Edith Wiens (2023/2026)

This version of Edith Wiens’s website was built as a replacement for the original I built in 2003/2004.

I started it in 2023. I’m not much of a designer and so it took me a long time to get something I was somewhat happy with. The idea was to have Edith standing in front of various opera houses she is associated with, and compress the quite voluminous content the previous site had into something fit for a single page.

I couldn’t find a good image for the Opernhaus Düsseldorf, and reached out to Düsseldorfers on Reddit hoping to find someone kind enough to go take a photo. I did find such a person, who generously shared the photo on Unsplash.

Originally the photos took focus on hover anywhere on the image, rather than just on hover of the controls, and the photo of Edith blurred and moved further to the site in this state. I liked this is theory but in practice it was a little jarring; it didn’t quite hit the right notes.

Though the site was essentially ready in 2023, delays from busy schedules, both Edith’s and mine, kept the project on a very long hold.

Eventually in 2026, a severe vulnerability in PHP lit a fire under us, since it was either spend time reprovisioning the ageing PHP server running the old site, or just finally get this launched, and I’m glad it’s finally deployed!