Be that as it may, this type of setup is one that is not easily duplicated when going to a typical ‘prefab’ webhost.  This means the URL of my blog will change when I switch hosts. Poof….gone!  The same is true of all my email subscriptions and inward bound links as well as links from my blog to other posts within my blog, though my outbound links to other websites will still work

So if you currently subscribe to my blog and would like to continue getting email notifications about posts, or if you just would like to continue reading it, you will need to know what the new URL will be.

When this blog disappears just point your browser to http://www.howardgrill.com/blog (at least that is the planned URL at this point)….or even easier just go to www.howardgrill.com and click on the blog link in the navigation bar. I hope to have an email ‘sign up’ on the new blog as well.  I am not quite sure of the transition date just yet, but it will be soon.  I have been working feverishly on the new site!

• the ability to utilize a custom domain so that my URL could remain the same
• at least half a chance of being able to import my blog so as not to either lose all the posts, have to pay to have the blog hosted elsewhere, or to have to start from scratch
• be responsive….that is to say be optimized for mobile devices
• use no Flash
• allow for the storage and download of digital products such as eBooks
• be customizable so that the site doesn’t look like thousands of others that are out there already
• be relatively reasonably priced
• have clean, modern looking templates
• be relatively easy to use
• have responsive customer service and support
• optimally have the ability to embed audio for my Carrie Furnace Project, on which I spent quite some time preparing the audio clips
• be able to do e-commerce and yet take only what I consider to be a reasonable ‘cut’ of one’s sales while also allowing for self-fulfillment of print orders

All the hosting services have the ability to utilize a custom domain (albeit at a higher price than the basic version).

All the hosts have available templates that don’t use Flash and that are responsive (able to adapt configuration depending on what device the site is being viewed on) and that are clean and modern looking.

They all have the ability to do e-commerce, though the ‘cuts’ they take are variable. They all allow for self-fulfillment with no ‘cut’ as long as payment is NOT made through the site’s e-commerce shopping cart (but then separate arrangements need to be made for payment, such as Paypal, but not through a direct link from the site). Having to request payment outside the website seems somewhat unprofessional to me.

So assuming that payment is made through the site shopping cart what is the ‘cut’. Photo Shelter takes an 8-10% cut in most instances. Zenfolio takes 6% for self fulfilled orders and up to 12% for partner lab orders.  Smugmug says you keep 85% of the difference between the price you set and the Smugmug default price….wow, too complicated!

I like the Squarespace approach.  They have partnered with a service called Stripe to process credit cards.  You keep everything except for a 2.9% credit card processing fee and 30 cents per transaction.  This is very similar to plain old Paypal fees.  The downside is that you can’t actually use Paypal.  Please note that my comments are based on the fact that I self fulfill all my sales. The considerations might be different if you use a print service.

What about blogs?  All the hosts have the ability to have a blog integrated into your website. But what about all those hundreds and hundreds of posts I have already made on my WordPress blog that is integrated into my current website over many years? I certainly don’t want to lose them. One of the very nice features of Squarespace is that they have an integrated import program that will copy all your old posts and port them into your new blog.  I tried it….it works!   The downside (which I will cover in my next post) is that depending on your template the new blog appearance can range from magnificent to, well, less than magnificent.  PhotoShelter does not allow such blog importing. Zenfolio does.  I am uncertain as to the current status of this at Smugmug.

The only service where it seemed possible for me to add my Carrie Furnace audio clips to a page was Squarespace.  None of the others seemed to allow for that.

In terms of pricing, Smugmug was $150/yr, Zenfolio $140/yr, PhotoShelter $360/yr and Squarespace $190/yr, all when paid on a monthly plan.  Each may offer slightly lower prices for yearly commitments. PhotoShelter is clearly outside the bell shaped curve on this one at twice the price compared to most of the others.

In the end, I felt Squarespace offered the best options for me.  Obviously, this may not be the case for everyone….it simply depends very specifically on what one is looking to do with their website and what type of photography and businedd concerns they have.

But don’t think it is all a panacea.  In my next post I will discuss the Squarespace negatives, and there are a fair number in my mind.  Again, with a template based site it is unlikely that one size will fit all.

• when I initially coded my current website using Dreamweaver there was no concern about how people might view the site on mobile devices.  The situation is very different at the current time and, best I can tell, optimizing a site for display on mobile devices entails quite a bit of work.
• Because of he way my site is set up, it is quite an endeavor to add images and thus it has not been updated frequently at all.  I need a site that is easy to update and maintain.

And so I began looking at the options. I pretty quickly ruled out templates that you buy because, once again, I wanted to avoid relearning the coding and CSS that I learned in order to program my site years ago and which would be needed to make custom changes. Life is too short to both photograph and code. I then began to look at the major prefab sites:

• Zenfolio
• Smugmug
• Photo Shelter
• Squarespace

Yes, I know there are more, but these are the ones that seem most popular and utilized.

Before starting my research, I had to decide what issues were most important to me, as it seemed unlikely that I would find everything I could hope for in one location. Perhaps such a list would be useful to others who are also thinking about photography website hosting. These are the issues I found important.

• the ability to utilize a custom domain so that my URL could remain the same
• at least half a chance of being able to import my blog so as not to either lose all the posts, have to pay to have the blog hosted elsewhere, or to have to start from scratch
• be responsive….that is to say be optimized for mobile devices
• use no Flash, as Apple devices will not display Flash
• allow storage and download of digital products such as eBooks
• be customizable so that the site doesn’t look like thousands of others that are out there already
• be relatively reasonably priced
• have clean, modern looking templates
• be relatively easy to use
• have responsive customer service and support
• optimally have the ability to embed audio for my Carrie Furnace Project, on which I spent quite some time preparing the audio clips
• be able to do e-commerce and yet take only what I consider to be a reasonable ‘cut’ of one’s sales while also allowing for self-fulfillment of print orders

And so the search began.

Allow me to cut to the chase.  I ended up choosing what I suspect most will think is the most unlikely of the bunch.  Squarespace.

In the next post I will talk about what my reasons were and what the pros of my experience with Squarespace has been thus far.  After that I will post about the cons….and while there certainly are some, I do think that the pros outweigh them!

Farmhouse Door

Copyright Howard Grill

]]> http://blog.howardgrill.com/2014/08/31/geometry/feed/ 0 http://blog.howardgrill.com/2014/08/26/quick-quotes-charlie-waite/ http://blog.howardgrill.com/2014/08/26/quick-quotes-charlie-waite/#comments Tue, 26 Aug 2014 08:53:30 +0000 http://blog.howardgrill.com/?p=4923 “A landscape image cuts across all political and national boundaries, it transcends the constraints of language and culture”

Charlie Wait

A great landscape image needs no explanation.  At least not a verbal one. That is one of the things I love most about nature and landscape photograph.

Photographing in the Palouse was pure joy because there was a photo to be made almost anywhere you looked and in almost any light.  Because there were different crops being grown side by side, and because the different crops had different shades of green and different rates of growth, the landscape was just a patchwork of color that took on an abstract feel.

I have always enjoyed photos where a small detail is important or helps to define the image. In this image I feel that the tree, even though it is quite small in the photograph, plays an important role in ‘grounding’ and orienting the image to the viewer.

“Palouse Patchwork”

Copyright Howard Grill

The video is put out by the Pro Digital Gear group and is quite well done and demonstrates exactly what you need to know.