Taught Elective: Background Research

My personal goal for this unit was to sharpen up my skills with a specific piece of web authoring software. As a professional web-user (amongst other things, I train teachers to use websites in the pedagogical context) I already have a firm grasp of the knowledge, skills and understanding required of a web user if s/he is to gain maximum benefit of this vast and somewhat daunting medium.

It is more appropriate for me to focus on how I intend to use the web for my own professional needs as a photographer, and to gain a deeper understanding of the strategies employed by others in this field to showcase their work.

Part of this process was the evaluation of a professional photographer's website, which can be seen here.

By looking at other photographers' sites I was able to observe a huge range of styles and approaches to the use of the web: from the most basic and simple to highly interactive Flash-based sites. Some were clearly crafted in the spare bedroom, whilst others had bought the services of a professional web author to produce a slick, professional looking site. There was not always a correlation between fame and site-slickness: some low-key amateurs had produced better looking sites than some very famous photographers!

It has been particularly interesting to look at the developing websites of my peers - people who are keen and talented photographer but who have not (yet) gone pro. Two sites in particular spring to mind:

Richard Lund and Graham Jeffries are both people with whom I have worked on an informal basis, on photography shoots and whose work I greatly admire. Like me, they both had an initial web-presence via an online gallery. (Graham's is here and Richard's is here. Mine is here.) Like me also, they quickly realised that the amateur nature of this type of populist online depository is not appropriate for the photographer who wants to have his work taken seriously. A personal website is imperative. Richard and Graham now both have clean, slick looking websites which serve as a showcase for their photography:

Both these sites are designed by freelance web author James Wilson trading as Subtense and powered by Clikpic. Clikpic offers a one-stop shop solution for photographers wanting an online presence but without the time or expertise to build one personally. By subscribing to the service, users can select a site design from a pre-determined collection and then make use of an online content management system to upload and display up to 1400 images. PayPal can be incorporated for online sales and there is an option to use a personal domain name.

The advantages of taking this route are obvious: good looking site, ease of management, minimum web-skills required. The disadvantage, for me any way, is that the site is still third party - links to Subtense and Clickpic appear on every page. There is also a tendency for sites to appear very similar. For example Graham's site looks much the same as Jonathan Critchley's, and Richard's is built on the same template as the one used by Purdy Photography.

Of course, it is absolutely fair comment to say that my strategy of buying a third party template is exactly the same, but I would argue that I can gain far more individuality by taking a template as a starting point and adapting it to precisely my requirements than it is possible to do by subscribing to a managed system such as Clikpic. Using a managed site is ideal for someone who has neither the time nor the inclination to get into web authoring but prefers to concentrate on photography. As an IT pro I felt it was beholden on me not to take the easy route. So, for me, the choice was clear: I had to do my own site and host it on my own domain.

Professional Photographers' Websites
A particularly impressive website can be found here. It belongs to a photographer called Annabel Williams, and it is of interest to me as she combines photography with education, which is my field of professional expertise.

Her site homepage is clean, bright and minimalist:

I was pleased by the approach Ms Williams used to marketing her services, especially her interactive e-brochure, which could be viewed online or downloaded. This is an effective use of Flash to produce a dynamic version of a conventionally static presentation.

A Flash sequence showing a series of images on Brazil by Pedro Meyer has an arresting start page but then lets itself down through garish colouration (perhaps appropriate to the subject matter but garish nevertheless) and an irritating musical soundtrack. The site is part of Zone Zero, a collection point for many and varied photographic projects, most of which seem to have been given the same brash treatment to produce a house style with individual slants.

Johnny Mobasher's Street Photography site, whilst intially confusing and difficult to read (due to its use of inverse colour) is worth the effort for its fascinating imagers eclectic links. The info page contains all the right stuff, but it is so confusing and, like the rest of the site, somewhat unattractive to the eye.

Website Effectiveness

The ability to evaluate information on the web for authenticity, applicability, authorship, bias, and usability is a crucial life skill for anyone who relies on this source for learning, business or leisure activities. Researchers need to locate, evaluate and collect information from a variety of sources and make quick decisions about what is, and it not useful.

Nowadays these skills are taught in schools, and youngsters are quite comfortable with using the web as a first port of call for, well, almost anything they want to find out. This is not true of much of the adult population, including, it has to be said, some web authors. Publishing on the internet is so much easier than getting oneself into conventional print, and therein lies the danger. We can all do it, and many of us do. Whereas once upon a time it was reasonable to assume that if something was in printed form it would be factually accurate, (and contain no grammatical or spelling errors) this is simply no longer the case.

In my professional life, one of the roles I have is helping teachers to understand the potential (and the pitfalls) of using the internet as a learning and teaching resource. It is more important than ever for learners of any age to have the skills and coping strategies to effectively navigate the information soup we call the World Wide Web. This has to start with the person who builds the website.

There is a whole industry out there based on offering advice and support for businesses and organisations which use the web as a marketing tool. A quick bit of Googling will reveal dozens of sites which provide criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of a website. Others will offer to do it for you, at a cost. One company I have come across is Bowen Craggs & Co, an online website effectiveness consultancy which will willingly deconstruct your website, eat it for lunch and offer it back to you (for an appropriate fee). There is interesting material on the site: a Best Practice library, tips for effective website development, and a plethora of 'commentaries' which read more like a stream of consciousness than a studied analysis of the medium. I found several useful snippets to take away from this site.

Accessibility issues

It is very easy for a web developer to assume that the target audience for a website comprises fit, healthy people in possession of all faculties, whereas this is very often not the case. The web is a superb channel of communication for users with a variety of physical and cognitive disabilities, and it is beholden pn anyone who is producing a site commercially to pay more than mere lip service to the needs of disabled web users.

Much support and guidance can be found for the web author in this matter - one example being here. It is beyond the scope of my current project to go into the intricacies of this area, and I am certain that the website I have developed would fail miserably in any online accessibility assessment, but that is not to say that I am belittling the importance of these issues. As an educator I know full well how important equality of access is, and as such I can declare mea culpa when it comes to the shortcomings of my own site.

URLs

I have lifted a list of photographers' websites from by bookmarks folder here. (It's not pretty as I have no time to make it so, but it serves the purpose to demonstrate the extent of my surfing for the MA course over the past two years or more.)

Other sites (all accessed and working 8/3/07)

Annabel Williams Photography and Education

Bowen Craggs & Co website effectiveness consultants

Cite website design

Clikpic website design, management and hosting

Johnny Mobasher's Street Photography

Pedro Meyer The Camera's Brushes

Subtense website design

W3C How People with Disabilities Use the Web: Working-Group Internal Draft, 5 May 2005

WC3 Website Accessibility Guidelines

Zone Zero from Analogue to Digital

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