Call Me Ed

When Jessica is here, her and Kate force me to watch Full House reruns on Nick-at-Nite.

Lately, they keep going on about how Uncle Jesse (aka John Stamos) looks just like BIG Folio CEO and my best friend (at least before this post) Mike Caston (aka Uncle Mike).

So ... you decide ...

Uncle Jesse

Uncle Mike

This week, I encourage you to take a moment and read this short essay.

It's amazing how relevant this still is after fifty years.

If you like it, check out this book. I own it and it's where I originally found the essay.

God bless and merry Christmas.

After reading an extremely long discussion about Pictage and the various proofing options available to photographers, I wanted to take a moment to extol my printing lab.

Digital Precision Imaging is located in San Luis Obispo and - like us at BIG Folio - they serve photographers all around the world. I'm just lucky to be 10 minutes away from them.

2006 is the first year I've been photographing as a semi-professional. I 2nd-shot several weddings for Kenneth Morgan and had the opportunity to shoot 3 weddings on my own. I proofed all three using DropProof. I've realized I have a lot to learn about taking pictures, workflow, and the like. What I do know, however, is that DPI has always produced amazing prints and their customer service is great.

Jessica flew in Monday for Christmas and its been great having her here this week. Taylor is so attached to her.

Of course, the holidays are always crazy. Last night was the first time this week we actually got to relax for a bit. After Kate got back from the gym, we watched The Office then hung out in the girls' room and Kate broke out the guitar.

Here's something cool. Jeremy Standley is a great wedding photographer located in Spain. He has a very nice site using our Ten Bricks template 7.

A few weeks ago I worked with Jeremy on optimizing his Flash site search engines. At the time, his site wasn't being listed in any results.

I knew the techniques we used would help, I just didn't know they would work this quickly. When searching Google for "Madrid Wedding Photographer", Jeremy is now on page 1 as the 3rd result. The first site listed is actually a directory, so he's technically the first photographer in the result set.

More on what I did and how I did it to come soon.

I had to get some veggies for Taylor's birthday party tomorrow - so I used that as an excuse to go to Farmers Market and take some pictures.

I love Farmers Market this time of year. The fall produce is great to photograph. Persimmons and Pomegranates. There were still plenty of strawberries too.

Big images look great on website - just like they do in print. Most of the templates I've designed recently support bigger images than before. I've gone as big as 900x600. Does it have an impact on visitors? Yes. Should I keep going bigger? No. We still must design within constraints.

Constraints are good. They are like boundaries that keep you safe. And the constraints of your web design come from your visitors - not you and not other photographers.

Stephanie, that teacher from Thousand Oaks - you know, the one that's getting married next year and is considering you to be her photographer. Guess what? She doesn't have a 30" Apple Cinema Display. She has an iMac or a Dell laptop.

Focus on a smart website, not a big website. Clean. Easy to navigate. Search engine friendly. Instead of asking photographers to critique your site, how about asking your parents?

Remember, design for your visitors, not other photographers.