Web Makeover

I was bored with the look of my website.
I was using Rapidweaver with specific plugins for my photo album and I was bored with that, too.
I couldn't see my photos on my iPhone or iPad from my website (no Flash), so I looked around for an html only photography gallery type generator.
Turns out I had one all the time - Aperture 3 does "web pages" and "web journals".

In Aperture 3, select some photos, select new from the Menu, choose Web page or Journal (the journal allows you to add text blocks to your pages), set up your options and then "export" it to disk (or MobileMe, of course!)
So, that's what I did.
Then using Rapidweaver, I took my existing site, changed the theme and removed the unused pages plus my photography pages. I put in a "placeholder" page for the Aperture 3 webjournal, then exported the site to disk.
I used cut'n'paste to move the content of the source of the webjournal to where the source of the content of photography page would be, and then moved that file into the exported webjournal. I then moved the whole of the webjournal site over the top of the placeholder photography page in the Rapidweaver site. End result was that I had a lovely themed photography journal, integrated into my sites new theme.
Some css tweaks were needed to get the navigation working correctly on the webjournal pages, and I haven't as yet, themed the individual photo pages, but the end result looks fine to me.

Time from start to finish? 4 hours.

And the moral of this story? Well, I would say:" Choose your tools well"

Weekend Shoot

Yesterday I went to a local (man-made) pond where the local model boat club sails their creations. Sometimes it's serious racing, and sometimes it is just for fun.
I got there when most were heading for home and only a few die-hards had boats on the water.
Not to be deterred, I smiled, asked permission to shoot (you don't need to, but it's just manners to do so :-) ) and started.
So, we had moving subjects, unpredictable winds, varying light (intermittent cloud cover), swans, a new lens, and the background(s) were not great.
All the ingredients of a fun shoot ;-)

To see some of what I came up with, I put them here:
http://web.me.com/shanek54/ModelBoats/Photos.html

After about half an hour, I started talking to one guy whose boat wasn't in the water. We chatted about the boat and he was saying he made models for fun and he would bring down his air-craft carrier model one Sunday. It is 8+ feet long! I sure hope I am around that Sunday!

All in all, a pleasant Sunday and I got some practice with my new lens.
For the gearheads, I was using my Pentax K200D with a consumer zoom lens, the Pentax smc DA 55-300 f4-5.8.
Most photos are F7.1, ISO 100 - shutter speed varies. Website photos are low-res jpgs.

As I normally do with personal shoots like this, I make the photos available to anybody in that local club that wants them, with the only proviso being that if they use them for their website or for club promotion, then I get a credit ( © Shane Kelly ).
That's fair, no?