Category: Website News
A time for adding photos
11th January 2009 The greyness of the weekend did nothing to shift my inclination to stay put at home. To be honest, I was in that mood anyway and I could have made something of yesterday and today if I was so determined. January hasn't had a bad start and I did get in some lunchtime walking this past week and my surroundings looked ever so enticing with that dusting of snow that was gifted to us earlier in the week. The weather over the Christmas wasn't so unkind to us either, even if it did require us to wrap up warm when going out of doors. I was in Ireland for that and got some short walks too, even if that meant tarmac bashing for most of the time. Some sunshine was visited upon us when the grey gloom wasn't about and we ended up on the Dingle Peninsula for a few hours. That meant that a number of photos were made in the late afternoon sunshine and some of these have found their way into the Kerry section of the photo gallery. There are some photos taken on a brief visit to Dublin's Phoenix Park before Christmas that are candidates for addition too once I decide which ones make the cut. Thinking back over 2008, I think that it has one of the better years when it comes to my taking good photos in the land of my birth. For now, I can only hope that 2009 brings more of the same.
Straight into the gallery
30th October 2008 A visit to family in Ireland last month allowed me a day trip to the beauty spot that is Gougane Barra; somewhere to which I have devoted a previous post on here. That also followed a day trip there when the skies remained resolutely grey with any photos not being the type of thing that I'd share on here. In fact, it seems that many of my trips to Gougane over the years have been on cloudy days. My most recent outing looked as if it might have been the same, with the forecast predicting a rain band moving south over Ireland. In the event, we managed to see Gougane under blue skies with the sun making it out from behind any clouds to make photography a more than worthwhile pursuit. The result is that I have some pleasing photos from my excursion and these have now made their way into the West Cork section of the photo gallery and I have taken the chance to freshen up some existing ones too.
The addition of new photos has not been the sole change to that online photo gallery. Some work has gone into simplifying navigation and enhancing the search facility. Behind the scenes, the wonders of ImageMagick (it's a neat command line tool, but that probably makes it best for technophiles) have been such that the process of adding new photos is now more streamlined than it ever was. Even so, the need for devoting some attention to each individual photo doesn't go away and that is regardless of whether it was made on film or digitally. Nevertheless, any time saved might make me add new photos to the gallery on a more regular basis than has been the case in recent times. After all, there's a potential new section for the Western Isles on the horizon and more photos from other outings to be shared.
Next steps…
18th October 2008 A month ago, this blog passed the second anniversary of its move to WordPress and that has set me to thinking about how this website is structured. There are two main pieces to the jigsaw here, this blog and the photo gallery, so it should come as no surprise that my mind has journeyed towards these as my thoughts have progressed.
With a blog, there is always the temptation to wander away from the intended subject and I have to admit that has happened here too. It is less of a problem for posts than for pages because the former drift out of view over time. The outdoors focus will be tightened, so pieces of website news like this one along with the occasional public transport piece will be rarer. After all, trip reports and related items will remain the mainstay here.
The photo gallery started out as a single slide show and it was only later on that the country and region organisation of the present day started to come into place; the thumbnail gallery was a later addition too. Now though, I am beginning to challenge the sense of having two ways to navigate the gallery. The country and region approach itself is being brought into question by the prospect of a full Pennine Way portion crossing from England into Scotland. All of this is leading me to wonder if the tag and category classifications that are so commonplace these days would be an asset. If so, a way that I could see things working is that you pick your tag or category first and then pick the way in which you are to view things. The elements of that way of thinking are already in place so it's just a matter of turning the current arrangement on its head and making it work without causing too much upheaval. In fact, I can even see a way ahead towards this approach and it might even allow me to add the ability for visitors to "play" a slide show too.
There is another part to this website and that often feels like the Cinderella here: it's an information directory for those wanting to visit the places featured in either the blog or the photo gallery. Unfortunately, I have had a tendency to dilute its usefulness with off-topic content and it does demand a tightening of focus to enhance it. It is with that in mind that I have been trying out a publishing system named Textpattern. Bending it to my will has been going well thus far and my experience with it is contributing to my plans. This is leading me to think that those elements of the website that add background information for the rest could be moved onto it and help me to make those elements of the information directory most applicable to those who enjoy great countryside more prominent. It even is making me ponder the of adding that information as articles to this blog so that it is nearer to hand. If this happens, I'll ensure that it compliments rather than overwhelms what you already find here. Saying that, such a development makes the case for making those items listed under the Feature Articles section on the sidebar even more prominent if I were to proceed with the idea.
All of the above thoughts are in a state of flux at the moment and some may survive while others don't. Because there are more things in life than playing around with a website (for one thing, I still intend to make it into the hills whenever I can...), any changes are likely to be incremental rather than taking the form of a big bang. The theme of gradual evolution will stay but you might find that things change their appearance from time to time. Who knows what might come up yet?
A continuing evolution
19th September 2008 Over the past few weeks, I have been engaging in a spot of website tuning from time to time. There has been the occasional tweak to appearances but it's mainly been about tweaking things behind the scenes. There is always plenty of that to be done but, sometimes, a complete redesign can be an unavoidable and, if you're doing it yourself like I would be, time consuming operation. The last one was a few years ago and there's plenty of life in what I have so I'll continue to tweak and improve it as long as I can.
If you are a regular visitor, you may have noticed that the masthead image of the site has changed. Travelling on ferries like I did last month meant that a trap was set for me: ending up with photos of slivers of land dividing land from sea. Even with my alleged (D)SLR-wielding sophistication, such is the beauty of sunlit green land juxtaposed against blue sky and sea that it can happen to me too. Photos like those do have their uses though and they are perfect for creating masthead images like what you see above. A spot of cropping in Photoshop Elements followed by some tweaking of levels, curves and colours is just what's needed to get the required results.
Speaking of processing photos, it's probably a good time to look at my photo gallery and freshen it up with some new images and do a spot of pruning too. I am always finding things to add to the blog so it's too easy to neglect the site's initial raison d'être. I have some ideas in mind for bigger changes to the photo gallery but I'll let them develop before anything happens.
Update, 2008-09-29: That evolution remains ongoing and users of Firefox, Safari and Chrome should notice that most corners are now rounded. Visitors with Internet Explorer and Opera will not see any rounding because this is an aspect of CSS3 that is only partially implemented for now. It'd be very nice if it gained more widespread implementation but graceful degradation will do for now. Any other tweaks should be seen by all.
End of a trail, start of a gallery
24th September 2007 Because I had until this year only walked the West Highland Way north of Bridge of Orchy, I had the photos from the corresponding treks bundled with those from Lochaber. Following my establishment of a Pennine Way gallery and my walking the rest of the WHW, it was time to split the previous Lochaber gallery in two and recognise that some photos that were included there really belonged under the Argyll umbrella. So, I now have two sections in the gallery, one for a circuit of Lochaber and another for the WHW. The WHW one is still awaiting more photos and some that are already included may need a spot of sympathetic retouching so the WHW show really is only starting. And knowing me, I may even encounter the WHW again and again so you never know what'll turn up yet.
