Eye On Manchester blog by Aidan O’Rourke Tutor Photographer

Personal & professional diary on photography, languages, Français, Deutsch, local interest, art, music, travel and more

In today’s Independent newspaper, my photograph of an anti-congestion charge poster, taken at the Trafford Centre last year, appeared as part of an article by Paul Vellely about Manchester’s congestion charge referendum.

My photographs are used frequently in various media. The deputy picture editor at the Independent in London found the photograph after doing an internet search. She contacted me by phone yesterday, we agreed a price, and I e-mailed the photo by return.

I am interested in all aspect of transport in the Manchester area. I also regularly photograph billboard posters, as I find many of them interesting and worth documenting. This was one of the first anti-congestion charge posters to appear. I will be photographic a cross-section of the pro and anti-congestion posters, which can be seen by the side of roads across Greater Manchester in the run up to the referendum.

Go to the Independent website to read the article online – The article includes the pro-congestion charge poster which appeared in print, but not my photograph.

I am now in the final stages of designing the new aidan.co.uk site, the first major redesign since the site was launched in its present form on 8 October 2003.

It’s been a long process and I have had to put back the ’switch over’ date many times. I have had plans to do a redesign going back a couple of years. I have trained myself in html, xhtml, css, php and mysql.

In the summer I intended to work with a web design company to do the redesign, but in the end, I decided to go ahead and do the entire job myself.

I used RapidWeaver, a program for the Apple Macintosh, to output the basic layout, and then customised it extensively, importing the all important php code so the new site will display the existing content, plus the new ’shopfront’ pages.

There have been many hiccups along the way, and even in the final stages I have worked out efficient solutions to coding and layout problems. I have learned a lot and once the new site is live, I intend to get certification in the areas I’ve studied, and become a fully fledged internet webmaster. I will only be using my expertise on my own site and those of family and friends.

The final launch date is going to be in a week’s time, Sunday 30 November 2008. At least that’s only a month or so later than the fifth year anniversary.

I have gone back to running a mailing list. To start with, i’ve added friends, clients and other contacts. Others will be able to sign up from the new site. The first mailout will be sent once the new site goes live and others will follow at regular intervals.

Then I can go back to taking photographs. I have used every available moment over the past few months, concentrating solely on the task of developing the new website. People just don’t realise how time-consuming web design is, especially the bug-fixing part of it.

You can spend a whole day – or night – trying to figure out why a page element doesn’t display properly.

But I’m sure it will all be worth it, and what I’ve learned – in terms of running my own website – is: If you want something done properly, you’ve got to do it yourself.

This evening I was at a commemorative concert to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of St Augustine’s Roman Catholic church, Grosvenor Square, All Saints.

Present at the event were the architect Desmond Williams and the artist who created the mural above the altar, Robert Brumby.

There were performances by musicians and singers connected with the Royal Northern College of Music, including sopranos Janet Reeder and Joanna Patocs, who I chatted to after the concert. She recently arrived from Australia to study at the RNCM.

Also present was Eddy Rhead from the 20th century Society, and many others.

St Augustines has been given Grade II listing status by English Heritage.