 Developing A New Website As technology marches along, we are presented with new challenges and opportunities to develop and fine tune our image. This is true of every business, from sole proprietors to Fortune 500 companies. We just finished a two month process of rebuilding our website and reconstructing our identity. You can see the results here:www.russellabraham.com. We started with the concept of working with CMS web hosting (content management system)that was suited for photographers and other creative professionals. We created a list of site requirements and then worked our way through a surprisingly long list of CMS hosts. After testing and rejecting about ten, we settled on one, a href="https://www.sitewelder.com/">SiteWelder, that gave us the big screen look on a splash page and nested portfolios where we could display hundreds of images from scores of assignments, all in high resolution.  We discovered that our pictures look great BIG! Our raw files come out of the camera over 8000 pix across. Why not use all of that image power? Our opening page slideshow went from 775 pixels across to over 2000 pixels. With a little bit of Photoshop magic from Kristen Paulin, the images displayed brilliantly on both small and large screens. We also decided that we might as well put a lot of pictures on the site, rather than a small sample. We did close to 500 pictures in total. Every shot was done in the last three years, with most in the last 12 months.  As part of the re-branding process, we changed the firm name to Abraham Paulin Photography. Kristen Paulin has taken an increasingly active role both behind the camera and in front of the computer. Going forward, I see her both working with me and on her own as assignments arise. Take a look at the site and let us know what you think.  San Francisco Secrets Working with Images Publishing in Melbourne, we have been selected to develop a beautiful, large format, picture book about San Francisco, aptly titled "San Francisco Secrets." They have published four books in the "Secrets" series, mostly in Europe. The San Francisco book will be their first in North America.
The most obvious question one can ask, are there any secrets left in the City by the Bay? The question is a good one, and we have been looking. Personally, this project has a significant bit of personal nostalgia. When I first arrived in the Bay Area many years ago, I was fascinated by San Francisco's patchwork landscape, Victorian heritage and colorful streetscapes. Climbing up and down its legendary hills, I took lots of pictures with my ancient Nikon loaded with Plus-X. Now, at the back end of my career, I am doing the same thing with a bit of déjà vu. The City has changed in all those years yet stayed the same. Freeways have come down and high-rises gone up. Neglected neighborhoods have found new residents and new life. There are not many secrets a city can keep, but we have discovered some amazing places, vistas, people and cuisines that maybe the world should know about. It is an adventure and it's still going on. |
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