a new site

jonH · a new site

I've had hodd.co.uk for a while and not done anything with it. I had the opportunity to go to Moelfre (just west of Oswestry in Shropshire) for a mountain bike downhill event on saturday and have decided to put the day's work up on the domain. I was intending sleeping in the back of the x-trail and shooting the actual race on Sunday too, but had to bail and come back on Saturday evening.. a bit disappointing but I have no shortage of shots from Saturday's practice as there were over 300 riders attacking the course in an almost constant stream

I've got about 700 images up there at the mo (I've done very little since saturday other than tag and upload images) and Ruth has a couple of hundred more to sort - world's largest selection of event pics :D

I'm trying zenphoto gallery with an ever-so-slightly hacked default theme and I'm quite impressed with how it works - it's a lot lighter weight than menalto gallery but has all the options that matter. Long term I want to employ a pro solution, I like smugmug but want something uk-based, so am waiting to see what the pro gallery re-write that photobox are currently doing pans out.

As an aside, the day was fraught with mistakes and goofs, I've hardly done anything since the racing season finished but overall I have a handful of shots I'm reasonably pleased with, and as usual the nut holding the camera was the weakest part in the machinery Smile

Feel free to take a spin through the gallery and share your thoughts, the thumbs aren't the best for selling the images - more tweaking required methinks ;)

Gilly

Jon

Some great shots in there, and certainly an opportunity well taken. I hope the subject matter have enough cash left over after buying thier flash bikes to purchase some prints! Rolling Eyes

Are you or do you have any way of advertising whilst you are there on the course? I guess what I mean is if i had raced there how would I know to come to your site to look and potentially purchase your photos? Would it be cost effective to have a large banner made up to hang in areas where you are capturing the action, so as to give the buyer a reference? Maybe have two, and attempt to include the second one in your photos too Cool

I think its fantastic that you can combine two of your passions like this, and the biking passion certainly shows in your biking shots! How has the biking season been over your way just out of interest? Smile

Good luck buddy!

the neepster

Some fab photos there. I reckon Gilly has some good points there.. when you take pics as good as those you've taken then you need to let the people know that they are there, and available for sale.

jonH

thanks for taking a look and taking time to comment Smile

the organiser had promised as part of the deal that he'd link to the site in return for a few pics to use for promotional purposes (that's a fairly standard deal which I employ in racing as well)

the link went up yesterday and I instantly got a 200meg hit on my bandwidth; the 'official' tog for the day has already used his bandwidth up for the month so i'm likely to get a few more looks as a result Smile

i'm also looking to add some to facebook and to pinkbike.com to promote the gallery

i'm very much hoping that i'll be able to do more events in the future; the organiser has already commented on how impressed he's been with my results so hopefully this is a relationship that can continue to grow

gilly, as far as riding this year goes, it's sucked. I'd got myself about as fit as I've been for a long time before going up to the Scottish borders for a week in May, and on the last run at Innerleithen, the 8th day of an 8 day trip, I came off and gave myself a very bad sprained ankle. I've been off-road once since and I aggravated it and now the weather's closed in for the year that's me done until the spring as far as the bumpy stuff goes Sad

I went to see a physio and he was mightily impressed with the amount of damage i'd caused (there were some broken bones amongst the carnage) I guess I have to feel lucky it didn't break (tbh i expected it to be broken as I was coming off) as i was off scuba diving the week after, although it was still fun trying to walk with a tank on my back!

hil26

jon

its all been said above, very best of luck and I am sure it will go well - super images.