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Building book
Here’s a good idea for a book. It is written by Philip Andrews who is a former lecturer at North-East Surrey College of Technology and a colleague of Ag’s own digital specialist Tim Daly. It’s a good idea because the internet is a brilliant way for photographers to display and promote their work – but I don’t think this particular ‘good idea’ quite comes off. The book works well in explaining the logic behind site design and the various technicalities – such as graphics file formats – that need to be understood in order to create an efficiently-functioning website. Where it falls down is in trying to embrace all the mainstream software tools (and some less than mainstream) for the creation of web graphics and the pages that will display them. It falls between two stools. The processes of site creation are explained using a single piece of software as the example; this is all well and good if that happens to be the software you have opted for, but otherwise can be unhelpful. Had the process been treated simply as a logical route from A to B without getting too far into a specific software package, it would have been easier for the reader to relate the advice to his/her own tools. To cover every piece of software available in a book that covers this much ground would be unrealistic; but this middle route taken between basic and comprehensive is neither fish nor fowl. There is a section covering packages for creating graphics and pages, and more space could have been given here to highlighting the pros and cons of each. Quite rightly the software described is limited to the products that are designed for those with little or no skill in programming HTML. Overall this will be a very useful book for internet virgins, but it won’t allow you to hit the ground running. At £16.95 the price is very reasonable, however, as books in this sector tend – like a lot of software – to be pricey.
The Photographer’s Website Manual, by Philip Andrews, published by RotoVision, £16.95, ISBN 2 880467 13 6.
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