About Me and this Website

My name is Paul and as you'll have gathered, I'm a keen photographer and have been all my life.  Nowadays I'm also a web designer, building websites for myself and others.  Of course it does embrace lots of photographic and artistic elements so perhaps it is not surprising. 

During my life I've had several careers but the last 20 years have all been IT related and generally involved at least one of my hobbies.  I'm also a 'people' person and enjoy relating and sharing with others so I decided to bring my IT skills and my love of photography together o create this website.  I hope you like it and find it both interesting and useful.  If you want to know more about me why not have a look at my personal family website http://www.paulcooper.me.uk

For anyone who is interested in having a website like this one there are several inexpensive ways of doing so as long as you have a little perseverance and some time to spend learning how to do it - unless of course you're already an expert.  However for those who aren't, there are a few things you need before you get started and the first thing you need is a theme. 

In this particular case it is photography but it could be anything you choose.  Once you know what your website is about, you then need to find a suitable name (domain) for it that nobody else has taken.  You'll probably find that most family names have already been registered so you'll need to be imaginative if that's your theme but it's worth checking with one of the 'WHOIS' facilities on the websites of hosting companies.  The one I use is 4U Hosting and I recommend them but there are many others but find one who will give you either a free domain name or register one for you - less than £10 for 2 years for a .co.uk one!

Once you've settled on a hosting provider and a domain name, you'll need some software to build your website.  You could do it in MS Word but you'll be far better off using something like MS FrontPage or Dreamweaver if you hope to produce anything the least ambitious.  I used FrontPage for this website.  You can easily produce a Photo Album website using FrontPage and if you just want to show off your work, that is probably adequate.  For anything more ambitious you might have to consider using an 'off-the-peg' script or one of the online providers.  It all depends on how ambitious you are.

If you want to include Flash animations like the one at the top of this website, you'll also need some software for that too.  I use Amara because it does what I want it to and it's easy to use but lots of professionals prefer to use something like Adobe Flash which is both expensive and extremely versatile.  Although you can include sound without such software, using it will allow you to use MP3 files and program them to your requirements. 

Personally I find flash websites with sound irritating, especially if you can't turn them off or skip over them so I try to avoid those elements for serious web design.  If someone is looking for information or resources they are hardly in the mood to be entertained.  For this website I made an odd exception because I wanted to explore my artistic side...

For more information about any of the resources mentioned here visit my 'Links' page and read all about it but if you're really keen and need a few pointers, drop me a line and I'll try to help you get started.