And now for something completely different, and yes, its also something I prepared earlier.
The first version of this work was I think was shown as colour prints in 1992, and I also made a book dummy at around that date. This particular selection of images dates from 1996 and first went on line in 2000. It comes from a very extensive project, certainly thousands of images, still in the files behind me. It was made as a work with 3 sections – Cafe Ideal, Cool Blondes and Paradise – each getting its title from one of the images in the section.
I was proud of the original web design, but it proved too difficult for many visitors in 2000. I wanted simplicity, with just the title graphic at top left, the image with its caption. The title is an image map and allows you to jump to the different sections, while clicking on the image takes you to the next picture (and will eventually take you through the whole work.)
When I got perhaps the twentieth message from an AoL user telling me they could only see a single page with one picture, I added text links at the left of the page to go to the different sections.
But I didn’t want to lose the simplicity of the navigation through the images. So I added some text to a front page on the site that told people what I had thought would be obvious. This front page also has a short introductory text to the work.
Perhaps some touches in it are too obvious – each section starts, for example with a door or gate – but I still like it. One day I’ll do another edit, going back to those files, and bring it out as a book, perhaps with some text.
Peter Marshall