Reflection

 

This term I very much enjoyed working on Interior Architecture photography for my own study.  The images I manages to get here really played  with light and captured a place that I love, a place of safety and for all its concrete and brutalist leanings, it still has its own spirit. It is a place with history, as it used to be the post office exchange, my Mother said she had worked here when she was young.  

The book (The Story of Honey) which was a compliment to The Book of Lost Things I (The Story of Milk) I immensely enjoyed the writing and I do hope that once day I will complete the whole story of both as I have become very much invested in the characters that I have created and I do think this could be a great story.  These books have reminded me again of how much I love to write and if I could do this all the time along with taking the photos I think my life would be far more pleasurable.

As always the constraints of time mean that many things could have been improved and of course with more time I may have shot even more Interior architecture probably trying to capture different lights of the day, like Monet's paining of Rouen Cathedral where he had over 30 canvases of the different lights he captured, painting over and over again to get what he wanted, Monet stated 'The older I become the more I realize of that I have to work very hard to reproduce what I search: the instantaneous. The influence of the atmosphere on the things and the light scattered throughout” (Claude Monet, 1891 artwolf.com) here, of course, photography is ever the box that captures all light and instead of the brush I continue with my magic box.

Rouen Cathedral (1892-3) By Claude Monet

References

The Rouen Cathedral by Monet (2021) theartwolf. Available at: https://theartwolf.com/monet/rouen-cathedral-by-monet/ (Accessed: April 2, 2023). 

Website Quality Checks and Enhancement Features

 On my website today I will be updating, checking and enhancing the features.  I began by checking my copyright is up to date.  I then checked all the social links are working which they were and this all looks good - they are large and in the footer of each page.

I then looked at SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) 

I also could add web apps to measure and enhance the performance website and I started with adding web stats which will record ad analyse the traffic to my website 

I have added a copyright block so that no one can right click and download images which protect my images.  This is when people right click and then download.  After setting this up now the copyright sign and my name appear so my images are now further protected 

I will continue to add further features as I update but this is a good start for this term.

Finalising Galleries & Buttons on Website Portfolio

 I have also been checking all galleries and buttons so that everything works consistently and that it is easy to navigate and move from every page no matter which portfolio page you are in. 

The book of Lost Things II I added as a new page and then added the link to Blurb which means that the book can be read and previewed on Blurb.  I added an introduction on the page and an image from the front page of the book to make the page more interesting for my website viewer. 

I also added a back button which goes back to portfolio on this page which works well and is consistent.

I did the same for my project Urbanity Bites from this term where I checked the gallery, the titles and the introduction and added a back to portfolio button.

I lastly checked the Resume I created - this I added as a link underneath the menu - however I  am considering adding this also to the front portfolio page so that this is also easy to find and accessible.

I republished the site after all my checks and updates.  I will go through this again when I complete proofreading and final quality checks.

Free Project: Action Plan & Workflow

 I have created a workflow for my Free Project: Existential Crisis.  This has all the stages of my production and given the short time scale (2 weeks) I will be working on each stage and blogging this as I go along.

Please find the link here: Existential Crisis: Neo Dada Film

Free Project: Exploration of Cut-Up Ideas Milanote

 I have created a Milanote board to explore my initial ideas for my project a little further thinking about what I would like to research and explore throughout the work.  Here I am considering work that will inform my work and I am hoping push the boundaries of my ideas.

Free Project: Milanote

About Page on Website

 I added my about me writing by copying and pasting into a text box on the About Page on my Wix website.  I checked that my fonts were consistent - I used Monserrat font for the titles and the text.

I then checked my mobile view and deleted some extra text that appeared at the bottom of the page

I will now add my Photograph to my About page - for this example I have just used a picture of a doll as an example.  I began by uploading my jpeg image from my desktop I clicked on Upload Image.  

I then clicked on 'crop and edit' in the right hand side actions menu.  I then adjusted my image by using a 'mellow' and then saved this and then chose the image to upload to my about page.  I also edited the title so that it was not the file format title.  

I then checked this in preview and saved it again to make sure that this look ed okay on the desktop view. 

I then checked the mobile view and this did not need adjusting as everything aligned correctly and looked good. 

I was happy with this layout and the colours and image is consistent with the rest of the site. 

Contact Page, Portfolio & Social Media Links

 Today we were  creating our Contact page to begin with.  So I went to my menu and to Contact Page and then clicked on the add button and chose a contact form which I customized the Input fields to match my website design 

I have completed the form settings to ensure that the contact page contacts go directly to my email.

I then I added a picture from unsplash just as a placeholder until I add my own images so I clicked on the 'Add' button on the left hand menu and then I chose the image that I wanted to upload.  I changed the Title of the image so that it was not the file name and format.  

I then previewed checked the design and in noticed that my name and title of website were not in the header so I changed this so they appear on each page and then I wanted the design of the website to be consistent so I went back to the contact page and right clicked on the background and then clicked on 'change section background' so that it could be the same grey as the homepage.

I then checked my mobile view and I needed to adjust my heading and name as these were too big so I just clicked on these and changed the font size and used the move tool to realign these. I then changed the order of the image and contact form were the wrong the round so I adjusted these and the saved.

All other pages are working okay at the moment so this has been checked.

I now added my social media links I wanted to add these to my footer so they appear on every page, I clicked on the 'Add' button and then social and then I chose a social bar.  I put this in place then deleted the ones that I was not using and added blogger and the link to this and the link to Linkedin.  I then saved and previewed these to check they were working. 

I then checked the mobile view to check they were also in the right pace and worked correctly

I added a gallery to my portfolio page ready for final project - I will adjust this once my project is completed