temporarytemples.co.uk

This was the website for a photographer - one of the world's top photographers of crop circles. Photos and publications were sold through the online shop on the site, and this site provided much of the income of the owner and his partner.

Though online sales of pictures and publications served as the bread-and-butter of this business, the site had to be regularly updated during the summer season and ready for the occasional media blitz on a specific crop circle. When such a blitz occurred, the photographer could double his annual income within two days from media orders requiring rapid responses.

This is the first page of the online shop.

Product pages in the online shop. Online payment was through Worldpay.

A key part of the site was the photo library, containing roughly 1,000 photos, growing every year. Technically it was a very complex site.

Crop circle photos required meticulous treatment since they were full of detail, and it was important to get colours and contrasts right, and to get the latest crop circles online as fast as possible during the season in June-August each year.

Here, there was a navigation bar on the left, a scrolling thumbnail frame on the right, with a frame in the centre allowing the visitor to view larger versions of the pictures.

One of the big challenges on the site was the prevention of re-use of photos on other sites. Various tricks were used to make image-copying difficult, and to treat photos in such a way that they could readily be identified when used elsewhere.