My Website

[mono]

Hi Struan,

you already made me homesick!!

Yes, we have been to the Hidden Valley, I notice you really know Scotland ;-))

Thanks for your thoughts on that time of the year. We were a bit afraid of going there so early but you encourage us!
It will all come out in the wash...

[paulr]

Struan, the only negative comment I've gotten out of anyone came from an art director who said the white background hurt his eyes. I asked him if he had an especially bright monitor, and he said, "maybe." Take that for what it's worth. Personally, I think the design is perfect. On both my monitors (dim, calibrated CRT at home and bright, uncalibrated LCD at work) it looks beautiful and undistracting and pain-free.

[Mark Carney]

Straun

I love your site. The simplicity is great. The comment about the white should be considered.

Most of all I love the square. I'm drawn to it. I shoot alot of 6x6 and when doing 4x5 tend to compose square anticipating a crop.

mark

[Struan Gray]

Thanks guys. And a genuine thanks to r.e. for a heads up. I'm just not convinced that 'keeping up' is a game worth playing - yet.

My next project is a website for my wife's translation business, and I suspect I'll have to indulge in a little more eye candy there.

I like sparse and white:

http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/el/pro01.html

http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/spec/rarebo...3283c/1932.htm

http://www.janjohansson.org/jps.html (hit play on the embedded mp3 player, and turn down the default volume a bit, and go and buy a copy of the album. Buy three.)

Perhaps I'll compromise with cream :-)
http://www.studio-international.co.u...n/audley_b.asp

[Miguel Curbelo]

Jazz pa svenska och jazz pa ryska are the only 2 CDs that I listen to when I am in my darkroom!
Mostly because the rest of the family can't stand the idea of ever having to listen to them again...

[Nate Battles]

Nice website Struan.

[Gordon Moat]

A few things could be a bit cleaner in the approach to coding, though the simplified design does place your images as the emphasis, which I think is the correct way to do this. When specifying fonts, pixel sizes are recommended instead of point sizes. Also, avoid inches specifications for margins, and use pixel dimensions instead. This is because screens are not simply 72dpi, and not everyone with a giant monitor runs it at maximum settings. The worst aspect I found of your website is that I need to scroll to see all of it; though quite likely you have a large monitor and did not consider someone viewing it on a laptop monitor.

You don't have to be super modern in your approach, though there are certain aspects that will help your website. The look at feel could be exactly the same, without need for scrolling on the opening page, and it could scale up on larger monitors. One of these modern tools is CSS. You don't need to know CSS, though it can help to understand it. If you can find someone familiar with web design, they can likely explain enough to better inform you of why it is a good way to do websites. The designer I worked with on my layout provided me an explanation of the why and how of coding choices, and left me with a set-up that is easy for me to edit or update . . . this I think is the way we should work with these people.

Oh . . . and I definitely agree with everyone else in this thread, your images are great. I particularly liked Gaels, and I am not even interested in most landscape works I see.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat Photography

[Struan Gray]

Miguel: Jazz på svenska is ubiquitous here in Sweden, so much so that it is now used in adverts whenever they want a cozy homelife feel. Johansson and Georg Reidel, the bassist, both wrote a lot of music for the childrens' programs my kids love, so they're getting infected at an early age :-)

Gordon: thanks for the specifics. I'll admit I have a poor grasp of the tradeoffs involved in all the multiplicity of ways one can achieve the same thing with HTML, XHTML and CSS. My primary goal was to get something online that looked the way I wanted in most browsers. I'm intrigued by the possibilities of more complex CSS, but for the simple pages on my site at present I can't see a big advantage over tables.

My laptop is 800 pixels tall, and I made things so that I only lose the copyright notice off the bottom of the screen. There again, I use a minimal toolbar on my browser. For smaller screens, or for those who like to pretend their browser is the flight deck of a B2 bomber, at least it's clear that there is more content hanging off the bottom of the window.

Thanks again all who have commented. My next task is to scan some newer work...

[Stan. L-B]

Your site shows all the hallmarks of desired uncluttered simplicity - so refeshing.
Most of your pictures are excellent; I find it difficult to choose a favourite from any of your sections.
Your text is descriptive and passionate in execution which enhances your image display, to my mind no changes called for.
I have enjoyed touring the North West Highlands of Scotland each year so have a sympathetic understanding of your attitude. The wife and I are now working on a system to beat the midges. Thanks for your post.

[r.e.]

Can you give an example of the sort of photographer's website you do approve of?

PS: I've seen this

http://www.largeformatphotography.in...1&postcount=18

and although i can see the attraction of the sites you link to, I don't see how my photographs would be 'better' served by that sort of approach. What would be in it for me?

Hi,

There are examples of photographers' sites that I find interesting in the very post to which you refer. If you want conservative, have a look at Marcus Bleasdale's site. It's pretty good.

There's nothing in it for you if you share the view of the internet that is prevalent on this forum. I have yet to see a site created by anybody who participates on this forum that has even a remote connnection to what is happening on the internet in the here and now.

What can I say, discussions about the web on this forum come across as the meanderings of a bunch of old men whose understanding of the internet, if they understand it at all, got frozen in time 10-12 years ago. Actually, there's one exception. Frank Petroni gets it, but if I recall correctly, he said, in a discussion not so long ago, that his own site, and by implication the whole concept of blogs, has fallen behind where the internet is going.

Cheers

P.S. Try the link from that post to Andreas Muller's work. It's pretty cool stuff.