I’m only working half time as a result of the corona virus.  That means I have more time to review photographs I made years ago.  I’ve also had time to do more key wording, very tedious and rather boring, as well as culling which is more satisfying.  I’d like to reduce the number of my photographs in Lightroom by 50%, but that’s another story.

My skills have evolved over the years.  Software has improved.  My esthetics have changed.  New York City is one of my favorites places to photograph.  I could go there at least once a year.  My first photography visit was in 2014.  I’ve been looking at my work and redoing some old favorites and editing others for the first time.  I’ve added this collection in the New Work section.

As my previous note indicated, I was very impressed with being able to setup a new website in about 5 hours.  Since then I’ve been trying various themes to tweak its appearance.  This morning I narrowed the field to 2 themes, Grace who introduced me to Format, and Slate.  I was working on this early today and while doing so the chat window popped open and one of the Format staffers, Rachel, asked if she could help me.  She was available for a video chat and screensharing but I was at home and didn’t have a camera or microphone set up.  And, anyway, I had to leave for work. 

When I came home, I went back to work and decided, pending one question, to say good bye to Grace and change to Slate.  I sent my question via the chat window.  Everyone was busy because it was later in the morning but Rachel got to it and answered my question with a video she made and sent to me via email!  And, sorry Grace.  Hello Slate.

Also, I’ve been using the interface between Lightroom and Format and the process is so simple that I can see it will be easy to make changes in my website, literally, in a few minutes.

I already said how very pleased I was with the website I was able to create.  Now I can say I’m equally pleased with the help that the Format staff provides.  I’m going to tell the members of the one Facebook photography group I visit occasionally to look at my website and consider using Format to build their own or, as I did, redo an old one.

About 5 years ago, I decided to build a website to present my photographs to
friends.  I used WordPress and Photocraci and was satisfied with the
results.  However, it was never easy to edit so I rarely made additions or
changes to it.  Most of the time it just sat there.  This week, I
decided to make some changes and doing so was just so clunky, I decided to
rebuild the website using a different set of site building tools.  I start
looking at options and met Grace, that is, that is, the Grace theme in
Format.  She persuaded me to try Format.  Using Format, and the Grace
theme it provided, I was able to rebuild my site in two evenings.  This
morning I set my domain to forward to Format.  That process went just as
well as building the site.  Thus it’s up and running now.

Based on the results I can observe, the help files and video tutorials and
the chat help I used for a few minutes, I would recommend Format to anyone
thinking about building or rebuilding a new website.