“Above all, life for a photographer cannot be a matter of indifference”
Robert Frank
Welcome
and thank you for visiting my new site and blog. This is the 4th redesign of my site in ten years. My last go in 2010 didn’t take into account retina displays or swiping or SCRSET or 16/9 hi-def monitors, or 4K or the million photos on my hard drive. It was hell to update and it didn’t do anything well.
So a few of weeks ago I started work on a new site. I wanted a dynamic site with thousands of photos, that are all easy to find and fill the screen. I want to be able to add words to the pictures and I hope that I can combine a good business site with a blog that lets me have fun showing and sharing photos.
I learned in 2014 that taking pictures of the same shoe-box condos, day in and day out, can sometimes get tedious. There were times when I felt I was losing some of my passion. My priority for 2014 was always to build up Toronto-Pix and it’s been exciting to to watch it grow and succeed, but now it’s time to get some of my photographic mojo back.
It was September when my cousin, Robin Clarke and his wife Joan Anderson, challenged me to post a photo a day on Facebook. I hadn’t posted on FB for a year, but I quickly found some enthusiasm for the challenge. Before heading off to a real estate shoot, I’d find myself planning what the daily pic might be.
I was enjoying my real estate shoots more, and consequently doing a better job. I posted a pic a day for about 6 weeks and started thinking about how nice it would be if I could update my site every day. Facebook is very restrictive. You can post a photo or a link or update your status, but you can’t really communicate effectively. And you can’t market yourself properly because you have no idea who will see your pics on their newsfeed.
On this site I have complete freedom to post daily pics, upload videos, rant about public transport, complain about Arsenal, share some places I’ve been, promote places I’d like you to go and tell retailers how to make more money and reduce costs.
The website…
…is made on WordPress, which allows for easy updating. Technically, it stetches some of the limits, and it won’t work very well on older browsers or smartphones.
My Toronto-Pix website gets about 100,000 hits a month and I monitor the visitors to see what resolutions and devices people are using. I think the time is right for a high resolution photography site that takes into account the growing number of users who have a 1920 x 1080 hi-def screen.
For the last 3 years, I’ve been keeping up with, and contributing to the World Wide Web Consortium on how best to show images on the internet. For the last few months both Chrome & Firefox have been using the new proposal, and gradually people with retina screens on their Macs are starting to see better images. And people with old smartphones will be able to download lower resolution copies.
This site uses the new SCRSET that the W3C have come up with, and over the next couple of months, you’ll see each photo is optimized for whatever type of device you’re working on. I can show photos that look good on the latest Macbook Pros or 4K TVs, and at the same time not use the bandwidth on peoples mobile phone plans.
The photographs…
… are optimised for a widescreen, desktop display. Most of the pictures are cropped to a 1920 x 1080 resolution.
Traditionally photographers don’t show their images in such high resolution because they’re worried that the photos will be stolen. I prefer to search the internet and see who is using the photos for commercial websites, and then either stop them or get paid.
Having said that, I’m delighted if people copy an image to be their desktop wallpaper. Please leave a comment or share the image on Facebook if you have done that. I want people to enjoy and share all of the images.
I believe that photographers should show their work in the way that best suits the viewers, and not them. They should be high resolution or full screen with discreet watermarks and quick loading. The record business once thought that they were bigger than their customers and tried to restrict distribution, and look what happened to them.
