Me, Dot Com

As you all know, I have been branching beyond accounting (Yawn) to some side photography gigs (Whee!).

So far, I have not done a whole lot to promote myself. The first few weddings that I booked for this coming summer were from readers of my site emailing me and asking me if I would shoot their weddings. Woo! The local photo guy has been teaching me tricks, having me assist him, and sending clients my way. It’s been a slow and steady start.

One of the reasons I have not been promoting myself much was that I did not have much to actually promote myself with. I could give people the link to this site, but then they would have to wade through tales of bubbles and constipated babies to see some of my photos. I post a lot of my photos on Flickr and have made public those that would be portfolio-worthy. That is the link I have been sending to prospective clients and it has been better than nothing at least.

I know that any decent photographer nowadays needs an online portfolio. I registered my domain name and started thinking of what to do with it. There are a number of hosting companies that offer photography portfolio sites, but they (Shockingly!) are not free. Honey (the ever-wise and always-frugal one) suggested that maybe I spend money on photography accessories until the point where my gigs gave me the cushion of cash with which to pay for a professional web design/professional hosting. He’s a smart one, that Matthew.

So, I gave up the dream of a professional site. And then! A web-designer friend offered to do my site for free! A very sweet and generous offer. I figured out what galleries I wanted, and what photos to include. The weeks went by and my friend was getting more and more bogged down with people who were willing to pay him in more than accolades. I released him from his gracious offer last week and set about the task of making my domain into a portfolio.

He had suggested a theme he thought would work well. I agreed. I uploaded it, changed it from black to white, and started creating the site I had envisioned. I was wading through CSS and winning. Go me! My work weekend was in a beautiful location…

…but my days were spent teaching, and my evenings spent marking. When my brain was tired of accounting, I played with the site for an hour or so each night. On Saturday, I thought I had finally beat it into submission. It looked like I wanted! The galleries had thumbnails! Then I clicked on a thumbnail to see the enlarged version.

HUGE ERROR MESSAGE.

Something along the lines of “lkfjaklsfjaksjfaf…SYNTAX…lklakdlkalgka“. ACK!

I cried out for Twittered for help. Miss Grace (aka witchypoo) leapt to my aid. She did a bunch of tweaking on my back end. Well not my back end. My site’s back end. She did some “hybridizing” and mentioned something about “ajax”. I had NO IDEA that cleaning supplies were required. THIS IS WHY I AM NOT A WEB DESIGNER.

It took her more time than I could ever afford to pay, so I am paying her in the hugest shout-out EVER. If you need some web design done, and have cold hard cash, GO SEE HER.

I sent little snippets of time last night and tonight doing some tweaking. I have some current client photos and such that need to get on there, and a few other minor adjustments, but I’m pretty excited about what I did with it. Like when you click on that front page photo? It takes you to the gallery! And when you click on one of the Gallery photos? It takes you to that category! And then you can click on a photo to make it bigger. If you click on it again? It’s HUGE.

(If you are a web designer, you are probably having fits of giggles. This, to you, is like bookkeeping to me; I can do it in my sleep. But maybe I get an “A” for effort?)

So, um, check it out. And then come back here and tell me what you think.

http://www.angelladykstra.com/

Criticism (if constructive) is welcomed. I really want to know what you guys think.

*Crosses fingers (and toes) that you like it*