The content of my website is my photographic work. The folios are posted on my site for the viewer to look at and enjoy. It is not a catalog that displays individual prints for sale. How I create the website, is not really the issue. Whether I do it in Muse, write html code in notepad, use Dreamweaver or even create a generic website from a downloadable template really doesn’t matter. What does matter is the content on my website. As photographers/designers, we should have a good sense of handling the technicalities of our process from camera use in the field to the creation of our artifacts. The endpoint has changed from a single print hanging on the wall, to multiple presentations of what we captured with our cameras. Automation of our photographic processes have driven us to the point where pure artistic skill is no longer a valid endpoint for what we do. We have to have some content, a message, a viewpoint to share with our audience. It is what we say, not how we assemble what we say.
That is the point that some folks are missing. The content of the website is what matters and what matters will not change depending on the tools used to create the code. What I want to share with the world is what is important, not the tools I use to create the content. Learning new skills is a necessary part of being a working artist. It's something we have to do because we have to create new art. When Adobe announces the next graphic web design tool, I will learn how to use that software to add my content with the new software.
Wandering around Divide County, North Dakota, it was pretty easy to find abandoned schoolhouses. The very old ones are falling down, the ones that have been repurposed are in better shape and if you are really lucky, you can find abandoned schools that haven’t been cleaned out by vandals. The Alkabo School, in Alkabo, North Dakota is a school we found that was closed when the schools were consolidated and the community has preserved it as it was the day the students left. Photographs of that school are on my website as part of the collection of folios entitled "A Sense of the Seasons."
The exact folio is "Spring is Soft with Fragrance," but you should take a look at the whole Sense of the Seasons Project to see how it all fits together. It was one of the first really big multi-folio projects I created and it has some wonderful images.
