about me
My name is Tim de Neefe and this is my site dedicated to my passion of plastic camera photography.
My day job is that of a commercial photographer, mainly shooting in my studio, but every now and then a location job comes in. As a commercial photographer I work to a brief and to a deadline, sometimes this can become quite demanding, particularly in these days of digital photography where clients now have an expectation of instant gratification. They want to leave the studio with a DVD in hand or with images available to download once they're back in their office.
I shoot with my plastic cameras to get back in touch with why I became a photographer in the first place, it's fun and so unpredictable. Images are deconstructed, the optics are variable in quality and you never know what you are going to see when you pick your film up from the lab! This is in complete contrast to shooting digitally.
I welcome any comments feel free to add to my posts, or you can shoot me off an email: tjdnlime@gmail.com
My day job is that of a commercial photographer, mainly shooting in my studio, but every now and then a location job comes in. As a commercial photographer I work to a brief and to a deadline, sometimes this can become quite demanding, particularly in these days of digital photography where clients now have an expectation of instant gratification. They want to leave the studio with a DVD in hand or with images available to download once they're back in their office.
I shoot with my plastic cameras to get back in touch with why I became a photographer in the first place, it's fun and so unpredictable. Images are deconstructed, the optics are variable in quality and you never know what you are going to see when you pick your film up from the lab! This is in complete contrast to shooting digitally.
I welcome any comments feel free to add to my posts, or you can shoot me off an email: tjdnlime@gmail.com
exegesis | page 1
page one | page two | page three | page four | references"My Web Site is Always Under Construction!"
This exegesis serves to explain the choices I have made in designing my web presence.
My web presence is an expression of my interest in photography using low technology cameras known as plastic, or toy cameras. I designed my site to have a clean uncluttered look; a background image taken by a plastic camera clearly demonstrates the nature of my site. Whilst I chose not to follow a blog format (although that is an element of my site in the form of a node), I have explored the use of Web 2.0 technologies successfully.
My readings directed my choices in the design and operability of my web presence.
Whilst I was concerned with Helmond’s observation that “the sidebar of the blog is a place for self-definition through the use of widgets” (Helmond, 2010), I chose to incorporate content nested on alternating side-panels that revealed my various nodes and other information, not unlike standard blog style sidebars.
I decided to include many elements, or nodes; Doring suggests that identity has become a patchwork of sub-identities (Doring, 2002) and whilst my sub identities are intended to remain consistent, my site is evidence of Doring’s theory. Incorporating these additional nodes, spreading my presence, I have more control over my identity and reputation. Solove states that privacy allows control over reputation, but privacy also makes it difficult for others to know our reputation, “we look to people’s reputation to decide whether to trust them” (Solove, 2007). Mark Granovetter’s theory of weak ties (cited Rettberg, 2008) suggests that multiple links offer choices to my site visitors to spread information and build a community.
This exegesis serves to explain the choices I have made in designing my web presence.
My web presence is an expression of my interest in photography using low technology cameras known as plastic, or toy cameras. I designed my site to have a clean uncluttered look; a background image taken by a plastic camera clearly demonstrates the nature of my site. Whilst I chose not to follow a blog format (although that is an element of my site in the form of a node), I have explored the use of Web 2.0 technologies successfully.
My readings directed my choices in the design and operability of my web presence.
Whilst I was concerned with Helmond’s observation that “the sidebar of the blog is a place for self-definition through the use of widgets” (Helmond, 2010), I chose to incorporate content nested on alternating side-panels that revealed my various nodes and other information, not unlike standard blog style sidebars.
I decided to include many elements, or nodes; Doring suggests that identity has become a patchwork of sub-identities (Doring, 2002) and whilst my sub identities are intended to remain consistent, my site is evidence of Doring’s theory. Incorporating these additional nodes, spreading my presence, I have more control over my identity and reputation. Solove states that privacy allows control over reputation, but privacy also makes it difficult for others to know our reputation, “we look to people’s reputation to decide whether to trust them” (Solove, 2007). Mark Granovetter’s theory of weak ties (cited Rettberg, 2008) suggests that multiple links offer choices to my site visitors to spread information and build a community.
exegesis | page 2
page one | page two | page three | page four | referencesMy first contributing node is my blog. Rettburg discusses the characteristics of blogs; they are persistent, searchable, replicable and they have invisible audiences (Rettburg, 2007). I hope my site is easily searchable and one where old posts can easily be accessed (persistent). I intend to add a link at some future date, on the blog side-panel on my central node to allow visitors easy access to the blog’s home page where there are links to archived posts. I am happy to say that this confirms Dorin’s assertion that personal home-pages are always under-construction (Doring, 2002).
I chose to use twitter on my site as my second contributing node because its dynamic nature presents a different experience each time a viewer lands on my page. Akshay compares the activity of prolific bloggers who may update their blog once every few days to twitter users who may update posts several times a day (Akshay, 2007). Twitter users tend to be community based, sharing common interests, their posts tend be about daily experience and are generally more personal in nature (2007). I want my site to be informal, the use of twitter enhances this experience.
Delicious is a social bookmarking site which I’ve included as my third node. Websites can be collaboratively tagged and short descriptions of the website can be added by users. Golder and Huberman state that collaborative tagging creates consensus choices and help to describe and organise how web pages interact (Golder & Huberman, 2005). I hope through the use of delicious my site gains a greater audience of people with like interest.
My design considerations were to create a site with a clear identity and consistency through the nodes.
An important consideration in my overall design was to enhance the user experience by making headlines, text, navigation aids, headers and footers consistent (Joergensen and Blythe, 2003). In order to accomplish this, cascading style sheets have been used throughout the site to manage type and design. This is useful because content and design are more independent and future modifications will be relatively simple.
I chose to use twitter on my site as my second contributing node because its dynamic nature presents a different experience each time a viewer lands on my page. Akshay compares the activity of prolific bloggers who may update their blog once every few days to twitter users who may update posts several times a day (Akshay, 2007). Twitter users tend to be community based, sharing common interests, their posts tend be about daily experience and are generally more personal in nature (2007). I want my site to be informal, the use of twitter enhances this experience.
Delicious is a social bookmarking site which I’ve included as my third node. Websites can be collaboratively tagged and short descriptions of the website can be added by users. Golder and Huberman state that collaborative tagging creates consensus choices and help to describe and organise how web pages interact (Golder & Huberman, 2005). I hope through the use of delicious my site gains a greater audience of people with like interest.
My design considerations were to create a site with a clear identity and consistency through the nodes.
An important consideration in my overall design was to enhance the user experience by making headlines, text, navigation aids, headers and footers consistent (Joergensen and Blythe, 2003). In order to accomplish this, cascading style sheets have been used throughout the site to manage type and design. This is useful because content and design are more independent and future modifications will be relatively simple.
exegesis | page 3
page one | page two | page three | page four | references Joergensen (2003) also suggests that for ease of navigation a site map is also helpful. Whilst I’ve not included a traditional site map, I have included simple links which can be found under the social media icons that navigate to all of the elements of my site, a site map is something I intend to make at a future date, this will include local links and links to my contributing nodes.
I wanted to create a landing page that had immediate visual impact, was not cluttered and was simple to navigate. It was important for me that this central node discretely drew together my other nodes of choice without detracting from my design. I chose a static web page format created in Adobe Dreamweaver which introduces Web 2.0 technologies subtly, I didn’t want my page to look pre-formatted and ‘blog-like’. This choice presented challenges as implementation proved onerous and very time consuming. On the evening before submission I made a coding error which I couldn’t find, so I had to rebuild my site from scratch.
The side-panels are created using spry technology available in Dreamweaver CS3. Apart from my contributing nodes, my site resides completely on one page, the side-panels are element on that page which slide in and out of view. Because The Plastic Camera Pages is not information intensive, creating a central node which houses the whole site in one page makes this accumulated content more easily found by search engines, additionally, incorporating a number of incoming and outgoing links on this page enhances searchability.
Additionally, and in order to help keep my site dynamic, my blog and twitter feeds appear on my central node; with the help of feedsweep I have used RSS feeds extensively in my site to enhance this dynamic (feedsweep, 2009). Social media icons are on the static area of the site quite and are featured prominently in order to attract interactivity by the viewer. The ‘polaroid’ icons, keeping with a photographic theme, are used as links to my Web 2.0 elements, and were free downloads from webtoolkit4me.com, the designer is Gerasimos (Gerasimos, 2009).
I wanted to create a landing page that had immediate visual impact, was not cluttered and was simple to navigate. It was important for me that this central node discretely drew together my other nodes of choice without detracting from my design. I chose a static web page format created in Adobe Dreamweaver which introduces Web 2.0 technologies subtly, I didn’t want my page to look pre-formatted and ‘blog-like’. This choice presented challenges as implementation proved onerous and very time consuming. On the evening before submission I made a coding error which I couldn’t find, so I had to rebuild my site from scratch.
The side-panels are created using spry technology available in Dreamweaver CS3. Apart from my contributing nodes, my site resides completely on one page, the side-panels are element on that page which slide in and out of view. Because The Plastic Camera Pages is not information intensive, creating a central node which houses the whole site in one page makes this accumulated content more easily found by search engines, additionally, incorporating a number of incoming and outgoing links on this page enhances searchability.
Additionally, and in order to help keep my site dynamic, my blog and twitter feeds appear on my central node; with the help of feedsweep I have used RSS feeds extensively in my site to enhance this dynamic (feedsweep, 2009). Social media icons are on the static area of the site quite and are featured prominently in order to attract interactivity by the viewer. The ‘polaroid’ icons, keeping with a photographic theme, are used as links to my Web 2.0 elements, and were free downloads from webtoolkit4me.com, the designer is Gerasimos (Gerasimos, 2009).
exegesis | page 4
page one | page two | page three | page four | references I felt it important to include in the static area of my central node a brief description to my site which gives the visitor a ‘snapshot’ explaining the purpose of my site. I would like to eventually update this block of text regularly so that visitors would feel that the site is active. The background image is dynamic; any one of six images open randomly with each visit, again the intent for visitors to feel that the site is constantly updated, encouraging revisits.
Other nodes I chose to incorporate are flickr (in the gallery section), facebook, a ‘my music, section with feeds from last.fm, and youtube which can be accessed from the blog (in future iterations of my site I may include youtube into the central node).
Flickr is an obvious choice when building a photography website. Flickr is an image and video hosting website where I have chosen to start a group "The Plastic Camera Pages," hosting images taken by plastic cameras. Flickr members are free to join and to contribute to discussions and to add their own photographs; I have two members already. My flickr group can also be accessed by clicking on the icon in the static page. As with all of my nodes, there is a return link to the central node.
Facebook, Last.fm and youtube have been added to extend my identity and to provide more interactivity, adding levels of engagement for my visitors and further building on my Internet footprint.
My web presence has been designed with a simple aesthetic in mind while not compromising on content and user experience. The Web 2.0 tools I have incorporated are consistent with my narrative.
In conclusion, my design criteria were to create a site that offered a rich visual experience; an arena for the exchange of information and ideas. My desire was to present my content simply and clearly but also to offer the visitor varying layers of complexity hoping to take them on my journey. Web 2.0 tools are pivotal in this journey, and through their integration I have created an online identity.
Other nodes I chose to incorporate are flickr (in the gallery section), facebook, a ‘my music, section with feeds from last.fm, and youtube which can be accessed from the blog (in future iterations of my site I may include youtube into the central node).
Flickr is an obvious choice when building a photography website. Flickr is an image and video hosting website where I have chosen to start a group "The Plastic Camera Pages," hosting images taken by plastic cameras. Flickr members are free to join and to contribute to discussions and to add their own photographs; I have two members already. My flickr group can also be accessed by clicking on the icon in the static page. As with all of my nodes, there is a return link to the central node.
Facebook, Last.fm and youtube have been added to extend my identity and to provide more interactivity, adding levels of engagement for my visitors and further building on my Internet footprint.
My web presence has been designed with a simple aesthetic in mind while not compromising on content and user experience. The Web 2.0 tools I have incorporated are consistent with my narrative.
In conclusion, my design criteria were to create a site that offered a rich visual experience; an arena for the exchange of information and ideas. My desire was to present my content simply and clearly but also to offer the visitor varying layers of complexity hoping to take them on my journey. Web 2.0 tools are pivotal in this journey, and through their integration I have created an online identity.
references
page one | page two | page three | page four | references Helmond, A. (2010). Identity 2.0: Constructing identity with cultural software.University of Amsterdam. New Media Research Blog. Retrieved May 10, 2010, fromhttp://www.annehelmond.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads//2010/01/helmond_identity20_dmiconference.pdf
feedsweep (2009). Retrieved from http://www.feedsweep.com
webtoolkit4me (2009). Polaroid Icon Set. Retrieved from http://webtoolkit4.me/2009/03/17/polaroid-icon-set/
Döring, N. (2002). Personal home pages on the Web: A review of research. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 7. Retrieved from: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol7/issue3/doering.html
Solove, D., (2007). How the Free Flow of Information Liberates and Constrains Us, in The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet. Retrieved from http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Future-of-Reputation/text/futureofreputation-ch2.pdf
Rettberg, J., (2008), Blogs, Communities and Networks in Blogging. Polity Press; Cambridge. Retrieved from http://edocs.library.curtin.edu.au/eres_display.cgi?url=dc60263770.pdf & copyright=1
Joergensen,J. and Blythe, J. (2003). A guide to a more effective World Wide Web presence. Retrieved from, fromhttps://www.jyu.fi/econ/oppiaineet/yma/arkistoyma/vanhatmateriaalityma/YMAS350/Exam%20article%203.pdf
Akshay, J. et al. (2007). Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities. Procedings of the Joint 9th WEBKDD and 1st SNA-KDD Workshop 2007, August 12. Retrieved from http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/_file_directory_/papers/369.pdf
Golder, S.A. & Huberman, B.A. (2005). The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/ftp/cs/papers/0508/0508082.pdf
feedsweep (2009). Retrieved from http://www.feedsweep.com
webtoolkit4me (2009). Polaroid Icon Set. Retrieved from http://webtoolkit4.me/2009/03/17/polaroid-icon-set/
Döring, N. (2002). Personal home pages on the Web: A review of research. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 7. Retrieved from: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol7/issue3/doering.html
Solove, D., (2007). How the Free Flow of Information Liberates and Constrains Us, in The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet. Retrieved from http://docs.law.gwu.edu/facweb/dsolove/Future-of-Reputation/text/futureofreputation-ch2.pdf
Rettberg, J., (2008), Blogs, Communities and Networks in Blogging. Polity Press; Cambridge. Retrieved from http://edocs.library.curtin.edu.au/eres_display.cgi?url=dc60263770.pdf & copyright=1
Joergensen,J. and Blythe, J. (2003). A guide to a more effective World Wide Web presence. Retrieved from, fromhttps://www.jyu.fi/econ/oppiaineet/yma/arkistoyma/vanhatmateriaalityma/YMAS350/Exam%20article%203.pdf
Akshay, J. et al. (2007). Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities. Procedings of the Joint 9th WEBKDD and 1st SNA-KDD Workshop 2007, August 12. Retrieved from http://ebiquity.umbc.edu/_file_directory_/papers/369.pdf
Golder, S.A. & Huberman, B.A. (2005). The Structure of Collaborative Tagging Systems Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/ftp/cs/papers/0508/0508082.pdf
delicious links
flickr gallery
photo feed from flickr, click here to go to The Plastic Camera Pages on flickr.
my music on last.fm
my recently played tracks on last.fm, click here to visit my page
