Category: Website Notes

I ponied up for the site builder that I spoke of two days ago. So, I will at least have some help in coming up with a workable design of sorts. I don’t think the design I like best is great at photography presentation, I will try it out for now and use it till the photography sells itself. When it does, perhaps then I will use money made to afford a designer that can afford to better present my work.

For now, I have a few designs to choose from on the website, and I have the option for one more website as I did not pay for the service that would allow me to do 50 of them. It was too much extra, and I don’t really need that many more. I wish they offered an intermediary step between 3 and 50! Say, 10!

I have a gallery up that was on my local computer. It consists of images that are not mine as well as a couple that are. I will get some of my own in its place on the historical gallery after I get to my desktop computer. For now, those are just placeholders. I have not got a great portfolio of current work, which is just silly. I set this site up more than a year ago and have not really put myself to work. So that is to come as I get some work done.

I used the site builder to make my wife’s site a bit better today. I felt it was best I start with her site as I have volunteered to be responsible for it. I was not happy with the theme I had on it, so I changed it and got to work on customizing. I have one more site I can and will do. But that one needs to look more like a newspaper than either of the sites I have been working on today. Feel free to give them a loo!

antiquaryartisan.com

This is my wife’s artist-based website.

thepeasantsmanorfarm.com

And finally, we have my farm website about all things related to our little farmette. I have not started revising the site as of this blog posting.

It is nothing short of maddening to look through all the different themes available through WordPress and try to decide which will best suit a photography website long term and have all the features a person will want. For one, all of them have features that are nearly identical, or absolutely identical. So, if the differences are nuanced, what can a person do to assure they have absolutely the right theme? They can be used in free versions. But those versions only allow a shallow test of the features, and the ones that tend to be nuanced, also tend to be the ones that cannot be tested till the theme is paid for.

Then there is the issue of payment. Sure, kick out a payment that will require renewal in a year, or there are those themes that are one-off payments. I’d much rather pay the one-off. So I look at the payment for the one-off and it turns out that there are components that are required, or there are other themes available from the provider that can come in bulk, or there is licensing to use on other websites as well as this one. Then the one-off $29 payment for a theme turns out to be upwards of $250!

What do I really need for the site? I know a couple of the original WordPress themes and they are pretty good without add-ons, and they do the minimums of what I need. So that is what I am using now. This theme is called Twenty Twenty-Three. It’s giving me a clean, neat layout and I like that just fine. I don’t think it is a good one for the magazine-like layouts that I think could do better for one of the other sites I maintain.

So, we are going with this one for new. Besides being neat and clean, it is free. And since I already have to pay for hosting, I don’t really want to pay for design services that I can get by without.

I have fought with joint pain for years, and it has inhibited my work. Recently the doctor assigned me a diet that was intended for weight management, but also eliminated all my joint pain. It is a wonderful coincidence, and I am fully ready to take advantage of it! When I got started with this website a year ago, it turned out I was putting too much on the table. So, I will be getting at it now and rolling up some photos before long. It’s time to put my camera to work, and to get creative again! I’ll come back in a few days and get some of my historical work posted in the meantime.