Hello everyone
For more than a year I have worked to expand a photo site I own and set it up with a database. I made the current version of my site by hand using Dreamweaver. But I want the site to include thousands of photos and hand coding it page by page would take impossibly long.
I tried twice to install and use Exhibition Engine, made by Pekka in Finland. Not a bad word about Exhibition Engine, it is a powerful package and it is great of Pekka to make it available. But after spending dozens of hours trying to configure it I gave up. It was too advanced for my modest skills.
While waiting for a solution I scanned and restored old photos to put on my site - slides and black and white prints. I have hundreds of them waiting to be put online.
When I found Zenphoto it was a godsend. I installed and configured it in an hour, including fixing one error (pretty urls was on and I didn't have the .htcaccess file ready yet). The only thing I looked for and didn't find was keywords/tags. But I understand this is coming. I will also add comment spam control and photo rating later. Next, I have a wordpress blog where I plan to remove Singapore and install Zenphoto (Singapore is good but Zenphoto is better).
I use the effervescence 1.5 theme and it has the simple and easy design I like. I will change the colours using css so it becomes more like my original site.
http://www.heggestad.com <--- the original site
http://www.heggestad.com/photos <-- the new zenphoto site preview
Zenphoto
Comments
Stephane did a great job on Effervescence. That's what I use too.
Great photography! I really enjoyed browsing through your portfolio.
On a sidenote: I see you are mostly shooting film. I am in the market for a scanner, what kind of scanner do you use for your medium format stuff?
I use a dedicated film scanner (not a flatbed). The model I use take medium format up to 6x9. It is called Minolta Dimage Multi Pro. They don't make it anymore but I think you can find one if you are interested. It is good.
Speaking of equipment. I own a digital SLR (Minolta/Sony) which is not mentioned on my web page yet. Maybe I only imagine this, but I wonder if the photos I took on film were better than the ones I take now with the new high-tech camera. It could be that slowing down plus the wish not to waste film had an effect on my self-discipline that isn't there anymore with digital. Now it is almost too quick and easy.