5.31.07

Published on May 31st, 2007.

The gallery project was actually something that I’ve wanted to do for a while and it wasn’t until HC brought it up to me that I finally started really thinking about doing it and a few things happened during the planning stages that showed me that this was the time to do it.

The gallery currently features:
92 – 4 x 6 (45 Black & White/47 Color)
43 – 5 x 7 (21 Black & White/22 Color)
32 – 8 x 10 (15 Black & White/17 Color)

I am asked quite a bit why all photos aren’t offered at all sizes and the simple answer is quality. I started out by printing 115 4 x 6 prints of my favorite photos taken over the past couple of years. Of those I chose the 92 featured – if a photo was noisy or pixelated I didn’t include it. From that initial batch I started looking at the ones that I felt would blow up well, and out of the initial batch of 92 I picked 50 to test a 5 x 7, and that number was reduced to the 43 that are featured in the 5 x 7 section. From that point I looked at the 5 x 7 selection and picked 35 and printed those as 8 x 10’s, out of that batch I was very happy with the results of the 32 featured in the 8 x 10 section.

When I originally started this project I was looking at the online hosting/management sites for photos and didn’t find one that I was 100% happy with, as they offered too little control over layout. Since I pay for hosting already, I decided to spend some time coming up with my own solution. As I began planning, I realized that WordPress was a perfect base for the site. Then for online payments, rather than sign up for a service that I’ve never used, I decided to go with a service that I trust my money to -and have been a customer for the last 6+ years – which is why I offer Paypal. This allowed me full control over all aspects of the site. Though it may seem that WordPress as opposed to pure hand coding was chosen as the easier route, all of the pages were created using a text editor and HTML code – this may seem like a lot of extra work, but I find it quite relaxing.

I’ll be adding new photos periodically, my goal is at least twice a month and I’ll be making minor tweaks here and there under the hood.

All in all I’m very happy with the site and I hope that others find it a nice place to visit.

Thanks for stopping by.