March 2008

Updated portfolio pages

Nothing major but with the help from the guys from the Revolution theme support site I’ve been able to tidy up the image thread found at the bottom half of the portfolio pages.  It will now display threads from the related category (for example, nature photo threads on the nature portfolio page).  The thread will be a preview and will basically show only the photo.  Links to the full entry, where you;ll find background information and alternative images, are provided.  The full list of portfolio pages are:

Main Portfolio Page

Animal
Event
Landscape
Nature
Portrait
Sport
Travel
Urban
Wildlife
Other

What I’m gonna do with my old blog

I was lingering on what I should do with the old blog.  It’s not content-heavy but but there are a lot of entries there and seems a waste to just dump them.  So….

I’ve bought a new domain name, called HowDoYouPhotographThat.com (empty page).  What I’ll use this for is to plonk my old entries that are currently sitting in the Squashy Frog Blog.  At a later stage I’ll revamp the site and make it a photography tutorial/help site.

Upgraded to WordPress 2.5

Just to say that I have successfully upgraded the site to version 2.5 of WordPress (my webblog application). I was suprised how easy and smoothly it went. I used a automatic upgrade plugin which walked me through the process of backing up, downloading and installing. It couldn’t be much easier and couldn’t have gone any smoother.

So what does this mean to you? Well nothing, really. The site was down for a mere few minutes and once back up it looks pretty much identical to what it did before.

What does it mean for me? This is a big upgrade for WordPress and if you are interested you can follow the link below to find out about the new features and fixes that I’ve gained.

What it means in general is that there is no issue with 2.5 (as you can see) and the Revolution theme hasn’t complained about it. So now I can think about launching the site.

I have 3 articles I would like to write beforehand, plus a couple of re-posts and the About needs updating. Once these are done, the switch will be implemented and we can start proper.

Nearly there.

Link for WordPress 2.5 info:
http://wordpress.org/development/2008/03/wordpress-25-brecker/

My kit list

I wrote a kit list when I first started my blog but I’ve not re-posted it here like most of my other old entries. This is a current list of my kit with links and all.

• Nikon D300 – my second digital SLR camera and a fine upgrade. It has taken a while to convert and learn how to use it but it’s a class machine
• Nikon D50 – first bit of equipment and is to blame for my shift of interest into the world of photography
• Pentax Optio 550 compact camera – slightly broken now the shutter cover is slightly ajar and blocks out the top corner of photos slightly
• Sigma 30mm f/1.4 EX DC HSM
• Nikon 50mm f/1.8D AF
• Sigma Macro 105mm f/2.8 EX DG
• Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM
• Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8 EX DC Macro HSM
• Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR AF
• Nikon Speedlight SB-800
• Nikon ML-L3 remote
• Nikon ML-3 remote
• Manfrotto 679 monopod
• Manfrotto 190XB tripod + 390RC2 head
• Joby Gorillapod

In addition I have various Hoya circular polarising and UV filters plus Cokin P-series adaptor and filters.

I chose Nikon (over Canon) for the simple fact that Nikon use SD memory where Canon use CompactFlash cards and it didn’t make sense to me to have a Canon with a different memory format when all my other equipment (mobile phones, PDA, etc) used SD/MMC cards. Other than that there was very little between the two manufacturers. The D50 camera itself is amazing anyway so it wasn’t a hard choice and the price was just about right at the time. I thought it was a good choice for an entry-level SLR. Now I’ve upgraded to the Nikon D300 and just starting to get to trips with the semi-pro camera.  But guess what, it uses CompactFlash memory.  No a big issue now as I’ve been able to purchase a unit that converts my SD cards into CompactFlash cards.

As well as photography gear I have a load of computer equipment, which you can find out about over ‘ere.

Future short and long term plans

I’ve started to create a list of future implementations to the site and the Squashy Frog Photography ‘project’ as a whole. The list looks something like this:

• A gallery is definitely needed. So far attempts to add a Gallery2 gallery to the WordPress site have failed and for the moment the site only has the not-so-great alternative in the way of the Portfolio pages.
• The dreaded adverts. Yep I’m planning to add some, though I hope to have relevant ads and they will only appear on the blog page. I already have Google Adsense ads on the RSS feed page and the previous blog site, and I’ve used Amazon Associates links to CDs, DVDs and books both here and there.
• Externally I need to reorganise my deviantART store page. I’ve enquired into whether they can bulk change things but apparently this is not possible. It means a tedious job of deleting virtually everything that is already there and added the rest of my portfolio photos. If too tedious then I’ll go elsewhere for my store facilities, but we’ll see. (any suggestions on this can be posted here). I plan to upload the bordered versions only for the moment. I will, however, add a comment to each photo saying that if you would like a non-border version please let me know and I’ll add it.
• Again externally or perhaps as an alternative to above I would like to set-up a stock photography account somewhere. I have a list of companies I’m considering: PhotoShelter, Fotolia, TriggerSnappy.co.uk and iStockPhoto. I have already signed up on PhotographersDirect and awaiting feedback on my first 2 submitted photos (but I’m happy just to been granted an initial account). Tips and advice on stock photography is most welcome.
• Small things to be done such as signature bar (to include my important social media links), business cards, letterheads and more important to all these a better logo. I’m no artist, well no digital painter, and so hope an old artist friend can help me out here.
• What site doesn’t have an FAQ (frequently asked questions)? Mine for a start! I have a hidden page already in place and will add to that when/if questions roll in but I hope to have a page that is linked off to articles, such as how I created the site, how I go about taking photos, etc.
• It’s a long way off, if ever, but I might be tempted to add a forum. The Revolution theme comes with ‘free’ one so it’s very possible. But there is no point until there is (if at all) a large amount of readers. It’s currently marked as a ‘nice-to-have’.
• The biggie is, of course, is the photography. I have tons of photos to process, I have plans to go out to events during the year (June to August being the busy time if I can) and I need to carry on reading through and performing all the articles and tutorials I’ve saved (for photography, Photoshop as well as web site, blogging, marketing, advertising, business and social media). I will continue to write up and blog background details on my portfolio photos, continue to participate on Flickr and my other photo-sharing sites, continue to digg and stumble, and of course continue to learn and enjoy everything along the way.

Expect updates to this list in the future.

Round-up of what has been done on the web site

So what’s been done already? Well it’s probably worth looking around to give yourself an idea first but here’s a run-down:

• I’ve created the site using WordPress, I toyed with WP before starting the old blog but went with Serendipity that time. I’ve since trialled WP in more depth and feel it’s a slightly better system personally and feel it’s better supported and I’m more comfortable with the backend/admin area. Being a non-coder means I’m after the easiest, most user-friendly system there. Serendipity is an excellent weblog system and has features that I’ll miss but WP edges it for me (more details in a future article ).
• Next I was recommended the Revolution theme (not free but fairly cheap and felt it was worth the expense). I couldn’t find a free theme I liked anyway and this popped out to me once I show it in action. I went with the standard version as the others were tailored for magazine or news sites, which my site is not. Again I’ll be writing an article on the detailed set-up and tweaking I’ve done to the theme in the future (but thanks must go to the developers I’ve mailed over the last few weeks and the guys from Revolution and on the support pages! I wish WordPress forums were half that good).
• The sidebars (the columns on the right) have had some content added here and there. These will be altered as I’m not too happy with them. I’m after more customisability for each page so need to work out how to do that.
• I’ve added a flash animation of my best photos to the home page. The application used here is called Soundslides. Alas it’s only a demo until I can afford to purchase the full version (donations gratefully welcome here) but it was very simple to create and easy to add to the page.
• The blog page has been created. It’s not perfect but it currently displays all the recent posts and links to the full articles. What I’d like here is for pagination links at the bottom but that’s proving a pain to implement at the moment. I hope new content will be added here on a very regular basis.
• I have added DiggThis and ShareThis links to all my entries. I hope they are not too intrusive (please let me know if they are?) but I’ve started with all this Digging, Stumbling and Mixxing malarkey and see that sharing articles could benefit my site.
• The RSS feed comes with WordPress but I stumbled upon FeedBurner yesterday and have put my feed on there. What this has allowed me to do is add my Flickr stream entries and my Diggs to the feed. Is this a good idea? Only time will tell but this and the other features (oh yes another future article) seem like a good idea. The big problem is that I digg things that are not just about photography and so not relevant here but then again I write unrelated entries too. I feel, though, they are about my interests and important to the whole ‘project’ but we’ll see how it goes and what feedback I receive. I know it’s a cardinal sin to go off-topic on your blogs, so this ‘policy ‘could change. One important thing is I can track subscribers – and was surprised to find that I actually have some!! So thanks guys!
• Portfolio pages for all my genres have been created. They current have a featured photo at the top then photo entries for that specific genre from there downwards. The pages were created as an alternative to a gallery but I’m having server troubles with Gallery2 and so far there won’t be one to talk of (1&1 support don’t appear to understand the gallery system and have been of very little help in solving the issues to date – but I will endeavour to rectify them!).
• A News page has been created. It is the Revolution theme’s take on the blog page but I prefer the traditional blog format. It is a round-up of the latest news from the important categories. I’m not sure about the layout (3 categories at the top them 3 at the bottom). It’s very untidy at the moment too. But I need to change the articles to display excerpts only and would like the photos and social news buttons hidden. I will be an alternative view to the blog page.
• Info and Links pages have been added. These will be amended ad-hoc. The Links page especially. I could fill pages and pages on the best links on the web so might have to reorganise that if it grows to a stupidly-long list.
• The Contact page has a contact form. It’s a spam-protected one but for some reason the last box is off centre. It needs fixing and I’ve seen the problem in Firefox and Opera. I would check Internet Explorer but (oh dear) it doesn’t work on my PC. Shame.
• About page added but is the old content. This will be updated and have social news/networking links for me on it (yeah you’ll find me on lots of lots of them!).
• The Site Map page has been created – this was simple and a WordPress/Revolution standard page.
• Then there’s been lots of small features added, for example: signature to end of each entry, addition ping services added (to inform others of my new entries), permalinks have been turned on (to make the URLs a little friendlier on the eye), a XML sitemap have been added (to help my site be indexed by the search engines), Google Analytics have been switched on (to track visitors and hits) and plugin and WP updaters have been installed among a selection of other useful plugins.

Update on the web site – to do before launch

Apologises there are a lot of entries like this and they are basically me thinking out loud (though I hope it helps people understand what I’m doing and aid them if they are planning/doing the same thing – if not then you have my permission to tell me to shut up ).

Anyway, I don’t think there is much to do before next week.  The About page has old content on it and so needs a complete re-write (and if anyone has any questions they want answered about me or would like to see anything specific here just give me a shout).  Something that I will add to About is links to my social news/networking sites, so you can catch up with me in the various ways if you like.  Also, you might have seen articles appear that are backdated (as far as this time last year).  These are old articles from the old blog that are relevant here.  They are basically manually copied versions of the original entries with the odd correction and tidy-up.  I have some more articles to bring over and so that needs to be done before launch and clears anything wrapped up in the past (always look to the future I say ).  And then I have a few photo entries I’ve written for the old blog and Dark Matter Magazine to pull in.  Other than that and the ongoing tweaks and fixes that’s it!

So I hope everyone can stick with me during the site conversion and start-up.

Donations

I don’t like to ask for help with money and feel a little ashamed to do so but in my situation I can’t even afford the £35 to buy the Sounslides application at the moment – the Flash animation on the home page that currently has a demo marker on it. But if you wish to help me out with this and generally with my pursuit to photography professionalism then any and all donations big or small are very much welcome. You see the buttons dotted around the site and here’s another.

Update on the web site – the swap-over

A note to say that the switch from the old site to the new site should happen pretty soon. The new site won’t be completely ready but I’ve added some content to it, as you can see, and that is the important thing. Fixes and tweaks will be ad-hoc after launch. So the plan is:

www.squashyfrog.co.uk
- will move to www.squashyfrog.com

www.squashyfrog.com
- will move to www.squashyfrog.com/old/ and old.squashyfrog.com

www.squashyfrog.com/blog and blog.squashyfrog.com
- will move to www.squashyfrog.com/old/blog/ and old.squashyfrog.com/blog/

www.squashyfrog.co.uk/blog
- will move to www.squashyfrog.com and blog.squashyfrog.com

This will probably be trickier than I think (because everything always is, tsch) and might bring the site down for a day. If it goes beyond this I will revert back to the original set-up so have no fear the site won’t disappear for long.

I’ve decided to keep the old blog content going. I don’t feel it’s totally appropriate here as here should be about my photography. But to have entries for the best photos on the net, the best articles and the best videos is going to be useful and will be a separate entity. Any entries that I’ve brought over from the old blog to this site (which I have to say I did manually as there is no easy way to import from Serendipity to WordPress, at least not on a 1&1 hosted site) will be deleted from the old site – so no duplicates.

So let’s pencil in the swap for sometime next week (24th-28th March 2008). I hope this ties in with the new version of WordPress.

Moody morning

During one morning the light outside our house was amazing. It was very moody and mysterious, so naturally I fired off a few shots. This is one shot which I’ve toned in sepia. I changed the tonal colours as the original lacked colour anyway and so thought the image would work in a sepia-style. Other than that I’ve not changed anything, so that is what the light looked like. Cool eh?

What you’re looking at is the view outside my office window. I’ve set myself up in a small downstairs room – nice a cosy. I saw this light just after getting up and logging on in the morning. The fencing you see is the basketball court that is mainly used by the local kids on the estate as a football pitch. It’s a big bone of contention it being their but if the kids didn’t have such things then they’ll be causing trouble on the streets elsewhere so we shouldn’t complain. The court is built in the middle of the housing on a small patch of grass and you can see the trees on the remaining part of the field.

It was amazing, not sure what caused it, was it the low light coming through the gap in the houses or something else? – but it only lasted 2 mornings and it’s not happened since.

Blog entry at Dark Matter Magazine is here.

Flickr entry is here. And bordered here.