After three years running with the same skin, KeithSharplesPhotography has been stripped down for a major overall, redesigned and is now back on the airwaves with a super duper all-singing, all-dancing, feature-laden new design. This, just prior to the appearance of climbing:09, the climbing calendar for 2009 for all UK doms and UK-philes…

 

The redesign necessitated a change in webhosts (and boy, was that a barrel of laughs - not!) and unfortunately a bit of down-time. However, KSP is now back up and running and having slaved long and hard over the redesign we hope that you like the way KSP is shaping up. It isn’t finished yet (doing a new website is a bit like painting the Forth Bridge) so there’s quite a bit that is still a WIP (work in progress). We figure though that you’d rather see the new website sooner rather than later and watch it develop as we finish it off. Rest assured, we’re burning the candle at both ends to get it sorted ASAP. In the meanwhile, we hope that you enjoy what’s already up.

 

The redesign is stuffed with new features, some coming as part of the new webhosting package. First off, you’ll notice that we’re now a .co.uk site now. We could pass it off as a deliberate change to get back to our roots – truth be told it was a necessity, foist upon us by the .com domain being hijacked! Anyways, we’re like the idea now and feel its better; a new web address for a new website…

 

So here’s what else is new and up already…

  • Layout – totally new including a new menu system and a fixed-width design. Hopefully this should make things easier to find and navigate around
  • Home Page – major changes here and henceforth expect to see this page updated on a regular basis. The main panel has links to the latest KSP news, articles and published works. The side panels outline recent additions to the website and what Keith is working on at the moment as well as quick links to the latest calendar, year planner/poster and Climbing FactFile
  • Blog – if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em is what we figured! Keith will be blogging his news from now on and this includes anything and everything from photography, events, KSP products, publications right through to climbing. And you’ll have your opportunity to add your comments too as well as see the blog entries keyworded and in stashed in categories
  • Climbing FactFiles – now available as a web-page for ease of reading and/or searching/researching as well as in a PDF printer-friendly down-load form. We’ve also been playing with Google Maps and will be adding links to maps to the various crags. Where on-line guides have been found, links will be added to these as well
  • Gallery Engine – having used a number of gallery engines we’ve settled on this one as our image driver of choice. Sit back and watch a slideshow or else pick your way through the images using the thumbnail panel which is accessed from the ‘controls’ above the image panel. We make no apology for covering a major chunk of your screen real estate with BIG images – this is a photographic website after all!
  • Search – an online search facility for the entire site content including for the first time the Climbing FactFiles. Use specific names/phrases/words where you can but ‘wild cards’ can be used for fussy searching

 And here’s what’s on the short/medium-term development drawing board…

 

  • POTM – aka Photo-of-the-Month. Once a month Keith plans to head-line a new image, typically a climbing image, but it might also be a travel, scenic, adventure, life-style, event, commercial, industrial or a natural world image. They’ll be a bit of a blurb to go with it so that you’ll get a bit of an insight to what its all about
  • Portfolio – an extended range of galleries featuring selected highlights from Keith photographic works
  • Articles – an extended range of articles featuring Keith’s new written and photographic works – including some stuff which will be exclusive to KSP
  • Calendar Out-takes – an annual gallery of ‘photo out-takes’ i.e. some of the images which didn’t make it into the current calendar
  • KSP On-line – an extended range of goodies for sale, including selected products from a range of partners/collaborators starting with the likes of Vertebrate Publishing, Posing Productions and Slackjaw Films
  • Clients and Tear Sheets – info on major clients and selected examples of published works

 

Further long-term developments are also planned, providing we don’t blow-up before then, for downstream implementation. Here are a few ideas on the list already…

 

  • Archive – a selection of Keith’s ‘back-catalogue’ major articles first published elsewhere
  • A periodic Newsletter
  • An on-line searchable image library

 

Enough for now? So whilst we get on develop and implement the various ideas, we hope you like the new site and what’s coming up. Feel free to drop Keith an email (see link on home page) and let us know what you think or add to our workload by making suggestions for the wish-list.