The Foto Articles are all now gone, *poof*.

Within a few helpful replies on my quest for feedback on this very website (after a less helpful first reply), it was easy to see that the “Foto Articles” were distracting overall, either viewing the  site and therefore my work, or to the feedback itself (copyright questions etc).

To be honest, it was never really intended as a long term project, I just didn’t say it upfront to diminish potential interest.
Why stop now? It took time (and especially research energy) from prepping my own fotos, it made the home page much more random than intended (especially when feedback indicates the first impression is cluttered), and worst of all: It looks  from visitor traffic logs the site was sharply divided in two in terms of where people clicked next.  I was hoping it would lead to more cross-site traffic (news to foto work and vice versa), not make it hassle. My bad.

You don’t know if you don’t try, I regret nothing and value the experience  and joy of sharing something I love,
the art and world of photography.

From now on, it’s Featured Fotos for the blog function of this site, although I will obviously use it on occasion if I happen to have something exciting to say… Maybe I’ll need a place to promo my new Foto News side site.

May exploration of your ideas provide beyond it’s own already plentiful rewards.

It’s also nice that Alltop seems to have a sense of humour about things, as seen in these site badges:

Yes, I am listed too, being the new guy there I’m towards the bottom of the Photography listings.

Also worth a mention is Popurls.com, one of the original RSS Feed news delivery sites on the block.

Ah, back at home after 3 months in India, 2 weeks of friends houses’ on return (we had rented out our place while away), and then a sudden departure to Canada for 3 weeks of family time. Even being home, there’s been a good week of unpacking the house, cuddling the kiddy cats, and generally settling in.

.. And more upgrades to the site, fixing up some frankly average navigation that I felt was limiting visitor enjoyment and discovery.

Those of you mad enough to visit often will certainly notice:

• Foto Sets are now the central focus point for viewing foto works.
• When viewing a set, the layout is a lot prettier on the eyes, as well as informative and navigationally awesome.
• Addition of Related Tags and Related Sets in every foto set.
• Teeny tiny design tweaks, more steps towards ‘perfection’, whatever that is…

There’s a few more features to come, but more importantly, lots and lots of fotos of recent travels, and words to help you see what I saw.

Canada eh!

Just a note: I’ve been back in my native Canada (in the mighty Montreal area) for the last couple of weeks on a family emergency.

Basically, my grandfather is not going to be with us much longer, and I’m fortunate enough that some coins were available for a flight. I am truly lucky.

I mention it as it means new stuff will probably not be posted until around the 10th of June when we get back to Europe. I presume you all understand why…

Stay tuned…

Yay!!

If you haven’t visited in a while (or on your first visit of course),
what’s all this talk of change about then?

• New template (the layout file for any website). Best part of this upgade is it’s easier to spot what is what (and where).
• Moved the menu bar into the header (film strip area), freeing a line of space up top. Is now mucho nice for the eyes  too.
• FIXED THE SEARCH! You can now search fotos and words equally.
• More use of the NextGen Gallery plugin to manage fotoss, and show them in style.
• Found a layout for the Foto Words that I can be proud of, as part of this awesome template no less!
• General warm, yet sharp, update of the site ‘feel’. We’re going for a modern retro motif here…
• Retired the sunset banner after 5 years online. The old girl will be fondly missed.
• Got rid of the boxed layout that was somewhat dragging visibility down. Look, rating stars that were there for a month!
• Now 50% more mellow yellow. Mmmmmm, yellow-licious…
• Backstage cleaning of dead pages, optimizing site mechanics, boring admin.
• The Foto Shop is coming, the Foto Shop is coming!
• Added the Facebook ‘like’ button, please do feel free to use it if you happen to … you know, like something.
• Also now a widget for ‘liking’ and easily finding my F’book fan page. Woot indeed.

So, in fact mostly little changes, and a few not so little.

I’m happy to say some of the final touches should be good towards everyone enjoying this site fully. Until moving to a WordPress setup last year, I messily was coding a very large part of my website’s operational history, for no reason other than I speak well with computers. That means this isn’t just an in-and-out jump in quality, but simply another step in getting things across to you the easiest for everyone.

What’s to come?

• Further tweaks to the layout, to be all smooth with that shit.
• A Foto Focus area for expanded projects, books, large happenings.
• Most importantly, improvement of the 2nd menu (bottom) on all pages. Small but critical addon to open up navigation.
• More good things.

Oh, and fotos. Lots and lots and lots of fotos. I *have* been holding out on you.

I’ve been fixing my website…

☮

Yes, there’s been a lull in blogs, thankfully for all the right reasons. It’s called work.

There’s been a few things I’ve been juggling regarding my world domination foto work. I have a couple of shoots coming up before we enter 2010, and once ’10 kicks in, there’s a big ol’ project coming up that’s required some extensive work indeed.

I’d like to spill the beans (tell you) what’s coming up, but that would be telling, now wouldn’t it? :-p

Seriously though, I’ll be covering the upcoming work in great detail in seperate blogs over December, I felt it would be a little more…fluid… to do it all at once instead of just snippets as I went.

Just letting you all know I’m still alive (be it by blog or by breath), and, you know, I’m thinking of you all.

If you can’t welcome guests properly, don’t have the party!