This website was started 10 years ago, give or take. It started off as a small hard-coded gallery and grew into something more and more unmanageable. Eventually I decided to re-code it, connecting it to a database so that I could create dynamic Active Server Pages and not have to update lists, links, galleries etc each time I uploaded a new image. Over the years it had a few redesigns, lots of tweaks, expansions, new sections, etc. What I ended up with was very complex behind the scenes, but it worked really well for me.
Things have changed a lot over the last ten years. More and more people now look at websites on their phones, and I’ve deliberately ignored this. I still don’t believe the phone is a great platform for viewing photography, but the statistics speak for themselves. It’s time for my site to
Over the last ten years, I’ve had other websites to look after, both for myself and on behalf of others. There was my blog dedicated to the wildlife of my home – the Forest of Dean. Then there was another blog dedicated to my wildlife sightings in the UK. When I took up
Faced with the prospect of adapting the site I had to make it fully responsive to a wide variety of screen sizes, not to mention some of the future plans I have for it, I quickly realised just how big and complex my creation had become. It was going to be just as easy to start from scratch as it was going to be to make all the necessary changes. Which brings me to the present day.
As I write this, this site isn’t actually public yet. It’s here at www.benlocke.co.uk, but anyone who tries to visit is automatically forwarded to www.benlockephotography.co.uk. This leaves me free to work on this new site at my own pace while keeping the existing one fully operational. This new site is going to replace not only my main photography site, but my art site too, as well as give me the functionality to continue the blogging if I wish.
The biggest challenge of all is going to be implementing my plans for the galleries, but strangely enough, I actually enjoy this