After much planning and development, I’m excited to announce that early next week, PFRE will finally have an updated website!

It’s been a mammoth undertaking trying to organize and then migrate FOURTEEN YEARS of history over to the new site, including thousands of articles and tens of thousands of comments. One of my top priorities was to retain the rich history of PFRE. One of the things that make PFRE so unique and special is that it was born in the most formative days of our industry. Larry Lohrman, in his good wisdom (and with tremendous resolve), started something special and kept it running through thick and thin. PFRE has literally documented the growth and development of an entire industry. There’s no other resource in the world for real estate photographers that even comes close to matching our rich history and there was no way that I was going to let that go, regardless of how many challenges it presented. The new site would’ve been here much sooner if I’d made the decision to bypass much of that 14-year history but that was never an option!

My goal for the project was to respect the past and keep our history and heritage alive but to also modernize things as well. It was particularly important to me to make absolutely sure that the site was optimized for mobile viewing, since that's how most people spend their time online. I felt it important to improve the user experience for everyone who visits this site, whether it’s just a casual passerby or the thousands of people who check in on PFRE every single day. To do this, it was important to make sure that people only had a handful of links to navigate, rather than the 20 main navigational links that are currently on the site. I wanted to make sure that when people landed on our welcome page, the first thing they noticed was how clean and easy-to-read the site is, rather than being distracted by several multi-colored and flashing advertisements.

THE SIX MAIN "PILLARS"

As you’ll soon see, the new landing page has only six main navigational links. I think you'll find them intuitive and easy to navigate. They are:

• Reading: This link will give you access to the entire history of PFRE’s collection of content, housing thousands of articles and covering hundreds of topics. The topics have been organized/tagged into ten main categories. It will also have a search field, just in case you can't find what you're looking for using the new categories. Note: All historical categories will still be available, just not on the home page menu.
• Community: This link is going to be the cornerstone of the new site. Bypassing the “noise” that’s all too common nowadays on many social media sites, this will be a place where our community can post ideas, ask questions, start discussions, share content (photos, documents, videos etc.), comment, follow, like, up-vote, and more. You’ll even be able to create your own groups, both private and public.
• Contest: By clicking on this link, you’ll be able to post your contest photos and videos directly on PFRE, rather than having to go to a separate site. The monthly contest is such a key staple of PFRE and this link will give you the opportunity to view and be inspired by past winning photos, as well as the winners' comments--all in a layout that’s fresh and clean!
• Conference: This link will provide information on all things related to PFRE’s annual conference including updates on topics and guest speakers. Stay tuned for more information on the future of the PFRE Conference.
• Podcast: One of the new elements that I’m really excited about is PFRE’s podcast. This will be launched in the near future and will feature meaningful conversations with world-class real estate and interiors photographers, business professionals, and industry leaders, with the goal to inform and inspire.
• Resources: Here you’ll be able to find all our vendors, organized by service category, all aimed at making your business more successful. You’ll also find an amazing array of professional development resources that will help you hone your craft, including PFRE’s Coaching roster, video tutorials, book suggestions and much more!

MOVING FORWARD

There is much in store for the rest of this year and into 2021. Once the new site gets settled in and the necessary tweaks made, I’ll be able to devote attention to other initiatives that are important to PFRE’s mission of helping real estate and interior photographers be more successful while bringing the community together and elevating the industry as a whole.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m excited to be launching a new podcast for our community--and yes, please feel free to share some names of people you’d like to hear from. It’s also extremely important to me to address some of the concerns that have been expressed about PFRE's monthly contests. I’ve been working very hard on this, speaking to a number of leaders in our field, as well as having regular chats with our contest jurors. The contests are such an important part of PFRE and are an absolutely invaluable learning vehicle for so many in our field. I want to do everything I can to make sure that concerns are addressed so that the contest hits the mark for as many people as possible.

NEXT STEPS

In terms of the immediate future, the last post on the existing PFRE site will come out this Saturday evening, to announce the winner of this month’s Photographer of the Month contest (featuring "detail shots"). That post will stay up for a couple of days and then the site will shut down for a day or so to allow for the final data migration. Early next week, the new site will go live and we will post a video walking PFRE readers through the new layout.

IN CLOSING

I'm confident that most of you will really like the new site. I also know that some of you may find it a bit jarring because it won’t look anything like the PFRE you’ve grown accustomed to seeing. I hope you’ll give it some time and give yourself the chance to get used to it. I believe it will grow on you and you'll continue to see it as the valuable resource that it has always been.

I’ll end off by saying thank you to all of you for your ongoing support of PFRE and for all the encouragement that you’ve given me regarding our new website!