Meet James – Clickety Click’s Technical Director
This week our Technical Director and all-round internet wizard, James Upson, is under the spotlight!
Name: James Alexander Upson
Age: The oldest of the directors at 25 they never let me forget it!
Marital Status: Engaged to Eleanor! We’re currently planning our wedding and so we always get asked who is going to be doing our photos and as David is going to be one of the Groomsmen, unfortunately, he isn’t free to do the photographs, although I am sure his camera won’t be far away – he can’t resist an opportunity for a photograph. We are actually having a family friend who is a semi professional wedding photographer, we were very choosy though and made sure he fitted with our photography style.
What do you do for Clickety Click? Hmmm interesting question! About the only things I don’t do are the administration, although that has been made simpler with our implementation of a staff forum and taking the photographs, although I do have the odd go with Eleanor’s camera when she isn’t looking. Oh and the accounts of course although I do support the software.
My main areas of responsibility are maintaining and improving the website and making sure all your images are backed up somewhere safely. I didn’t realise until I started how demanding running a professional looking website would be. I have to make sure as much as possible that the website works even if you don’t have JavaScript or Flash installed, this is something a few photographers overlook and therefore an element I like to keep on top of.
The other side to having a professional website is Search Engine Optimisation, this is the key to making sure that when you search for a photographer in Sheffield or even South Yorkshire we come as high as possible up the listings. There is no short term fix for this and it has taken 6 months to get onto the first 2 pages of Google for the majority of our key terms.
Does all that technical code actually make sense to you? It didn’t when we started Clickety Click, David designed the website in Front Page this worked and gave us a presence on the internet, but I found it difficult to adapt and the site was slower than it should have been. I then sat down and started to re-write the code over the next 3 or 4 months. It has taken this long for me to start to fully understand the ins and outs of the code and how much I could actually change. Although the website stayed very much the same over this period behind the scenes the code was changing, the speed was increasing and it was becoming easier to add new pages and change the structure.
How did you end up running Clickety Click’s website? I have a technical background and therefore when Eleanor originally came up with the idea of starting a photography company she invited David and I to come on board. We thought that some photography companies missed the opportunity that their website brings to enhance their services and showcase their work; therefore having a Technical Director to manage this would give us an advantage over the competition.
What do you enjoy most about working for Clickety Click? I really enjoy achieving objectives the other Directors set me, such as a particular feature on the website which we haven’t done before, that always feels good!
I also get pleasure out of talking to customers and selling our services, I am currently liaising between ourselves and a couple of companies on a new photography package which would be very good news for Clickety Click and I must say I have really enjoyed it, I just hope it all comes off so I can share the exciting news with you later in the year.
What else do you enjoy doing? When I get some down time, I enjoy watching sport especially football, I’d love to get back into playing again but it’s been a while now and I have found it hard to find a team in Sheffield. I love going out for a beer with friends there are some great pubs and bars in the Sheffield area!
Any tips for budding website designers? I started off by pulling apart the code that we had from Front Page and adapting that, making small improvements and learning what different elements did. I also read around the subject a lot from books to articles on the internet. Everyone learns differently but I found setting up a practice website and learning by doing was a great way, you can see the effect that your changes have and start to understand how it all works. Patience and perseverance were extremely important for me at the start but you can setup a website on your local machine, obviously this means you won’t be able to access it from the internet but you can practice all your basics without it costing you anything.
So that’s Clickety Click! Check back next week for a “behind the scenes” look at one of our big projects, and if you can’t wait until then – why not check out James’ hard work on our website or follow us on Facebook or Twitter!