Category Archives: Photography

SimpleViewer v1.8 Released

I finally got around to updating SimpleViewer. SimpleViewer is a free, customizable image viewing app that’s been suprisingly popular – I currently get around 7,000 downloads a week. It can be time-consuming to provide support, but it’s also gratifying to know lots of people are enjoying my software.

You can view the list of new features and bug-fixes here. Most of these feature were based on user feedback from the forum. The previous SV code was a few years old now and was starting to show it’s age, so I re-coded it from scratch in AS2.

I also offer SimpleViewer-Pro for sale here. The new version of SimpleViewer-Pro is a lot easier to customize than the previous version.

I’d also like to say a big thanks to the people who have provided additional methods to generate SimpleViewer galleries, such as Porta, SimpleViewer iPhoto Export, SimpleViewerAdmin and FlickrViewer. Thanks!

SimpleViewer / Flickr integration via FlickrViewer

[UPDATE: SimpleViewer v2.0 has direct Flickr Integration built in]

Over time, I’ve had lots of requests from SimpleViewer users for a way to load their Flickr images. Due to my schedule I haven’t had time to build this and I was hoping that someone else would be able to help out.

[UPDATE: FlickrViewer is now hosted here]

Finally Mark Sweeting has come to the rescue with the fantastic FlickrViewe. FlickrViewer allows you view a selected Flickr photo set using SimpleViewer. The gallery data XML is generated dynamically while images and thumbnails are loaded from Flickr’s servers. This means you can add images to your SimpleViewer gallery just by uploading images to your Flickr photo set.

FlickrViewer requires a PHP enabled web server and a Flickr API key (you can get one instantly here). It’s still in beta and needs some testing. So if you have been wanting this feature, try it out and give Mark some feedback.

AutoViewer – a New Image Viewing Application

AutoViewer is yet another Flash image viewing application. AutoViewer is designed to display a linear sequence of images and captions, and also includes an auto-play feature (hence the name). It’s free to use – click to download and for instructions on how to use.

AutoViewer was built to be part of Dane Howard’s narrative template collection. This is a great set of free, downloadable templates to display your images. He’s also accepting contributers, so if you have an interesting way to display images, let him know.

PostcardViewer Update

PostcardViewer has been updated. PostcardViewer is a free, customizable Flash image viewer. The interface is based on the real world metaphor of a set of postcards shuffled onto a surface.

I’ve also posted a Picasa web template to make creating your PostcardViewer galleries really easy. Just select your images in Picasa and click “Export as Web Page…”. Thanks to Albert W Alberts for the template.

One other update worth mentioning: the SimpleViewer Picasa web template has also been updated.

Floating Logos

Have you noticed how often we are looking at advertising and government signage? Driving around a typical US town, you are constantly bombarded by instructions and advertisements. It has become so omnipresent that the brain tends to tune it out.

‘Floating Logos’ explores this ever present signage. “The poles are digitally removed from the image in order to give the illusion that the signs are disconnected from the ground as they ominously float above us.”

The same artist (Matt Siber), also created ‘The Untitled Project’ a great series of images that strip the text from signage, to create a surreal looking environment that could be anywhere in the world, and is eerily reminiscent of sci-fi dystopias like in ‘They Live’ and ‘Repo Man’.

Overshadowed Photoblog Presentation

Keith Kin Yan, the resident genius at overshadowed, has posted a presentation on how he achieves his fantastic imagery. As well as being a great photographer, he is also a master of PhotoShop manipulation. As he says: “I like making things look a little surreal, a little too over the top. Make things look like a scene from an early 90s Hype Williams rap video.”

Inspired by the master, I took some shots today in the area around where I work (“Hell’s Kitchen”). You can see them here.