Grant Wickland afloat in front of his waterfront home in Ganges, Harbour, Salt Spring Island.
Read about Grant in Aqua Magazine.
International Education Website Created
This is the new Gulf Islands International Education Program website, created by hand with care and love. I don’t do a lot of website creation, but for regular clients—those with an ongoing need for photographs—I sometimes do.
The International Program at Gulf Islands Secondary (GISS) has a limit of 60 students, or ten percent of the total student population. It’s always full. Students love the modern campus, the friendly staff and students, the extensive array of programs, and the natural beauty of the Gulf Islands.
But as Districts struggle for dollars, the International programs in BC have become highly competitive. And it’s the job of this new site to give prospective students, their parents, and agents a solid feel for what makes this program special.
And, with hundreds of professional images (smile), extensive content, links to online and PDF program forms, the bar has certainly been raised for the competition.
Building this site was an interesting experience. The site is powered by the solid and speedy WordPress platform and the Genesis framework. It provides for easy modification by the site owners. It also represents over 90 hours of development time.
There are:
- 40+ pages
- hundreds of photos, and hundreds of internal and external links
- custom portfolio pages for student testimonials and student advisors
- many photo galleries with ‘lightbox’ effects; some pages have mulitple galleries
- password protected pages for the Asian, European, and Latin American agents
- RSS and email subscription feeds and Google Places location
- integrated blog for program administrator and District officials
- on-site search
- one click social network additions
- easy update pages with content management system
GISS currently has students from Europe, Asia, and Latin America. Each group comes for different reasons and with different expectations.
Just launched, the site no doubt has a wrinkle or two somewhere. If you find a wrinkle let me know. Enjoy your look at the Gulf Islands International Program website.
Shoots are never what you think they’ll be
Despite everyone’s best intentions, in some way every photo shoot has it’s share of surprises. And this one was no exception. The initial phone call went something like this:
“We have some great painted boots on a shelf in the store and want a photo to use in our print ads. And it needs to be photographed outside store hours, perhaps just before we open. Can you do that?”
“Yes, that certainly sounds doable, I’ll drop by the store tomorrow to have a look.”
So, in my optimistic head, I’m thinking, piece of cake. Might even be able to use available light; or possibly one reflector to bounce some window light.
The next day when I got to the store. I was surprised by a few things:
Thing One: the shelf was 12 feet off the floor
Thing Two: behind the shelf a strip of white wall and above that wood, a railing and another display; a distracting background
Thing Three: the boots were not on the shelf but on legs which hung below the white wall and in front of lights and the checkout station; more busy background
Thing Four: the sweaters on the shelf were last year’s colours, the new sweaters were not yet in stock, but needed to be advertised; there was a t-shirt in the store that was the “right colour”
Thing Five: there was a large hanging light 10 feet in front of the display, right where the camera needed to be
Thing Six: there were three colour temperatures at play
Photo shoots are never what you think they’ll be.
I arrived at the store with lights, lots of gear and plenty of time to finish the shoot and clean up before opening. The white background gave the company lots of layout options. Consequently the shot’s been used many times in different publications.
Sister site, Salt Spring Photos is where I post a new photo of Salt Spring Island every weekday. These daily pictures illustrate the lifestyle, the place, and the people of Salt Spring Island.