I spent the last few days working on a new and more recognizable look for my website. I’ve been meaning to do this for some time. But between all the projects of past few months (read: years) it’s hard to find that kind of time. First up I created a new color scheme for the site. It used be lots of shades of gray and I felt a little more color would be in order. I chose a combination of petrol and orange with light grey backgrounds for the imagery. A great help in finding the color scheme was Color Lovers - a site as simple as it is brilliant: It’s dedicated to nothing but the combination of colors. Have look, I ended up spending hours looking at color swatches!

Working on the back end of my site, I took the opportunity to completely re-arrange all the galleries and add new ones. For the first time now, the entire body of my series GLAUBE | LIEBE | HOFFNUNG is now available - have a look!

When all was done I realized that my logo, was still dull and grey and generally looking very outdated:

I started dabbling in Adobe Illustrator, trying to build a new logo. But after all I’m a photographer, not a logo designer. This is when I suddenly remembered that I had met a young designer on my Twitter some time ago. Her name is Carolin aka Royal Nightmare, based in Hamburg, Germany.

i don’t rebel to sell… by ~royal-nightmare on deviantART

So the real beauty of social networking kicked in. We quickly connected via Twitter and bounced ideas around. Carolin got to work and by the end of the day I had 12 (!!!) different and ingenious logo designs in my mailbox! We both agreed that this one was it:

Quite the difference, wouldn’t you agree?! Carolin did a great job and I can’t say thanx enough! make sure to check out what else she is doing: www.royal-nightmare.com and follow her very entertaining Twitter

I can’t wait for the new business cards to arrive! For the time being check out my brand spanking new site, with new logo and of course loads of new images!

---

Posted by nicolas_henri on April 1st, 2010 :: Filed under Photography, Web, business
Tags :: caroline, colors, design, logo, royal nightmare, site

---

I am a huge fan of Google Analytics, a free service which provides you with all kinds of more or less informative statistics about your website. One of the most interesting things about it is a filter telling me which sites are linking to mine (referring sites). I love to browse this category and see who is linking to my own site, what these folks have to say about me and why a picture or sometimes just a link appears in someone elses scribbling. Most of the time it will be someone’s blog using one of my images and is kind enough to provide linkage. Some time back a list of 99 remarkable photographers was posted on digital-photography-school.com, sending thousands of photo enthusiasts to my site.

Today I found the blog of Allison Ghegan, reviewing the work of visual artists. Here’s an excerpt of what she had to say about me:

“… I really like Henri’s photos and how he incorporates different angles and perspective throughout his portfolio. Henri photographs both black and white and color photos exceptionally well; proving his capablilities as an equally talented photographer in making use of color or lack there of. I think his strongest capabilities lie in his ability to take a undeniable emotionally charged picture that is interesting and unique to the viewer.”

(by Allison Ghegan @ http://aghegan.wordpress.com )

Sometimes a feel like a kid opening a present, when I have a look at who’s following my work. You never know what you are going to find and I am extremely grateful for all the love I’m getting out there. It really keeps me going.

A big surprise was PLSR.net, a site who’s sole intent is to showcase the portfolios of noteworthy photographers. Suddenly I saw hundreds of hits coming in, so I had a look. The biggest surprise was that me, Nicolas Henri was the best rated photographer on PLSR! (They have a voting system over there, where visitors have a chance to rate the quality of the featured photographers. Make sure to give out your vote on PLSR !!!)

Another interesting one I found is Artists of Phtoshop. While I am first and foremost a photographer, Photoshop does play an important role in my work. So I was happy to find myself listed there - and even with a good rating by visitors! Check it out here!

These are just a few examples. There hundreds of other sites, some big and some smaller ones who’s authors felt, that my photography was noteworthy in some way. I feel very honored about this, I would never have thought that things would take on a life of their own on the net. So for all you folks out there who feature me and my work in some form: Thank you very much!

---

Posted by nicolas_henri on June 25th, 2009 :: Filed under Technology, Uncategorized, Web
Tags :: blogs, google analytics, internet, Photography, portfolios, rating

---

Alright folks!

I’ve been positively surprised that some of you actually subscribe to this blog and more recently started supporting me on my facebook fan page! As of today 66 people chose to become a fan… very cool! But you can do even better - I am sure of it! So I’ve decided to give out a free and signed fine art print to my 100th facebook fan! The winner can choose any image from my official portfolio and will receive an 8×11 inch print by mail. I will announce the winner here on my blog and facebook.

No time to lose, click on the banner below to head over to my facebook page and click there to become a fan right away:

Oh wait a minute! If you don’t make it as my 100th facebook fan, I’ll do the same thing if you become my 100th follower on Twitter! Yes that’s right! Another free print as described above! Click the banner below, then click “follow” and you’re already in the game:

Need another chance yet? Well I got them coming! Win another free print if you are the 100th person to post my banner (linking to this blog) to your site/blog! Simply grab the embed code below and paste it into an appropriate html field on your blog or website. Then write an email to contact@nicolashenri.ch and add the link, where I can see my banner on your site!

Code for big banner:

<a href=”http://www.nicolashenri.ch/blog”><img src=”http://nicolashenri.ch/blog/wp-content/uploads/nhanibanner.gif” border=”0″ alt=”" width=”340″ height=”100″ /></a>

Code for small banner:

<a href=”http://www.nicolashenri.ch/blog”><img src=”http://nicolashenri.ch/blog/wp-content/uploads/nhanibanner_s.gif” border=”0″ alt=”" width=”200″ height=”60″ /></a>

Best of luck to all of you and thank you for supporting me! And who knows, if this goes well, I might just do the same thing again for the 1000th facebook fan, the 1000th follower on Twitter and the 1000th NCOLAS HENRI banner!!! I can’t wait to find out where those prints are going! The winners will be announced here, on facebook and Twitter!

---

Posted by nicolas_henri on May 12th, 2009 :: Filed under Contest, Web
Tags :: 100th, Facebook, fan, free print, Twitter

---