Just a small blog regarding something which is a little exciting. Today I became an Accredited Professional Photographer with the Australian Institute of Professional Photography also know as the AIPP. For those of you who are not familiar with the AIPP and what they stand for then do read on.

The AIPP is Australia's leading membership body for the photography community.  Supporting professional photographers at all stages of their careers and enabling them to become accredited to the photographic organisation that is the AIPP.

The AIPP is the only professional photography organisation which provides a standard assurance through its ongoing accreditation program.

With a history of more than 40 years in the photographic industry, the AIPP has become Australia’s leading professional photography institute.  Catering to photographic enthusiasts, students and industry veterans, membership with the AIPP is a symbol of one’s professional ability and dedication to the photographic sector and community.  Fully accredited members are tested for their expertise in the field and are required to have a minimum of two years working experience as a professional photographer.

Well the day has come to finally hit the go button and launch my new website! Its been a long road to get here however I believe and hope you agree, that the site reflects a lot of hard work and endless hours that have gone into creating the site. Its almost 7 months since the initial meeting to discuss my ideas and needs for my website. To give you a bit of a run down as to where the time went and to maybe help you in your planning if you are thinking of having a website built read on...

My first meeting with meeting with my chosen design/developer, Fab Creative Solutions was to discuss the brief and what i would like to achieve with my site. At this point it is vital that you have a detailed brief of what you would like included in your site including functionality, look and feel, performance, compatibility and so on. The more detailed the better. My designer, Fabi from Fab Creative Solutions then had to go away and come back with a concept design. I guess the tricky bit here is coming up with a design that achieves the desired functionality, is practical and provides a pleasant user experience while also being a design that is technically achievable with in the budget.

Once the design, layout and functionality have been approved its off to the developers to make it happen. Once the developers have developed the first version of the site they load it to a testing server so you can begin the huge task of testing. There are so many things to test like uploading of images into galleries, links between pages, email enquiry forms and private galleries, blogs, social media integration and so the list goes on. Each time a change is made you also create a new item to test.

Another big thing to consider is the copy that is going into the site, this needs to be written in a professional manner which is going to promote and sell your services. Another big consideration is which images you want to include in the website. Important to remember that only your best images should go online as they say "you are only as good as your worst image"! Each image needs to be prepared, processed to look its best then resized for optimal reproduction on the web. This can mean editing 100's of images which takes time.

Finally before going live you need to consider your ISP and your hosting package. Does it have enough storage space, enough bandwidth and traffic, how many email accounts can you have, as well as whether or not it offers support for any databases you may run, SSL, and of course technical support.

So I hope that has given you sort of idea as to the amount of work that goes into a new website. I am very exciting to finally have my site up and running and would love to hear back from you if you have any thoughts about it.