I got a cheap digital SLR (a Canon Digital Rebel) on a whim in late 2004, and since then photography has become a hobby and a good excuse to travel. This site is a convenient way for friends and family to see my photos (without me spending money on lots of prints), and a good way for me to organize them.
Current camera equipment:
Canon 5D SLR body
Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L lens
Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS lens
Canon EF 28mm f/2.8 lens
Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 lens
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens
Canon EF 2x Extender / Teleconverter
Canon Speedlite 430EX flash
Gitzo G1227LVL tripod
Really Right Stuff BH-55 Pro ballhead
Lowepro SlingShot 300 AW bag
Plus all the usual flash cards, spare batteries, filters, etc. I also used to own the Digital Rebel and [briefly] the Rebel XT before they were both replaced by the 5D, and the 70-200mm f/4L before it was replaced with the f/2.8 IS version. The 24-70mm and 70-200mm cover the focal lengths of the other lenses, and they're such good quality that generally I take just those two when traveling (along with the 2x converter, now that I have it). Otherwise, the 100mm prime is good for macro work (obviously) and portraits, the 50mm prime is good for street photography and low-light situations, and the 28mm mostly sits in the closet now that it's been supplanted by the 24-70mm.
Software used to create this site:
Apache web server
mod_python module for Apache
Python scripting language
MySQL database
Vsftpd FTP server
All running on the Linux kernel
The backend is a database with information about each photo (date, aperture, shutter speed, etc.) parsed from EXIF data. When I add photos, a script parses EXIF data from the master JPEG and adds it to the database, then re-sizes the master to various sizes to create the needed thumbnails. All the pages & search results are generated on the fly by some custom Python scripts. Existing tools like Gallery just didn't do quite what I wanted at the time, plus it's nice to be able to tinker with all the details.
This site was originally just hosted on an old spare PC sitting in my house on a RoadRunner connection. This made things really slow when I posted a new series that 2 or more people were interested in. :) The new site is hosted on a Linode VPS, which I've been quite happy with.
I've try to code the site to standards (XHTML and CSS), and periodically test everything pretty thoroughly in both Firefox and Opera. Internet Explorer is more of a pain to stay compatible with (though with IE8 it seems to be getting better), but the basic functionality should still work - let me know if anything is broken.
