white background with rolling images. Again, a very clean and simple layout.
Most interesting and a great leading image of the reed beds. What is striking about it is the perspective through the reeds. Most people taking that shot would have stood above them but your shot shows them as elements of natural but temporary beauty against the permanence of the mountains behind. It is that tension between the permanent and the transitory, between the fragile and the solid which makes the image.
I think you have articulated what attracted me to the perspective of this image and why I chose to process it in black and white. A colour image would have taken away from the texture, shape and form of the reed beds.