It was only last week when I was talking about how life was getting in the way with my photography. Well, that hasn’t really changed, if it hasn’t gotten a little crazier.

The funny this about it, though, is sometimes I get so overwhelmed with everything else that I’m supposed to be doing, I actually take a step back and throw in a few hours towards something totally unrelated. This time around, the lucky beneficiary of that discretionary time was here at the website, with the introduction of the new Portfolio section.

The New Stuff

Admittedly there’s still more I want to do with the new section, but in essence, it’s meant to be simple. Along the same lines of creating my second Flickr account, the purpose of the new Portfolio section is to showcase the best of the best in the vast sea of photo archives I’ve managed to accumulate online up to this point.

Instead of trying to focus a single collection of the wide range of subjects I’ve been shooting (at least until I work on defining my style) I’ve created multiple portfolio sets. For example, there’s the obvious Maui Portfolio which is probably more than 50% of what I’ve shot. There are also portfolios for some of my best Hockey and Astrophotography images, just to name a few more.

Each portfolio still needs a little refinement here and there, but I was just happy to get what I have launched so I have something to work towards in the near future.

The Old Stuff

If all I had posted at this site was the Portfolio, it would probably be enough in and of itself. But since I first setup this site last year, I’ve also had two other somewhat related sections: Viewfinder and Favorites. They may seem redundant, but for now I’m keeping all three. Here’s a sort summary of why each is different.

• Portfolio – The new section that breaks down my best shots in different subjects/locations. The photos speak for themselves.
• Viewfinder – My favorite locations and subjects to shoot that are “in my viewfinder”. Each entry in this section has background as to what about that location or subject makes it interesting to me.
• Favorites – This is a deeper look behind some of my favorite photos over the years. Not so much of the technical aspects of getting the shot, more of the back story of each.

The Code

Again, my love affair with the Flickr API contributed to this new section. It actually started when I was working on the Wall of Aloha page a few months ago. It’s simple from the API side, just listing photos from a predetermined photoset on my Flickr account and just listing the thumbnail and then the larger size with the Lightbox 2 plugin.

The Portfolio section has a few additional hooks into WordPress that I’m just scratching the surface with. At the moment, it’s a new Page Template with the code behind it for pulling the photosetid and other parameters from custom meta tags. Going forward, it would probably be better suited as a plugin instead, but that might have to wait for another life.

Thoughts?

As always, check out the new section for yourself and if you have any questions or comments, I’m all ears.

– Kris