I have a two decade digital library of photos and videos connected with my patents, R & D progressions, press cuttings, local, national and international awards, marketing material, manufactured products, etc … plus the Chris and Jackie love ttory albums, others of my children, my friends, my local West Dorset haunts, my landscape library, my aerial drone footage plus similar taken with my 3D and VR cameras plus a library of Beach Cottage home and garden projects, laptop takedowns, DIY lithium battery builds, other electronic projects, ebike projects and builds … plus time-lapse footage of much of the above along with special files captured with my 83 x zoom Nikon Coolpix P900 camera, (including amazing close ups of The Moon’s craters) … along with other action camera footage taken on ebike adventures and other photos taken for reference prior to being “rebuilt” virtually on my PC using Bryce 3D photo-rendering software.
I’m also currently experimenting with material to perfect my own headset based virtual reality 3D/VR environments enabling me to share my “days out” along the cliffs and beaches of my home with others in a true, immersive “almost real” way so that the things that inspire or overwhelm me, (with their beauty), can be seen by others from the comfort of their own home.
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The idea of setting up my own personal website to corral, document and categorise all of the above seemed like a simple pursuit when I first decided to begin such a project BUT it has proved extremely challenging to organise such an encyclopaedic amount of text, photos, video, VR, personal anecdotes and other data in a format that a) I will ultimately be happy with and b) in a manner that can tell a story in a meaningful way.
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I spend months adding and adding and editing and editing so much “stuff” in a particular visual format but then decide I need to improve or amend a particular look OR redesign aspects to make them more accessible (OR decide to include FEATURE sections or A-Z sections), and end up frustrated enough to ditch whole sections and start over again.
Should I highlight autobiographical aspects as a starting point for a visitor? Should I format the whole site in a glossy magazine style? Should I simplify things by only having photo galleries as simple links to enable a visitor to begin their exploration of my site, (and life), OR should I keep things frugally simple on the surface and surprise my visitors with layers they could drill deeper into at their leisure? *I’m talking rhetorically because I don’t need any hints or suggestions, thanks! lol*
The auto biog stuff is self contained as is the West Dorset historical section and the Gravity Venture biz section but choosing some over-riding image or theme to encompass the whole thing is proving problematic.
And the snag is … I might only feel like pursuing an archaeological reference for a fortnight or so but when I’ve perfected what I regard as 20 – 30 web pages connected with that subject, I realise that my style, (in that section), has drifted or changed from the previous style and then I have the challenge of making previous work fit that latest style meaning I go back and change font size, text layout, themed colours in some endless, unresolved notion of melding the whole thing back together again in the format I might have settled on.
No matter though because the WHOLE project has been ebbing and flowing in this fashion for over a decade and I’m sure, one day, I will be happy with what I’ve done.
The important thing is … by decanting the whole vast library of images and videos onto the website, (along with an equally encyclopedic amount of text which are, in themselves, several books worth), I DO have the whole thing laid out before me so really, I just have the “style thing” to worry about – not any “content” thing to fuss over.
… and, sure, photos, (in themselves), are currently acting as the glue and the links to help me knit the whole site together.
I never take photos in a whimsical way. Rather, I take a photo to document a project or to tell a st