A fresh new look to my website

The last time I undertook a full site redesign was back in 2016. That’s ten years ago now, which feels equal parts surprising and faintly alarming. In that time, both I and the wider web have changed in ways I couldn’t have predicted then. As I’ve done with previous iterations of the site, I wanted to mark the moment with a short post. This time though, rather than diving into every last detail, I want to highlight a few meaningful shifts in how the site works and what it represents.

But before that, you’ll have to indulge me in a brief trip down memory lane.

In the beginning…

My first website went live on March 3rd, 2007, under the wonderfully obscure domain mychi.us (long story). That was nineteen years ago. Writing that number down gives me pause.

In preparing for this relaunch, I spent some time rereading old posts announcing earlier redesigns. This is the tenth major iteration overall. It turned out to be a surprisingly moving exercise. Those posts aren’t just records of design decisions or technical changes; they’ve become markers of different periods in my life. Reading them, I was immediately transported back to specific places, projects, and states of mind, sometimes good, sometimes difficult. All of it preserved without me ever intending it. Somewhere along the way, the site became a quiet kind of time capsule.

The early years were full of experimentation and a fair bit of geekery. The site was stitched together using whatever felt cutting-edge at the time: Flash (yes, really), Blogger for posts, Flickr for image hosting, all glued together in ways that now seem heroic, if slightly unhinged. Design constraints were very real back then. Responsive layouts, web fonts, and even basic typographic control were luxuries rather than expectations. And yet, looking back, I can see the beginnings of an aesthetic sensibility forming, particularly in my use of space and tone. Even something as simple as background colour tells a story: white, then dark grey, then black, then white, than dark grey again, before finally settling on white around 2010, where it’s stayed ever since.

Nineteen years on, with ten major redesigns behind me, I’ve clearly slowed down. Or perhaps more accurately, I’ve learned when to stop. That shift mirrors what’s happened in my photography too: fewer decisions made for novelty’s sake, more made with intention. This refresh sits very much in that spirit.

On Prints, Tuition, and Commissions

My evolution as an artist, along with what I offer was the driving force behind this redesign. One of the bigger changes on the site is the introduction of a dedicated Print Store. Rather than making every image available as a print, I’ve chosen to be more selective. The Print Store brings together a focused collection of photographs that I know work beautifully as physical prints, while the wider portfolio remains exactly that; a place to explore, discover, and spend time with the work. If an image outside the store catches your eye, it’s not off-limits. It simply starts with a conversation rather than a checkout, as do any custom presentation requests.

Alongside the new site, I’ve also taken the opportunity to formalise my 1:1 training and mentorship offering. For many years I ran photographic workshops around Ireland, from the Causeway Coast and the Copper Coast to Killarney and the Dingle Peninsula. They were rewarding experiences, and I met photographers from all over the world, many of whom I’m still in touch with today. Over time though, I realised that even small group workshops limited the level of individual attention I wanted to give. In 2019 I stepped away from group workshops and began focusing instead on personalised 1:1 and small group tuition, both in the field and online. That shift has been deeply satisfying, allowing for a quieter, more responsive way of teaching shaped around the individual photographer. Until now, this work has lived mostly through word of mouth. With this refresh, I wanted to give it a proper home on the site.

The refresh also gave me the chance to bring my commissioned work and image licensing into clearer focus. These have always been part of my practice, from long-term public commissions to one-off projects for designers, organisations, and private clients, but until now they didn’t really have a defined home on the site. The new structure makes it easier to understand how commissioning and licensing fit alongside prints and tuition, and how each begins with a conversation rather than a preset package. Gift Certificates now sit across all of these areas too, offering a flexible way to give a print, training, or commissioned work, depending on where curiosity and opportunity lead.

Design

If there was a single intention guiding this redesign, it was to create a sense of quiet. Over time, I came to feel that the previous version of the site, while strong in its own right, had become too dense, too eager to explain. With this refresh, I wanted to give the work more room to breathe.

This site is, first and foremost, a place to experience photographs. Everything else steps back in service of that. An image-first layout, a restrained colour palette, generous white space, and considered typography all work together to slow things down and allow the photographs to speak on their own terms.

More than anything, the design reflects where I am now as an artist. It’s calmer, more confident, and less concerned with saying everything at once. I hope that sense of space and stillness carries through as you move around the site, and that the experience feels as intentional and unhurried as the work itself.

Technology

Behind the scenes, this refresh also meant modernising much of the underlying structure of the site. I’m still working with WordPress and WooCommerce, tools I’ve trusted for many years, but the stack around them has evolved. Payments are now handled securely via Stripe, making it possible to support Apple Pay and Google Pay. The site itself is built on the forward-looking KadenceWP framework and hosted with StellarWP. Together, these choices allow the site to be faster, more reliable, and more resilient, without adding noise to the experience. As part of the redesign, I also took the opportunity to review everything through the lens of privacy and responsibility, ensuring the site remains aligned with current GDPR and data protection standards. It’s not the most visible part of the refresh, but it’s an important one.

In closing

I hope you enjoy spending time with the new site and discovering the work in its updated form. If you’d like to stay in touch, you’re welcome to sign up to my occasional newsletter for news, new work, and the odd note from the field. And as always, if you have any questions or would simply like to start a conversation, feel free to get in touch.