Website

New Home Page

The Update Bunny is back, and this time with a new home page!

I recently upgraded the site to the latest version of WordPress (3.2.1 at the moment) and am still in the process of tidying things up. In addition to the upgrade, I also have a fairly long list of ideas and updates I’m hoping to work on soon.

One of those, however, is just about wrapped up and ready to go — it’s the new Home Page of the site. Most of the content is the same, it just now has a little different look to it and the ability to more easily browse through previous photos without leaving the page.

Behind the scenes, there’s a some pretty cool WordPress code behind it, which I’ve really wanted to get back to for awhile now. You know, balancing coding, shooting, editing, parenting, hockey, Maui, and a full time job. What else is new?

Feedback

If you swing by the home page and give it a whirl, let me know what you think. It’s not 100% fully tested yet, but it should be pretty solid so anything that looks broken, please do send me a note so I can jump on it right away.

– Kris

New Blog Photos Page

My little friend here is back to tell you about the new Blog Photos page I’ve added to the site.

One of the tasks I follow before posting a new photo on the blog is obviously making sure that I haven’t posted it already. I have my own tagging convention on Flickr that helps me track that, even with switch to a new Flickr account last year. What that let’s me do is see all my photos (kinda) in one place when doing this initial check.

At first, it lead to me creating the Blogged photoset on my Flickr account, which is actually what’s driving this new page. Not liking the small square previews or the 18 photos per page approach viewing this on Flickr, I decided to move it here to the site. Now, whenever I add a new photo to that set after posting it on the blog, it will automatically pop up on this new page as well.

Not Everything Yet

At the moment, the new page is only pulling photos from my photonelly Flickr account and not my original one that still hosts photos from the posts previous to the move. I’ve been re-processing the old photos and moving them over a few at a time, but to give you an idea of the numbers, there are currently 198 photos in the Daily Photos category and only 76 photos in the Blogged photoset.

Still, it’s a good sampling of where my camera has been and a feel for the variety of things I enjoy shooting.

Where to Find It

I decided to put the new page in the Portfolio section, so click there and find Blog Photos on the menu to the left-hand side. It may take a moment to load all the images, but once they’re up, click on any of the photos to see a larger view.

Links to the blog posts and back to Flickr will be added eventually.

Thoughts and suggestions are always welcome.

– Kris

Technical Difficulties

Well, as much as we rely on technology and our gadgets these days, we must endure the delays that occur when we have to go without.

What started as a little scare last week with display on my primary development/darkroom laptop turned into an inevitable hardware failure, so I’m getting it ready for a visit to the service department next week. Of course, it has to happen two weeks after my warranty expired. D’oh!

I can still use the laptop, but I have to use a remote connection from my Mac Mini to get to it. Not exactly ideal for working with Photoshop on my gorgeous 24” monitor, not is it?

I have a temporary replacement machine coming this week, so I’ll either set that one up this weekend to do some interim photo work, or I may just break down and download the 30-day Photoshop CS4 trial for my Mac.  Playing by ear and how I’m feeling about the situation later this week.

Off Topic

So I decided to use another one of my bunny photos for this post, because every post should have a photo, right?

The last gratuitous bunny pic I had was back in November when I switched to WordPress, so I think that officially makes it a pattern for these random site updates, issues, etc. I’m thinking my little friend here may become my own version of the well-known Twitter Fail Whale, watcha think?

In lieu of new photos this week, I’ll still try and stay on top of things with posts in the Before and After and Facebook series, and maybe even a book review or two. I guess that’s another sticking point is that there’s a lot for me to do than just taking and editing photos. My work is never done.

– Kris

New Portfolio Section

It was only last week when I was talking about how life was getting in the way with my photography. Well, that hasn’t really changed, if it hasn’t gotten a little crazier.

The funny this about it, though, is sometimes I get so overwhelmed with everything else that I’m supposed to be doing, I actually take a step back and throw in a few hours towards something totally unrelated. This time around, the lucky beneficiary of that discretionary time was here at the website, with the introduction of the new Portfolio section.

The New Stuff

Admittedly there’s still more I want to do with the new section, but in essence, it’s meant to be simple. Along the same lines of creating my second Flickr account, the purpose of the new Portfolio section is to showcase the best of the best in the vast sea of photo archives I’ve managed to accumulate online up to this point.

Instead of trying to focus a single collection of the wide range of subjects I’ve been shooting (at least until I work on defining my style) I’ve created multiple portfolio sets. For example, there’s the obvious Maui Portfolio which is probably more than 50% of what I’ve shot. There are also portfolios for some of my best Hockey and Astrophotography images, just to name a few more.

Each portfolio still needs a little refinement here and there, but I was just happy to get what I have launched so I have something to work towards in the near future.

The Old Stuff

If all I had posted at this site was the Portfolio, it would probably be enough in and of itself. But since I first setup this site last year, I’ve also had two other somewhat related sections: Viewfinder and Favorites. They may seem redundant, but for now I’m keeping all three. Here’s a sort summary of why each is different.

• Portfolio – The new section that breaks down my best shots in different subjects/locations. The photos speak for themselves.
• Viewfinder – My favorite locations and subjects to shoot that are “in my viewfinder”. Each entry in this section has background as to what about that location or subject makes it interesting to me.
• Favorites – This is a deeper look behind some of my favorite photos over the years. Not so much of the technical aspects of getting the shot, more of the back story of each.

The Code

Again, my love affair with the Flickr API contributed to this new section. It actually started when I was working on the Wall of Aloha page a few months ago. It’s simple from the API side, just listing photos from a predetermined photoset on my Flickr account and just listing the thumbnail and then the larger size with the Lightbox 2 plugin.

The Portfolio section has a few additional hooks into WordPress that I’m just scratching the surface with. At the moment, it’s a new Page Template with the code behind it for pulling the photosetid and other parameters from custom meta tags. Going forward, it would probably be better suited as a plugin instead, but that might have to wait for another life.

Thoughts?

As always, check out the new section for yourself and if you have any questions or comments, I’m all ears.

– Kris

Now, With More Aloha

After almost an entire year since I first dreamt up my little day calendar idea, it has come full circle with a selection of 366 photos from my multiple trips to Maui over the years.

Surely an undertaking that I admittedly entered into lightly, it was nothing short of a huge relief choosing that last photo to close out the set (for now). I have slightly larger plans for this imagery than the current Daily Maui Photo gadget and feed, but in the meantime I wanted to have something to commemorate the completion of this effort.

Introducing My Wall of Aloha

What I came up with was a quick way to see all 366 photos in one place, and my Wall of Aloha was born. Sure, it takes a while to load up all those photos on a single page, but once it finishes downloading into your favorite browser, you have an entire island awaiting the click of your mouse.

Those who know me, either in real life or online, know the impact that Maui and the Aloha Spirit has had on my life in the last few years. And as far as my photography goes, it was perhaps this photo and that first day on the Valley Isle that could be considered the epicenter of this next creative phase of my life.

It has meant so much, in fact, that I’ve added this page to the main site navigation all the way up there at the top. Just click on Aloha and enjoy.

– Kris