This website is a dummy website to demonstrate the possibilities for a photographer’s website to have full archival functionality integrated with the website’s database.
Because it is a demo website only, the public-facing pages are very basic as we custom-design each website for each client and the needs for the public-facing pages can be very different.
What you will see in the “Work” section is one (of many possible) ways to display an archive of work by category and to navigate through the works in each category by single-work pages.
Without a privileged login, the public will see:
- the artwork title (if the artist has chosen to display one)
- the image(s) of the artwork
- any provided metadata (may include year, print type & support media, print dimensions, editions, etc)
- description/story (if there is one)
The Archive
Each artwork has a full archival record for much more information than this.
The website owner can update the information in the backend and can also view the information on the public-facing pages when they are logged in.
Fields can be available for private information that includes:
For private views (eg collectors, publishers, curators):
- Print status/condition
- Signature/markings
- Copyright protection
- General notes
- Availability status (available, sold, on loan, missing, etc)
- Price
For Archivists (eg the artist, staff, professional archivists):
- Unique archival ID
- Tools used (eg Leica Q2 Monochrom, 28mm f/1.7 ASPH)
- Year negative created
- Work process
- Negative storage location
- Prints storage location
- Insurance value
- Provenance history (owner purchase and contact details, as available)
- Submission history (eg gallery shows, grant application submissions, etc)
- Exhibition history (venue, exhibition name, description, date)
- Publication history (article title, author, publication name, publication date)
- Notes for research needed
For Marketing:
- General notes
- Social media posts (platform, date posted, post text, hashtags used)
Not everyone wants all these fields and some situations will call for fields that are not listed here. These are just representative fields to give you an idea of what’s possible and how you could use such an archive.
Custom List Pages
The default admin backend page listing all the works in the database can be configured to display any combination of the information that the admin user finds most useful at a glance. This could include location details, availability details, etc.
Further custom pages are configured to enable multiple records to be filtered by any criteria and for bulk-editing to take place on multiple records (saving the admin user from opening each record individually).
These pages include all the fields as listed above and also special pages for working on search engine optimization data (page title, meta descriptions, structured data) in bulk and special pages for adding image alt text in bulk.