IOW Pictures Blog

Welome to my brand new blog.. Sept 06.

A little about this site, it started as a hobby in 2001 and has grown to be one of the largest picture sites on the island, current stats show nearly fifty thousand visitors have had a look, and as of last week, sept 16, one hundred and forty thousand page views, this amazes me. Emails arrive from Canada to Australia on a weekly basis. Many thanks to everyone..

I currently use a Fuji s9500 camera, a superb bit of kit, with lots of pixels I can crop out the unwanted bits, and as all the pic's are 600pix wide on the site this gives me tons of scope to get the shot I want, to top off the whole process I use Photoshop elements to modify or enhance pictures, this also has the best process in my opinion reference resizing photos called "save for web" it allows you to specify size and download quality, all pictures should download fast because of the small file size..

With almost a couple of hundred pictures displayed and lots more to choose from on the server the site is becoming a bit of a monster to keep up with, new pic's are added as and when conditions are right, see Coastal 9/10 for the latest, taken last weekend. Although this site was never intended to be a money earner I do sell some pictures, mainly to brochure and advertising companies. The cost depends on who wants them but generally about £10 for a single usage licence, this does not usually cover the costs for the site, one day perhaps..

You will have noticed that I now have Donated pic's as well, some of these are really good and if you have some that will fit in please email me. I do get lots please be patient..

This particular page was designed by Karen Blundell, you can see her work by clicking her link at the bottom of the page ( arwen54 ), I did think when I first saw the design it was very girly, but it is so cleverly done and indeed a picture in its own right I couldnt help but to use it..

September 25th 06:
This last Saturday was a spended picture taking day, clear blue sky no wind and warm, I set off for Ventnor and decided to walk along the cliff path, a friend had requested a photo of Steephill Cove to remind her of a visit there, and so along the coast I went, the walk is full of ups and downs but especially beautiful on a lovely day. This part of the island is prone to errosion so a great deal of work has been done to maintain it, check out the trip on Coastal 10. The walk to Steephill Cove   The cafe provided a caffine fix and a comfortable place to soak up the sun.
No filters were used on camera, the three main cove shots were as the camera took them on landscape mode, with a steady hand and a close eye on the sun position, low and over my left shoulder, ideal for crisp pic's with a colourful sky..

November 23rd 06:
It was time to change the sites whole look so after some searching I came up with the "Dark" theme, (with help from a superb designer I might add ) the home page is done and the "photo" pages are being rewritten right now one by one. Apologies for the mixed pages but there is a lot of work to do changing the code on every page, it is hoped that the pics are in a sort of "frame", the darker colour showing off the content better. Try here to see what the new pages are like..

January 07:
A lot of the sites pages are now completed from the old light design to the new dark theme.
It is hoped to offer a DVD slideshow of all the pics on the site soon, the work is ongoing. With the purchase of a high quality DV three chip Panasonic video camera a plan has been hatched to offer also a DVD film of the island, at last moving pictures. More difficult to do but lots of fun..

February 07:
The old design is now a thing of the past I hope the new black grey green look shows off the pictures better, a little bit of sunshine allowed me to add a few more pics within the all new Coastal page eleven, taken around Bembridge and St Helens, a few more also on both of the Inland pages, the stats show the site has attracted nearly Two Hundred thousand page views to date, this blows my mind, thats a lot of people, thanks to all..
The weather in January has been a record breaker so I read, the warmest since heaven knows when, February cannot make up its mind yet, wet and windy but no frosts to speak of, and no snow at all which is a shame because snow creates some lovely snow scenes..

April 07:
This site has been nominated for the Hantsweb awards competition, some fantastic news and was a real supprise to me, you can visit thier homepage by clicking the logo on my homepage, once again a big thankyou to all the voters so far..

June 07:
An email arrived from "Fran" who suggested that I include a "next page" function to the navigation of this site, what a lovely idea...so now you can just "next page" and it saves the trip back to my home page every time, actually you just work your way down the main menu top to bottom...clever girl xxx..

Sept 07:
When in June my son said "come to France for a holiday dad" I could not argue could I, and so in September I went to South West France, Ryanair to Biarritz, a good flight but as usual a pain to get to Stansted.
The whole area is a gem of modern living but still retains the air of French life, some pictures are on a link in the right hand column of the home page, you could take a look..
ps A four bedroomed two bathroomed house with several hectres of land costs in council tax just £360 per annum, bloody hell..

John Durrant