but...
But sadly (?) those days have came to pass, no longer is it good enough to just have a website, or to have one with pictures, now, in order to really pull in your views, you need to to have big high resolution, high quality photos that make your users feel like they just stumbled in to da Vinci's private collection.
This really turns the profession of web designer on it's head, because now no longer do you just need to know how to code, and make it look good, but you also need to snap a few mona lisa's while filming gangnam style, if you ever want to go pro. Of course, there are websites where you could just buy the perfect shot, but has helpful as stock photos can be, nothing really compares to the quality that you can get by breaking out your own camera. and catching all the action.
Currently I'm taking a course in web design, and while we are going over all of the basics of HTML5 and CSS, and I'm not ashamed to say I have learned a few things from it, they are placing zero emphasis on how to build an effective site. Instead, they concentrate their efforts only on the coding aspect of a site. Keep in mind, this is a 300 level course with no perquisites, you are expected to be able to come in to this class and learn everything you need to know from the class it's self and while to some it may seem like a waste of time to drag aesthetics in to a technical course, I believe it is important for students to learn how to not only code a great website, but to also source the artifacts of it properly.
Copyright and you, it's easy for a web designer to find great pictures and from day one you know you will need them. but it can be near impossible to find great photos you can use. I think that it should be come a requirement for schools that offer a web design course, to include a course on legal web development and what you can and cannot use from the web.
So I guess in conclusion, while we may all miss the old days of grainy photos loading line by line it has come to a pass, and if we want to see a better internet out there for us all we should start teaching new developers how to keep it legal and keep it clean when it comes to images and web design.
Soon to come, Tips and Tricks on how to shoot your way to a awesome website.
