I am Female, 27 and based in Coventry, UK. I am married to Ian and we are owned by 2 cats (Onyxia and Nefarian). I work as a Database Manager at the University of Warwick and in my spare time, apart from taking photographs and writing, I enjoy reading fantasy, designing websites, Live Action Roleplay.
The Name
Xarra's been my online alias for many years and it's roughly pronounced 'Zaar-ra'. There's also a Xarra Books focusing on African literature, and I believe Ke e: /xarra ke is the motto of the Republic of South Africa and means Unity in Diversity or similar.
The Photos
I jointly own a Canon 1000D with Ian. The lenses I use are:
- Kit 18-55mm
- Tamron 70-300mm 4.0-5.6 macro
- Sigma 105mm 2.8mm macro
- Sigma 30mm 1.4
The Writing
I am primarily a fantasy writer, although my published work is the Coventry: Hidden in Plain Sight photobook. I do, however have ambitions to publish a novel at some point in the future. The fiction up on this site is primarily original fiction and does feature
The Site
Once I took up photography at the end of 2008, I started using Flickr to store my photos, but I thought Xarra.com could probably do with a redesign to showcase some of my photos, as well as my writing. And this is the result. I'm using a combination of Lightbox and phpFlickr in Adam Bate's tutorial for my gallery and for reference:
- Heading font: Aquiline Two
- Coding: Hand HTML/CSS
- Pictures: All © Clare Selley unless otherwise stated
- Graphic Editing: Adobe Photoshop