Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Finishing up Projects

Merced River Reflections
I had a dramatic flurry of new photos and posts at the end of last month/beginning of this month and not much since. My time has been filled getting some other projects taken care of as well as finishing up some behind the scenes type things for the website.

Notable changes to the website:
  • The blog (www.chrisskopec.com/) now "stretches" and fills the screen as you change the size of your browser window. And it now matches the photo site (photos.chrisskopec.com) a little better providing a more seamless transition between the two.
  • If you're so inclined, you can now leave comments on photos. It's a feature I turned off a while ago because I wasn't happy with the way they looked in the old layout. Now, with the new layout, they can be hidden free up more screen space for the photos. To find the comment section, click on a thumbnail to see the photo larger then click "Show Details" at the top of the page to bring up the Comment/Keyword box and you can comment away.
  • I've been adding keywords and captions to publicly viewable photos. It's a slow process and isn't done yet, but the hope is that these will help my images be even more findable through Google and other search engines.
  • Are you a friend or a family? Check out the new "Friends & Family" section of the site. These photos are not for the general public, but recent changes from SmugMug (who hosts my photo site) allowed me to password protect the whole group so you only have to put the password in once. The password shouldn't be too difficult for friends but if you have trouble just let me know.
  • And last but not least, I've created a "Best of our National Parks" gallery. The images here are collected from the various individual parks galleries in an attempt to group the best of those images in one gallery. The image above is from the new gallery and can still be found in my Yosemite gallery along with the rest of the images from my Yosemite trip.
In other, more exciting news, a major project that is in the final stretches is America's Southwestern Treasure, the second book from my dad and I. All files for the book have been submitted to our publisher and my proof copy is on its way. Once I have a chance to review the proof, and ensure there are no errors, we will approve it for print and make it available for purchasing. More details to follow once the book is available to the public, but together with The Ancestral Puebloan Primer, our goal with this book is to offer you a complete, concise picture of America's Southwest, the ancient people that called it home and what remains of their cultures for us to see today.