Every week or so we feature a particular picture or album that has caught our eye, and we think visitors will be able to help with.

Here's an interesting one that the genealogical wizards out there will no doubt be able to help track down.  Unusually for a Carte de Visite it has been captioned with a surname and occupation.  So we have a Mr Platt, who was a corn miller, and the  photo was taken in Manchester.  From the visual evidence I would say late 1870s or into the 1880s.

It's one of several photos of mine that I have placed in an album aptly titled 'A selection of named but unknown people'.  Take a look at the pictures and see how many you can help identify...

Ferdinand DeLesseps, originally standing at the Port Said entrance to the Suez Canal

Catherine Chattaway and daughter Mildred (b. 1870)Dutch soldiers, January 1940The Smithy, Manafon, Wales

I still haven't formally launched the site as I want to do some further testing and add a few new features. But even so it is starting to get noticed, and more and more people are coming by each day.

I knew already that the way the site is built and the type of pages that it creates are very 'search engine friendly', but I have been surprised by just how many visits we get each day from Google searches. And even more surprising is the range of terms they are using to search with, and then finding us. Most popular is 'Eel Pie Island' (for those who don't know, this is an island in the River Thames at Twickenham, and formerly the site of the Island Hotel where the Rolling Stones played). The most common but diverse seach terms are for specific locations that we have featured, but amongst the stranger terms I've seen are 'interior shops in beverley' and 'Background information on the slide projector called the Magic Lantern'. We've had a dozen or so hits today from windmill enthusiasts after a post on www.windmillworld.com and we are getting a feature in the April issue of Practical Family History Magazine. Plus, if I can find the time, I want to get some leaflets printed up to distribute to visitors to the London Photo Fair. All in all, these are showing me how much interest the site can generate, and longer-term how much potential it has to really do what it says on the tin - answer the question, What's That Picture?

I've been doing some more work on the site, a lot guided by valuable feedback.

I am aiming for users to be able to browse themed albums in some form of structured, hierarchical way, but that's eluding me for now.

In the meantime I have implemented some changes which will, I hope, at least help:

1. when you browse the galleries all the empty ones are hidden, unless you own them. At the moment the pagination is an issue as you still get pages as if there were albums, but it's a start!

2. I have added a drop-down list of currently used keywords to the left-hand navigation. It's just sorted A-z, rather than structured in any way, and in time it will become seriously unwieldy, but for now it seems quite handy, and does give both a quick way into themed contant, plus a good feel for what's in the site. Try it on the left-hand side of any gallery page

3. more as perhaps a gimmick rather than anything else, I have added a link to 'Lucky dip!' which just gives the casual browser a quick way to get 6 random images as a taster.

Onwards....

 

The great software that I have used to develop this site - Drupal CMS and Gallery2 - have allowed me to do most of the things that I had envisaged when I first dreamt up this site, and in fact many things that never even occured to me. Just as important as the software products are the fantastic communities that exist developing new features and helping people like me implement them, and in both cases there is very active development. This gives great scope for adding new things as time progresses, and I'm already thinking of things that I would love to see here, some just little bits of practical help, others a little more far reaching....

Here's my little wish-list:

• I'd like to have a default view in albums, searches, keyword albums etc which omits images that have been fully identified, just leaving those that still need input. Then maybe an option that in one click allows the identified ones to be seen as well
• At the suggestion of user mikehm I am revisiting an issue I thought of at teh strat, but had forgotten, namesly being able to browse by category based on keywords, for example to browse though 'people' to 'children' to 'boys', or 'object' to 'transport' to 'cars', or 'Country' to 'County' to 'Town' etc etc
• A better design - I like it clean and simple, but it would be good to get it looking a little slicker, strating with some proper icons to replace some temporary ones I've created, and a full custom set to replace the generic ones that come with the software
• Better facilities for tracking items that users have commented on and forum topics they want to have updates on, with an email sent each time anyone adds something new
• Ability for users to sell their photos (either fixed price or auction style?), with a small commission coming back to help support and develop the site
• Refinements to the mapping for location-specific images
• Lots more functionality for listing, tracking down and categorising pictures of people and objects - at the moment the focus is on locations
• Better searching tools
• A Wiki style library of photographers and studios (unless someone knows of one that exists already - I have seen lots of disperate collections, but no single resource)

But you must have your own ideas too. So why not add them as comments here?
Don't forget to also check out the list of known problems