I am so glad to welcome Gary Crabbe to Lighting Essentials. I met Gary last summer when he contacted me to discuss designing a new website for him. We hit it off pretty quick and I was really happy when he selected me to do the redesign of www.enlightphoto.com.

Gary is a very savvy web guy, and knew the value of good SEO, as well as the power of a well designed web presence. I knew we would get along pretty well… and we did. Gary wanted a site that reflected his values, provided a good deal of SEO and would also be portable to his Photoshelter and blog sites.

First up a new logo:
We wanted it to reflect Gary’s traditional approach to photography, his love for the landscape and something that was very iconic. We decided to use the bird from his current iconic image of El Capitan and the Raven.

We took a ‘magazine’ approach to the website. It would provide powerful SEO, deliver a look that was professional and drive visitors to Gary’s many channels of photography: his books, prints and stock. The site is built in full HTML/CSS and uses a JQuery portfolio tool that allows the site to look and work the same on laptops, desktops and iPads. The site also loads very quickly, something else that Gary was hip to was the time it takes for a site to come online. While clients may wait for the load, it can detract from the Google rankings if it takes too long to load.

On to the interview with Gary:

As you will hear in the interview, Gary knows what can happen with good SEO, and he strives to keep his site visible and on the top of the rankings for the key words he has identified as important.

We built the site on a simple framework of a home page / secondary page hierarchy. All secondary pages have interchangeable page elements depending on what Gary wants the page to do, but the home page is unique.

The home page has links out to all of Gary’s most important galleries and stock work. Utilizing the power of Photoshelter for his sales, it was fairly simple to hook up the look and feel of the website to the Photoshelter’s backend. As well, with a little elbow grease, Gary was able to make sure his blog looked like his website as well.

Gary handles all text/image updates himself, and the site’s dynamic content is making sure it pulls high in the Google Rankings.

Gary’s Home Page.

If you would love to indulge yourself for awhile, visit Gary’s site and view some truly exceptional landscape, lifestyle and travel photography. The audio interview with Gary and some of his work is on the second page, so make the jump and enjoy.

Workshop News:
Detroit this coming weekend. Chicago the following weekend. I still have an opening in Detroit.

Lots of workshops out there, I know. But I do feel that the approach we take at Lighting Essentials is unlike most other workshops. There is no sitting and looking at my work, no sitting and watching me shoot, no long-winded life stories and thrilling stories meant to let you know how cool I am and how you will never be as cool as me. That crap is bullshit.

We get right after it. We discuss light, show light and you shoot the light. From beginning to end, it is all hands on. We MAKE images with lighting. And the students learn simple to advanced… two full, exciting, intense and incredibly educational days.

Oh, and be sure to sign up for Selina’s new Clarion Call Teleseminar for Professional Photographers. With the focus on business, it will be a day of incredible energy and information.

Here is the audio interview with Gary. The images we are referring to follow below.

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Rainbow over wooden barn near Susanville, California

Thanks Gary. Visit Gary’s website here, and his blog here. On Twitter he is @enlightphoto for those of you who would like to follow his expoits.

Thanks to you the reader as well. Follow me on Twitter, visit the workshop site, become a project 52 participant or find out more about me. See you next time.