Stormy New year

As we go into 2014, the storms which have plagued the country throughout December show no signs of abating. As I type, it's yet again raining cats and dogs with a gale blowing while, last night, after the artificial fireworks of New Year celebrations had stopped, natural fireworks in the shape of thunder and lightning began.
Yesterday I went to Ryde and Sandown to see what the sea was doing and, although the winds had died down (at least for a while) and the tide was receding, the waves were pretty rough.

Ryde

Sandown

Flooded fields near home

New Year usually means a new start so I have made a nice new logo and a new, more professional-looking watermark for the photos. You can - just! - see the watermark on the above photos in the bottom left corner.

Facebook

I am on Facebook anyway (as myself rather than the name of my site!) and, after three years, I have decided to do an FB page for my website. For those of you who are on Facebook, you can find it here: Ship-Photo's Facebook page.
I have updated my website, with some special features about QE2, P&O's 175th Anniversary Grand Event and the meeting of three Cunard 'Queen' ships in Southampton in 2008 and 2012. Click here and go to the 'Features' drop-down menu to see them.

Changes..?

A few changes to the main website might be on the cards. I'd been using Incomedia WebSite X5 Evolution, version 8, to build the site and also my bird photo site. This is fairly nice software and not expensive either but I've discovered that, as the sites grow, there are a couple of nasty bugs apparent not least of which the software has a very annoying tendency to lose files during each update, meaning that the affected pages need to have the photos added to them again and be re-uploaded!

I have had to do this several times to both websites just recently so, as it is incredibly frustrating, time-wasting and I haven't got the patience to keep fixing it (I have had to repair one of the photo albums FIVE times), I have caved in and bought a copy of Adobe Dreamweaver CS6 from Amazon in the hope that, while it won't be necessarily easier to use (from past experience I know it won't!), it won't do stupid things such as lose my files! I had a copy of Dreamweaver which will not work on my current Windows 7 computer but as this software dates from 2003, when it was published by Macromedia, it is now prehistoric in computing terms. Adobe products are expensive - too expensive really, which is one reason why I use PS Elements for tweaking my photos* rather than the full Photoshop, which costs an eye-watering £604 on Amazon! - but if they work then it's money well spent.

I am hoping I can use the existing template and go from there, if not then the site will soon have a new look.

*I know Photoshop, whether it's Elements or CS, is considered by some to be somehow 'impure' or 'cheating' - but it, or other photo software, is invaluable to bring out the best in photos. It is not cheating to straighten out a wonky horizon, improve contrast, remove sensor dust (an occupational hazard of using DSLRs) from the photo or to sharpen a little, which is all I do and why I only need Elements.

Website upgrade

I have rebuilt my website and got hosting for it. I was having a boring day yesterday afternoon and found some web-building software (Incomedia Website X5) that I bought early in 2010 and which I forgot I had. It's some real bells-and-whistles stuff which is miles better and easier to use than Dreamweaver or Frontpage, both programs I had used in the past and neither of which now work on my Windows 7 computer, and it's also got an integrated ftp upload program. So I spent several hours yesterday doing the templates and galleries and I uploaded it this morning.

Here's a sample page from one of the galleries. Each photo opens in a new pop-up window.

The domain is www.ship-photo.com or you can use www.ship-photo.co.uk. The Wordpress website is now closed. I hope you like it and feel free to contact me at info@ship-photo.com.