HighlanderImages Photography Website Re-Design

Website Home Page

www.highlander images.com

SmugMug recently launched a fresh and modern interface offering their customers a set of new web design templates along with a comprehensive set of customisation tools. This new launch came at a timely moment as I was giving some thought to my existing website design and the desire to bring a new lease of life to it. I have been very happy with SmugMug as a photo repository and as a front end to my website  but the interface for customisation was a little difficult and required the writing of various scripts to achieve what I needed. The new SmugMug allowed me to completely revamp my design with ease  and also had the advantage of offering a wonderful, cascading menu system to organise access to my many photo galleries. In a few hours I managed to re-arrange my photo galleries into logical folders of my topic choices and this in combination with a personalised customisation of the menu system got my site to where I have wanted it for some time. My home page of the website now shows a selection of photos with a clean menu bar at the top. A useful addition from SmugMug here would be the addition of a "randomiser" function so random photos could be displayed. I manually change the from page every week to maintain a new look and on the plus side the new customisation tools allow me to do this in a few seconds. There is a useful "Search" button allowing users to search the site for specific keywords or topics. All my photos are key-worded so it should be easy to find photos on a specific topic or keyword. Social networking links to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and my blogsite are also directly accessible at the top right of every page on the website. Users can read my bio or directly e-mail using the "Contact" button on the main menu.

Pull-Down Menus

Prior to the re-design I had only one main portfolio of photos accessible via SmugMug, other private galleries being hidden. In the new design I now have the portfolio as before but now have a pull-down menu under projects to open up specific project topics with multiple tiered photo galleries under this menu. It is very easy to change and modify the menu system to add new categories and new photo galleries in a matter of a few minutes.

Cascading pull-down menus allow easy and quick access to photo galleries

Photo Galleries

After navigating through the menu bar to the photo gallery the individual photos can be viewed in much the same way as the earlier version of SmugMug. The user can page through the gallery, view the photos individually or go to slideshow mode to view in full-screen mode.

Individual photo gallery

Commercial

As my site is a full SmugMug Pro commercial site I have this set up so users can purchase the images in a wide range of formats including prints of all sizes and different media such as paper, canvas, thinwraps and metal finish. You can even gets many other types of products such as printed mugs, T-shirts, magnets, tiles and postcards. Digital downloads of images are also available. Simply click on the "ADD TO CART" button to add any item and choose the preferred media. All items will be shipped to the purchaser or in the case of the digital download option directly downloaded to the purchaser's computer (minus the watermark!). I have full control over the pricing of all items on the site - SmugMug takes a cut to facilitate the commercial handling of purchases as well as the printing and shipping - this is a great deal as it let's me focus on my photography. I can generate special pricing options site-wide or for specific photo galleries as well as being able to generate discount coupons to give to customers and promote my site. All in all a very comprehensive and easy to manage system.

Purchase prints, merchandise or digital downloads

Videos

I have now added a new "Video" section to the website with a large number of video slideshows on a wide variety of topics. You can watch these full HD video slideshows in full screen which is just beautiful!

Video page with many video slideshows to view

Private Galleries

As in the earlier version of SmugMug I can have hidden private photo galleries and allow specific password access to these for customers. This is very useful for example when doing a private commercial shoot for a client I can provide them full access to that private gallery to review and then download finished images directly.

Public or private galleries can be created with individual privacy and customisation settings

Conclusions

I am extremely pleased with the new SmugMug interface and it has certainly brought a new lease of life to my website and will now allow to grow and build this site as well as being able to easily and quickly customise the look and appearance of the site to maintain a fresh look. It's not often a major software product launch such as this goes so smoothly and I am very impressed with how well this upgrade went with hardly a issue. I'm sure we will see further exciting developments with SmugMug as they receive user feedback over the coming months.

Villa La Rotonda, Vicenza

Villa La Rotonda is a Renaissance villa just outside Vicenza, northern Italy, designed by Andrea Palladio. The proper name is Villa Almerico Capra, but it is also known as La Rotonda, Villa Rotonda, Villa Capra and Villa Almerico. The name "Capra" derives from the Capra brothers, who completed the building after it was ceded to them in 1592. Along with other works by Palladio, the building is conserved as part of the World Heritage Site “City of Vicenza and the Palladian Villas of the Veneto”.

Inspiration

In 1565 a priest, Paulo Almerico, on his retirement from the  Vatican (as referendario apostolico of Pope Pius IV and afterwards Pius V), decided to return to his home town of Vicenza in the Venetian countryside and build a country house. This house, later known as 'La Rotonda', was to be one of Palladio's best-known legacies to the architectural world. Villa Capra may have inspired a thousand subsequent buildings, but the villa was itself inspired by the Pantheon in Rome.

Design

The site selected was a hilltop just outside the city of Vicenza. Unlike some other Palladian villas, the building was not designed from the start to accommodate a working farm. This sophisticated building was designed for a site which was, in modern terminology, "suburban". Palladio classed the building as a "palazzo" rather than a villa.

The design is for a completely symmetrical building having a square plan with four facades, each of which has a projecting portico. The whole is contained within an imaginary circle which touches each corner of the building and centres of the porticos. (illustration, left). The name La Rotonda refers to the central circular hall with its dome. To describe the villa, as a whole, as a 'rotonda' is technically incorrect, as the building is not circular but rather the intersection of a square with a cross. Each portico has steps leading up, and opens via a small cabinet or corridor to the circular domed central hall. This and all other rooms were proportioned with mathematical precision according to Palladio's own rules of architecture which he published in the Quattro Libri dell’ Architettura.

The design reflected the Humanis values of Renaissance architecture. In order for each room to have some sun, the design was rotated 45 degrees from each cardinal point of the compass. Each of the four porticos has pediments graced by statues of classical deities. The pediments were each supported by six Ionic columns. Each portico was flanked by a single window. All principal rooms were on the second floor or piano nobile.

Building began in 1567. Palladio, and the owner, Paolo Almerico, were not to see the completion of the villa. Palladio died in 1580 and a second architect, Vincenzo Scamozzi was employed by the new owners to oversee the completion. One of the major changes he made to the original plan was to modify the two-storey centre hall.

Interior

The interior design of the Villa was to be as wonderful, if not more so, than the exterior. Alessandro and Giovanni Battista Maganza and Anselmo Canera were commissioned to paint frescoes in the principal salons.

Among the four principal salons on the piano nobile are the West Salon (also called the Holy Room, because of the religious nature of its frescoes and ceiling), and the East Salon, which contains an allegorical life story of the first owner Paolo Almerico, his many admirable qualities portrayed in fresco.

The highlight of the interior is the central, circular hall, surrounded by a balcony and covered by the domed ceiling; it soars the full height of the main house up to the cupola, with walls decorated in trompe l’oeil. Abundant frescoes create an atmosphere that is more reminiscent of a cathedral than the principal salon of a country house.

Landscape

From the porticos wonderful views of the surrounding countryside can be seen; this is no coincidence as the Villa was designed to be in perfect harmony with the landscape. This was in complete contrast to such buildings as Villa Farnese of just 16 years earlier. Thus, while the house appears to be completely symmetrical, it actually has certain deviations, designed to allow each facade to complement the surrounding landscape and topography. Hence there are variations in the facades, in the width of steps, retaining walls, etc. In this way, the symmetry of the architecture allows for the asymmetry of the landscape, and creates a seemingly symmetrical whole. The landscape is a panoramic vision of trees and meadows and woods, with the distant Vicenza on the horizon.

The northwest portico is set onto the hill as the termination of a straight carriage drive from the principal gates. This carriageway is an avenue between the service blocks, built by the Capra brothers who acquired the villa in 1591; they commissioned Vincenzo Scamozzi to complete the villa and construct the range of staff and agricultural buildings. As one approaches the villa from this angle one is deliberately made to feel one is ascending from some less worthy place to a temple on high. This same view in reverse, from the villa, highlights a classical chapel on the edge of Vicenza, thus villa and town are united.

Film

In 1979, American film director Joseph Losey filmed Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, in Villa La Rotonda and the Veneto region of Italy. The film was nominated for several Cesar Awards in 1980 including Best Director, and has generally been praised as one of the finer adaptations of opera to the big screen.

World Heritage Site

In 1994 UNESCO designated the building as part of a World Heritage Site.

The late owner of the villa was Mario di Valmarana († Oct. 13, 2010), a former professor of architecture at the University of Virginia. It was his declared ambition to preserve Villa Rotonda so that it may be appreciated by future generations. The interior is open to the public on Wednesdays and Saturdays, except during the winter months, and the grounds are open every day.

Brooklyn Bridge

The intricate design of the Brooklyn Bridge as seen from below which highlights the details in the girders and the mass of supporting wires.
The Brooklyn Bridge is one of the oldest suspension bridges in the United States. Completed in 1883, it connects the New York City boroughs of Manhattan and Brooklyn by spanning the East River. With a main span of 1,595.5 feet (486.3 m), it was the longest suspension bridge in the world from its opening until 1903, and the first steel-wire suspension bridge.
Originally referred to as the New York and Brooklyn Bridge and as the East River Bridge, it was dubbed the Brooklyn Bridge in a January 25, 1867 letter to the editor of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, and formally so named by the city government in 1915. Since its opening, it has become an iconic part of the New York skyline. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964 and a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1972

KTM Berhad Building

Opposite Kuala Lumpur main railway station is this wonderful old moorish style building which is now headquarters of and administration building of KTM Berhad. 

The building is a fine example of Moorish architecture reflecting the Ottoman and Moghul glory of the 13th and 14th Centuries blended with Gothic and ancient Greek designs of the 14th Century. The ground floor is adorned with 97 large frontal Gothic arches and 4 smaller arches. The high and wide verandahs skirting the building create a cooling effect and are suitable for the constant high climatic temperatures in Malaysia. 

The first floor has 94 large arched windows of Gothic design and 4 circular arches of smaller size. The second floor has 171 Gothic arches and 4 large and 12 smaller circular arches. Five domes sit majestically on top of the building, each surrounded at four corners entwined columns. They are of orthodox Greek design typical in the 14th century. 

This historical building suffered serious damage twice in its lifetime, firstly during the Second World War when its North wing was bombed and secondly when the same wing on the second floor was gutted by fire in 14 November 1968.

Islamic Light

This ornate light was seen in the entrance of the Islamic Arts Museum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia houses more than seven thousand artefacts, as well has an exceptional library of Islamic-art books. The art objects on display range from the tiniest pieces of jewellery to one of the world’s largest scale models of the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca. The aim is to create a collection that is truly representative of the Islamic world. Instead of concentrating on works from the heartlands of Persia and the Middle East, IAMM also puts the emphasis on Asia. China and Southeast Asia are especially well represented. The third component of the Malaysian melting pot is India, which is also given special status. India, China and the Malay world are in an exceptional category.

Dragon Roof

This is another example of Antoni Gaudi's architectural genius on the rooftop of Casa Batllo in Barcelona, Spain. The arched roof design and complex chimneys are very typical examples of his designs being colourful and full of irregular lines. The arched roof has been likened to the back of a dragon or dinosaur. The local name for the building is Casa dels ossos (House of Bones), and indeed it does have a visceral, skeletal organic quality. It was originally designed for amiddle-class family and situated in a prosperous district of Barcelona.

Casa Batllo

This is the blue tiled stairwell in the famous Casa Batllo designed by Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, Spain. You will note that there is hardly a straight line in this building with windows, doors, railings all having curves. An earlier post on this blog entitled House of Bones describes this building in more detail.

Lion Lager

Lion lager is a beer brewed by the Lion Brewery Ceylon PLC in Sri Lanka and has got to be one of the most beautiful bottle designs I have seen in any beer. After a walk through the back streets of Colombo and a walk along the seafront this drink welcomed me in the Galle Face Hotel, one of the oldest and most traditional hotels in Colombo, and a great place to have a refreshment as you sit at the Veranda overlooking the Indian Ocean.

The Art of Stained Glass Windows

The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works made from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings. Although traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensional structures and sculpture.

Modern vernacular usage has often extended the term "stained glass" to include domestic leadlight and objects d'art created from lead came and copper foil glasswork exemplified in the famous lamps of Louis Comfort Tiffany.

As a material stained glass is glass that has been coloured by adding metallic salts during its manufacture. The coloured glass is crafted into stained glass windows in which small pieces of glass are arranged to form patterns or pictures, held together (traditionally) by strips of lead and supported by a rigid frame. Painted details and yellow stain are often used to enhance the design. The term stained glass is also applied to windows in which the colours have been painted onto the glass and then fused to the glass in a kiln.

Stained glass, as an art and a craft, requires the artistic skill to conceive an appropriate and workable design, and the engineering skills to assemble the piece. A window must fit snugly into the space for which it is made, must resist wind and rain, and also, especially in the larger windows, must support its own weight. Many large windows have withstood the test of time and remained substantially intact since the late Middle Ages. In Western Europe they constitute the major form of pictorial art to have survived. In this context, the purpose of a stained glass window is not to allow those within a building to see the world outside or even primarily to admit light but rather to control it. For this reason stained glass windows have been described as 'illuminated wall decorations'.

The design of a window may be non-figurative or figurative; may incorporate narratives drawn from the Bible, history, or literature; may represent saints or patrons, or use symbolic motifs, in particular armorial. Windows within a building may be thematic, for example: within a church - episodes from the life of Christ; within a parliament building - shields of the constituencies; within a college hall - figures representing the arts and sciences; or within a home - flora, fauna, or landscape.

   

It's a Sign

Signs are interesting photo opportunities and these can come in all manners of shape, size, colour and design. Street signs advertising businesses can be particularly unique in the owner's attempt to describe the nature of the business with an iconic image or design.

Glass Pyramid in the Forest

The clever use of glass on the frontage of this office building in Houston makes it almost disappear into the trees. It is certainly encouraging to see architectural design blending modern building needs with the natural environment in this unique fashion.

Antoni Gaudi

Antoni Gaudi's architectural work that I had the opportunity to see in Barcelona recently has got to be one of the most unique I have ever seen and appreciated. Architect and designer, Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) is the most internationally prestigious figure in spanish architecture. Born in Reus, in Catalonia, he graduated in Barcelona in 1878 and this city became the center of his activities. One important aspect is his capacity as designer.

This led him to create, in close collaboration with some of the very fine artisans of his time, all those elements making up architectural space - wrought iron, furniture, stained glass, sculptural work, mosaics, ceramics and so on - within an organic concept of decoration and with the integration of these elements into the construction process. The sea landscape was one of his most preferred inspirations.

In his own time, Gaudi was both admired and criticised for the audacity and singularity of his innovative solutions. His fame on a world scale has become an unquestioned fact both in specialised circles and among the general public.

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Sagrada Familia

The Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família often simply called the Sagrada Família, is a massive, privately-funded Roman Catholic church that has been under construction in Barcelona, Spain since 1882 and is not expected to be complete until at least 2026. Considered the master-work of renowned Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi the project's vast scale and idiosyncratic design have made it one of Barcelona's (and Spain's) top tourist attractions for many years. A portion of the building's interior is scheduled to open for public worship and tours by September of 2010.

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Casa Mila

Casa Milà, better known as La Pedrera (Catalan for 'The Quarry'), was built during the years 1906–1910, being considered officially completed in 1912. It is located at 92, Passeig de Gracia (passeig is Catalan for promenade) in the Eixample district of Barcelona.

It was built for the married couple, Rosario Segimon and Pere Milà. Rosario Segimon was the wealthy widow of Jose Guardiola, an Indaino, a term applied locally to the Catalans returning from the American colonies with tremendous wealth. Her second husband, Pere Mila, was a developer who was criticized for his flamboyant lifestyle and ridiculed by the contemporary residents of Barcelona, when they joked about his love of money and opulence, wondering if he was not rather more interested in "the widow’s guardiola" (piggy bank), than in "Guardiola’s widow".

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Palau Guell

The Palau Güell is a town mansion (translated literally a "palace") in Barcelona designed by Gaudi for the Catalan industrial tycoon Eusebi Guell.

It is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site "Works of Antoni Gaudi".

The home is centered on a main room for entertaining high society guests. Guests entered the home in horse drawn carriages through the front iron gates, which featured a parabolic arch and intricate patterns of forged iron-work resembling seaweed and in some parts a horsewhip. Animals could be taken down a ramp and kept in the livery stable in the basement where the servants resided, while the guests went up the stairs to the receiving room. The ornate walls and ceilings of the receiving room disguised small viewing windows high on the walls where the owners of the home could view their guests from the upper floor and get a 'sneak peak' before greeting them, in case they needed to adjust their attire accordingly.

The main party room has a high ceiling with small holes near the top where lanterns were hung at night from the outside to give the appearance of a starlit sky.

In 2004, visits by the public were completely suspended due to renovations; some of the stone used in the original construction was weak and has cracked over the years causing structural problems within the building. As of February 1, 2008, Palau Güell has been partially reopened to the public, with access to limited parts of the building only.

It was used in Antonioni’s film The Passenger as a backdrop for the first meeting between Jack Nicholson and Maria Schneider.

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Casa Batllo

Casa Batlló is a building restored by Antoni Gaudi and Josep Maria Jujol, built in the year 1877 and remodelled in the years 1905–1907; located at 43, Passeig de Gracia (passeig is Catalan for promenade or avenue), part of the Illa de la Discordia in the Eixample district of Barcelona.

The local name for the building is Casa dels ossos (House of Bones), and indeed it does have a visceral, skeletal organic quality. It was originally designed for a middle-class family and situated in a prosperous district of Barcelona.

The building looks very remarkable — like everything Gaudí designed, only identifiable as Modernisme or Art Nouveau in the broadest sense. The ground floor, in particular, is rather astonishing with tracery, irregular oval windows and flowing sculpted stone work.

It seems that the goal of the designer was to avoid straight lines completely. Much of the facade is decorated with a mosaic made of broken ceramic tiles that starts in shades of golden orange moving into greenish blues. The roof is arched and was likened to the back of a dragon or dinasaur. A common theory about the building is that the rounded feature to the left of centre, terminating at the top in a turret and cross, represents the sword of Saint George (patron saint of Catalonia), which has been plunged into the back of the dragon.