A short while ago I finally relaunched my portrait website. This had been a long time coming. Up until now, I had my portraits sharing space at my sidceaserfineart.com website, which was always intended to be just for my fine art work.





This process had been a long time coming. I new what I wanted for my business, but didn't have the financial means to afford expensive professional website companies that charge a large one-time "setup" fee and then hit you with monthly charges.


:: The Past "free" websites ::

One of those sites I really liked was Livebooks - a flash-in-a -shell based site that primarily focuses on the portfolio of the work. The work was the main focus, and the rest of the website was simply a shell around that portfolio.

I spent a lot of time trying "free" online sites. They don't cost anything, offer minimal selections, and usually have some kind of emblem or branding of the site sponsor. While these are good for temporary things, I wanted something that I could control the back end of.

My first experiment was with using PictoBrowser. This is a free flash based code that draws from a Flickr pool. I created a set of images on my Flickr page that PictoBrowser would draw from. It had a clean, simple interface, and it auto-generates the HTML code for you. You simply copy the HTML and paste it to your site. A little extra digging and I was able to generate links below the thumbnails so that visitors could learn a little more about me.

To see my PictoBrowser site: click here

My one issue with PictoBrowser is that it only uses small resized images from your Flickr stream. In order to use larger images, you have to make your images have creative commons licenses, which I will not adjust my images too (I prefer to retain any and all copyright to my images). I used this PictoBrowser site for a while, as it was hosted on my www.sidceaserfineart.com site. But I wanted larger images. I wanted my portfolio to look clean and large, not decent and small.

The next websites I checked out were CarbonMade and ParadePro . Both of these are inspired by Livebooks layout, and are flash based. Both sites offer a free entry-level site, with minimal control, but offer a portfolio that shows large images instead of small, resized ones. Out of the two, I liked ParadePro's back-end system a little better, and the layout was a little nicer, but both free packages are basically the same. The ParadePro website is what I was using up until the new website was created.

To see my CarbonMade free site: click here
To see my ParadePro free site: click here


:: Enter Dave Seah ::

My buddy Dave Seah has been sharing my studio space for a few months now. I enjoy the company when he's here, and usually it keeps me discussing creativity and keeps from the isolation setting in during the studio's down times. Dave happens to know his way around a computer and HTML, and started researching into local small business that are looking for a quality website but because of their small business size (usually just being sole individuals, such as myself) can't afford expensive sites, but still want something that looks clean and simple. So we started talking. He asked me to draw up a sketch of what my ideal website would look like if I had the money to pay for one. So I photoshopped Dave some examples and Dave sat down and figured out the code of how such a website would look. What he came up with exactly matched my photoshop sketches.

He also created a simple effective website for our musician buddy, Angela Olszta.

Make sure you check out Dave's website. Not only does he blog about interesting stuff but he also Podcasts as well. He has also started a new division on his blog where he is blogging about his new venture as he's doing it, complete with all his website code and discoveries. Its really going to be an interesting ride, watching him discover and solve problems, and he's sharing with the world how he's doing it, what his sources are, and sharing what he's learning. Its going to be very cool. I'm glad I am alongside to see the ride firsthand.

So about a month or a month and a half ago we got the site up. I'm very happy with it. Its very clean, the images are nice and large, and the site has a very minimalist approach. It helps me put the images up front and center, which is what I feel a photographer website should do; showcase the work, and not deal with all the "fluff" that can clutter up such websites. Clients want to see images first. If they don't respond to the work, weeding through all the text won't matter.

Website hits are up. My daily visits are up. I'm very very pleased with how the website looks, and, if Dave can pull off the same kinds of things for 1 page sites, or 3 pages sites; affordable for the small business but able to have a clean, professional look, I think he's going to do well.