Web Profiles

"I have no life, just e-mail."
--Michael Jantze

The World Wide Web provides an international showcase for your images. Would I have ever seen the stunning work of Russian photographer Evgeniy Shaman (www.photo.gothic.ru/shamanix/index_e.htm) without the Internet? Nyet! If you're a photographer you need a website. Period. If you have Internet access, your ISP probably offers free space for a website and bargain registrars such as Dotster (www.dotster.com) don't charge an arm and a leg to register a domain name. The punch line is that design can still cost lots of money ...or not.

If you're technically inclined, you can build a website using Exhibit Engine (http://photography-on-the.net/ee/). It's a free PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) application for displaying photographs online that was designed by Pekka Saarinen. PHP (www.php.net) is an open-source scripting language that can be embedded into HTML code. While apparently last updated in 2002, Exhibit Engine seems alive and well and in action on the websites of photographers such as Mark Hayes (www.hayes-photography.com) and Erick Leskinen (www.erickleskinen.com).

If you are technically inclined, take a look at the Exhibit Engine, a "free" PHP application for displaying photographs online that also lets you display data on each photo. © 2004, Pekka Saarinen, All Right Reserved

Exquisite Imagery
Elizabeth Carmel's work combines the best of traditional imagery with modern digital tools. The nine galleries on her easy-to-navigate website (www.elizabethcarmel.com) contain many photographs of heartbreaking beauty. The Mountains and Wildflowers gallery contains landscape images, some of which might be considered homages to Ansel Adams created using hyper-realistic color to produce photographs, such as "Winter Light, Truckee River," that seem both natural and otherworldly at the same time. The content of the Stylized Landscapes gallery might make Adams purists cringe but all of them are dramatic and beautifully realized. "Stormy Morning Monument Valley" will make John Ford fans squeal in delight while combining a quiet, meditative feeling seldom experienced in color landscape images. Carmel's Hawaiian photographs suffer from a lack a depth, especially when compared to her other work, but maybe that's all anyone can do with Magnum's paradise. Prints may be purchased from any of the brick-and-mortar galleries listed in the Purchase Prints section.

Elizabeth Carmel's work combines the best of traditional imagery with modern digital tools. Her website showcases her photography in nine galleries that contain images of heartbreaking beauty. © 2004, Elizabeth Carmel, All Right Reserved

Film And Digital
That's the tag line for Dan Howell's (www.danhowell.com) cleverly designed Flash-based website. It may use Macromedia Flash but its elegantly subdued black and white design by Panther House (www.pantherhouse.com) places the emphasis on Howell's dynamic imagery. The site contains all the basics including Bio, Studio, and a Client List. Howell's studio is located in an old Singer sewing machine factory built in 1888, so clicking Studio gives you some information about it while displaying a lovely photograph made in the space. On the left-hand side of the screen, silhouettes illustrate three gallery sections: Innocence, Beauty, and Results. Inside each of the galleries photographs are accessed via tiny "collection" icons on a top row, with the bottom row containing equally tiny thumbnails that when clicked reveal a larger image. Innocence contains energetic photographs of kids that define the word "cute." Yet when you move to Beauty the imagery heats up, displaying both dramatic fashion photography and graceful bridal images. Results contains tear sheets and magazine covers that clearly demonstrate the remarkable versatility of this talented New York-based photographer.

Dan Howell's cleverly designed website uses Macromedia Flash but the elegantly subdued black and white design places the emphasis on his dynamite imagery. © 2004, Dan Howell, All Right Reserved