Mechanical Landscapes - my new website!

[viewfromthenorth]

In 2007, I launched my first website (www.theviewfromthenorth.org) using Photium, and over the past 7 years, it's been an interesting ride! Originally it was intended as a showcase for my best stuff, which at the time there wasn't much of, but quickly became a coolection of galleries for my urbex exploits. Since then it's grown and grown, and it's attracted all kind of attention, mostly good, and my photographs have been used on the BBC, books, magazines, society journals, and all sorts of stuff.

I decided last year that I wanted to do something different, but didn't want to destroy what I'd created as visitor numbers continue to slowly increase. So I've created a new website as more of a showcase, so it's leaner with fewer pictures.

www.mechanicallandscapes.com

It astually uses quite a few of the photos from the other site, but the galleries are grouped by theme, rather than by location. I've also limited the number of galleries, with the intention of rotating them every few months to keep things fresh. I also intend to have a guest gallery with photos from people in my network, but that's for the future.

It's still work in progress slightly as I'm still trying to completely grasp the functionality of the Zenfolio setup and make it bend to my will, but it's fundamentally complete.

The subject matter won't be to everyone's tastes (monochrome urbex and industrial landscapes), but do have a look, and if you like it share it, and if you don't please let me know

 

[Bristolian]

Andy,

I've long been a fan of your view from the north site and really like the way you process your images. The new site is equally impressive and I particularly enjoyed looking at the steel works images - they bring back many memories.

Did you get permssion to take these, or did you just wander around the sites until security caught up with you?

 

[Steve]

I also liked the old site, and as with @Bristolian loved looking at the new site as have always liked your images.

The new one seems slicker and better, and also grittier somehow which suits the subject matter. The front page looks brilliant on my large wide monitor, and every pixel is put to good use. I like the gallery by type rather than location too. Looks really good to me. Great work and good luck with the new site

 

[viewfromthenorth]

Andy,

I've long been a fan of your view from the north site and really like the way you process your images. The new site is equally impressive and I particularly enjoyed looking at the steel works images - they bring back many memories.

Did you get permssion to take these, or did you just wander around the sites until security caught up with you?

Thanks, I'm always surprised how many people have visited theviewfromthenorth, probably due to it's relative longevity!
The pictures are a mix of permission / official visits, casual trespass and even some from public land.

I also liked the old site, and as with @Bristolian loved looking at the new site as have always liked your images.

The new one seems slicker and better, and also grittier somehow which suits the subject matter. The front page looks brilliant on my large wide monitor, and every pixel is put to good use. I like the gallery by type rather than location too. Looks really good to me. Great work and good luck with the new site

Thanks, I deliberately went for a bigger, bolder more dramatic look for the front page to grab peoples attention. It looks great on my IPad and on own big monitor, but awful on my bog standard works laptop and screen. Not sure if this is a hardware issue or a software issue, either way it's not something I can influence unfortunately. I just hope it looks fine for the majority of users!

 

[Ed Sutton]

The navigation on the Galleries and Contact pages isn't consistent with the others. Other than that very nice.

 

[viewfromthenorth]

The navigation on the Galleries and Contact pages isn't consistent with the others. Other than that very nice.

Thanks for pointing that out, I'd completely missed that. I'll check that out later when I'm on the desktop computer.

 

[Alastair]

The new site is looking good Andy, the opening page really grabs the attention by giving the images so much space on the page. It looks like there's still some work to do with adding links into the copy, and I wonder if some of the copy could be improved (e.g. the talks and lectures page where the words don't manage to convey your personal enthusiasm as well as your images do).

 

[viewfromthenorth]

The new site is looking good Andy, the opening page really grabs the attention by giving the images so much space on the page. It looks like there's still some work to do with adding links into the copy, and I wonder if some of the copy could be improved (e.g. the talks and lectures page where the words don't manage to convey your personal enthusiasm as well as your images do).

Thanks Alistair, good spot there. I'm still working through the hundreds of photos on the site adding text to them all. It can get tiring trying to think of something interesting an / or meaningful for each, so it's a progressive thing. But I'd agree that some of the copy could be improved especially for the gallery homepages, etc. I'll add it to the 'do' list.

 

[bl0at3r]

Liked your original site and the new one looks interesting too.

Constructive crit - when cycling through the homepage full screen images using the left and right arrows, the 'mechanical landscapes' logo jumps around.

 

[viewfromthenorth]

Damn, I knew someone would spot that sooner or later!
I gave up trying to persuade the zenfolio software to layout the homepage like I wanted, and decided to create my own background. I ended up putting the text onto the picture in Photoshop and couldn’t get them all to align exactly - I might have another go at some point.
Thanks for the feedback, I’m glad you like the site!

 

[robinchun]

Having moved away from Zenfolio myself I think your images deserve a more professional hosting site..for instance there is no uniformity between pages, that said your images are stunning, 'gritty' and processed perfectly for the subject matter and certainly live up to the site title..it's just Zenfolio, but hey, that's just me..

Robin

 

[viewfromthenorth]

Having moved away from Zenfolio myself I think your images deserve a more professional hosting site..for instance there is no uniformity between pages, that said your images are stunning, 'gritty' and processed perfectly for the subject matter and certainly live up to the site title..it's just Zenfolio, but hey, that's just me..

Robin

Robin, thanks for your feedback. I'm still getting to grips with the zenfolio controls, which may account for the lack of uniformity that you may have witnessed, although I did think I'd managed to get everything the same. I'll take another look and see if I can ssee anything which needs straightening out.

So far I've had no real problems with Zenfolio, although I'm not using it to it's full capabilities - I'm not selling anything on the site (yet) for instance. And for £50 a year, I can't complain.