I originally created BermanGraphics in 1999 as a way to get free stuff from the companies that displayed at Comdex, the big computer trade show. True to my word, I’d write reviews on all the stuff given to me and post it on my new web site, created just the week before. What was really interesting was the name recognition each time I handed out a business card. Time after time I heard from the people I spoke to that they’ve heard of my web site.

FrontPage. I’ve used Microsoft FrontPage as a web design program for almost fifteen years. But about six years or so ago Microsoft stopped supporting it and it’s all going away within the next year as the hosting companies remove the FrontPage extensions from their servers as they install new security patches. That leaves the millions of FrontPage web sites not working properly if they depend on anything requiring the extensions, like navigation, shared borders, forms, etc. Some of the hosting companies we’re currently working with have already removed FrontPage extensions, making it difficult to update web sites.

BermanGraphics. This web site has been through a lot of changes as my career path has grown. I sold my fine art photography at art shows for over thirty years, which led to me working with Chris Maher to build web sites for over 200 artists over the years. My interest and understanding of the computer and photography industries led me to start attending computer trade shows and PMA, the big annual Photo Marketing show, which led to us to writing for Shutterbug Magazine in a unique niche of doing career defining interviews with famous photographers. Our initial interview with Jay Maisel scooped everyone, reporting that Jay had been shooting exclusively digital.

Art Shows. In 2004 ZAPP® happened and all of a sudden, thousands of artists needed high quality digital images of their artwork to apply to art shows. The initial ZAPP image format was 1920×1080, a high definition horizontal image format. 35mm slides had been fair for artists because both horizontal and vertical images displayed the size when projected. But ZAPP was proposing that the image format be horizontal which screwed any artist that had vertical jury images. The day ZAPP went live, I proposed that the image format be changed to 1920×1920 with black borders masking rectangular images, and the ZAPP image format as we know it, was born.

BermanGraphics. I made my trusty web site into a resource for artists. It started with step by step instructions on how to prepare jury images that fit the required image format for ZAPP. I scanned tens of thousands of 35mm jury slides and improved jury images for thousands of artists and now photograph artwork. Over time the web site grew as I added hundreds of articles on art shows, image issues and started interviewing art show jurors and writing reviews of open juries. When an art show has an open jury, artists can attend and watch all the images projected. An indispensable way for artists to see how their jury images compare with their competitor’s images.

WordPress. The internet has changed. Social media is the new method of communication and blogging software is the new web design program. I thought FrontPage would last forever, but it’s 2012 and things have changed. I’ve always been active on art show and photography related forums. I even host my own forum about selling photography at art shows and moderate Art Fair Insiders, the most popular art show related forum. With FrontPage extensions going away it was time to change BermanGraphics to make it more modern. Instead of my fumbling through removing the FP components I decided to hire a local SEO reseller business to do the job. What you see now is the new BermanGraphics. The entire web site content is unchanged and accessible through the menus on the top and side. All the FrontPage stuff has been removed and the home page is now a WordPress blog. All new articles will be blog posts and will link to related articles within the existing web site.

Thanks for reading.
Larry Berman