I just made a website and would very much enjoy your recommendations!

[filmfan]

Originally Posted by kokoshawnuff

I really like the setup and content. My issue is viewing on an iPad, where the horizontal photos crop on the right edge, and vertical photos after a horizontal get cropped at the bottom. And as was mentioned, to center the photo on your screen you must go up or down on the page. All else is great

Working on the iPad-freindly modifications. I hope they work out. Otherwise, I assume the off-center orientation of the photos is only an issue with the iPad, for the site does not have to be adjusted to center the photo on any of the myriad of computers I have tested it on...

[Jan Van Laethem]

I like the lay-out of your site and the colors you chose - white background, off-set with black - that really complements the pictures.


Great content too. Keep up the good work.

[segedi]

Looks good. Like the simplicity and that it allows the photos to be the main point.

I'm a bit torn on using a series name for photos. I'm much more inclined to use generic categories as it doesn't confuse a visitor as much.

To get rid of the photo title, replace the line in the css you currently have in section 9 (Gallery Wraps) with:
span.photo-title, span.photo-caption { display:none; }

You almost had it, but it needed just the little extra.

The Bio
I don't like to have to scroll so much to get to the meat. The portfolios and home page showcase your images the bio should be about you. I'd bring the text up.

And put in a contact form. I prefer the Fast Secure Contact Form plugin as you can add CAPTCHA to lessen spam. Having your email address in there is an open invite to get spammed. The wide letterspacing in the Contact page is a bit hard to read. It's vital on this page more than any to be as readable as possible to not hinder contact.

Nice photos and fine effort!

[filmfan]

Originally Posted by segedi

To get rid of the photo title, replace the line in the css you currently have in section 9 (Gallery Wraps) with:
span.photo-title, span.photo-caption { display:none; }

You almost had it, but it needed just the little extra.

The Bio
I don't like to have to scroll so much to get to the meat. The portfolios and home page showcase your images the bio should be about you. I'd bring the text up.

And put in a contact form. I prefer the Fast Secure Contact Form plugin as you can add CAPTCHA to lessen spam. Having your email address in there is an open invite to get spammed. The wide letterspacing in the Contact page is a bit hard to read. It's vital on this page more than any to be as readable as possible to not hinder contact.

Nice photos and fine effort!

I will address each of these great points you brought up. Thanks man!


Edit: Still can't fix the home-page image!!! It won't stop cycling through like a slideshow...

[shadowfox]

Love it, Sam.
Black and White, simple, subtle, clean.

[heartattackandvine]

Originally Posted by ark8012

Excellent website!! I have enjoyed to see your photos. GREAT!!

+1

I'm a fan of your work.

[pakeha]

not qualified to comment on the layout, i guess no matter what you do there will always be comments either way.
The images though i will comment on..wonderful.

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

I like your pictures.

About the site, what do you want it to do for you? Do you want people who have never heard of you to find your work online? Do you want to sell your work? Do you want it to get you commissions?

I ask because the way it is set up now, it won't really do those things.

The pictures are presented by a javascript photo gallery that does not show titles, explanatory text, or alt tags (written description of the image used by search engines to index images). All three of these are very important if you want the images to be indexed by search engines like Google's image search (and you DO want them indexed by search engines if you want to sell them).

People who buy photos as art want to see titles and some writing about the image. You need to rewrite your Bio, it sounds amateurish. You're a professional photographer soliciting commissions from your website. People spending money that way want to know they're hiring a professional who is knowledgeable, experienced in doing commercial work (rather than art), and who is confident and able to talk about his work. Your bio does not convey those things.

If you really want to do commercial commissions, make a page for that, showing examples of your work that has been published or that you have been hired to do. Talk about the TYPE of work you want to do. Portraits? Product photography? Fashion? Architecture? Industrial photography?

Helen Hill mentioned that she didn't like the titles of some of your categories because they did not make sense to her. She's right. That doesn't mean the titles are bad, you just need to explain them with a paragraph or two. For each portfolio. Talk about what you're saying to the viewer with each portfolio, what is it about?

I realize you are not a web designer, and put a lot of work into making the site you have now, but remember that clients/buyers don't care and can't care if they cannot find the site because it and its images do not come up in searches when they look for images, or when they look for a commercial shooter to commission for a job. The site looks very clean and nice, but needs alt tags for the images and needs some writing about the projects and images, and a better writeup about you.

[konicaman]

Great site. I really like the color scheme and the simplicity of the design. Your photos are great.

Only thing that bothers me is the slide show in the galleries - I really want to take my time looking at the photos and decide the speed for myself.

Except for that - just keep up the good work!

[mhanc]

One of the best photo sites I have come across. Very minimalist and does not distract at all from the excellent photography. Site navigation is perfect and very intuitive -- one can see the entire site with less than a dozen or so clicks. I am generally not a fan of the slide show format but these really worked.

Just out of curiosity: which WordPress template did you use?

[filmfan]

Wow so many contradictory responses, I don't know what to do anymore (not entirely true). One thing is certain-- I will be editing down the work.

About being a "professional" or an "artist" -- I don't care about that stuff. I want a website that displays my images of choice in a manner that is more attractive than a blog. Mostly for friends to see. I added the "hire me" stuff just in the off-chance that someone would do so.

Chriscrawfordphoto, you gave me some great critique. Making money off if my site is not my main objective and I am going to hold fast on the idea of not having any words, for now at least. I will however be adding alt tags and titles. I will however rewrite my Bio-- as I stated earlier, I was poisoned when I wrote the one that's currently on there. Thanks! Maybe one day I will see what you and Mr. Fizzlesticks are talking about.

Mr. Fizzlesticks, you also gave great advice. I do need more congruency or whatever in my photo series. I like hearing the criticisms and I appreciate your honestly. I love getting ripped apart for there is no better way to improve in anything than to be told "it's not good enough".
Cheers guys.

-S

[Bill Clark]

Nice site.

When I had my web site I found it was always a work in process/progress. That's OK. Hope you do the same and continue look for ways to make it better!

The buzz I hear among other pros is web sites are getting pushed down as a source prospects look at and blogs as well as social media is where many folks are looking to find someone to hire. At least that's what I hear.

If you're going to try to sell your photography, you said it wasn't a primary objective, at any rate, consider having your web site friendly to smart phone and products like the iPad.

Keep up the good work. Love your photos.

[filmfan]

Originally Posted by mhanc

One of the best photo sites I have come across. Very minimalist and does not distract at all from the excellent photography. Site navigation is perfect and very intuitive -- one can see the entire site with less than a dozen or so clicks. I am generally not a fan of the slide show format but these really worked.

Just out of curiosity: which WordPress template did you use?

Thanks for your positive words. I am using the Photo-Nexus theme from Themeforest.com

Also, Chriscrawford-- as much as your website probably works for you, it is just about as opposite to what I am looking for. I want mine clean and neat without extra stuff all around. You have great advice however but I am not interested in "that kind of website". It looks like it is very successful in selling prints though so great work! You are obviously talented at marketing yourself.

[lynnb]

Hi Sam,
Always enjoy seeing your work. A few little things about your site:
- I use a 2 monitor setup, main monitor is 19 inch, small by today's standards (second monitor is for tools palettes and other programs), however I expect to see an image displayed in its entirety when a website page opens rather than having to scroll across and down just to see it. That's a pain. If your site can sense the viewer's monitor size and resize the image to fit, that would be great. Even better, I would prefer to have both the image and thumbs visible without having to scroll. I had to scroll down under each image just to see the thumbs to navigate. If you make people work like that, they will leave, too much effort.
- Also, there's no white space down the right hand side of most images - i.e. the image aligns with the right hand edge of the monitor. You need some space all around each image, or it looks cut off - I kept trying to scroll across to check if there's more. White space is your friend - just look at any well designed photo book.
- on some images I'm seeing a small navigation arrow near the top centre when I mouse over it (which I like) but it doesn't seem to appear with all images? The nav arrow needs to be in a consistent place so I don't have to mouse around to find it.
- If you want to sell your prints, you need a small "Order This Print" button next to each image (maybe in small print below) which takes you to an orders page where potential buyers can select Small, Medium, or Large matted prints. Three sizes, three prices, plus postage. Preferably with an easy to use payment option. Keep it simple.
- My personal preference is for a title and perhaps a date and location under each image. Just in small print, unobtrusive. It might be simply 'Paris, 2010' or 'Martha's Vineyard, 2012'.
I like that you're keeping it simple.
Cheers,

[anu L ogy]

Nice job man. I have minor comments, which have already been mentioned. I like Lynns idea of having the date in an unobtrusive area near each photo. I like the idea of a clean website with a casual nature, rather than being hellbent on print sales and commissions. I don't like the idea of having titles for each set of photos, but to each his own. I think that often times trying to pair a titled set of photos with a descriptive paragraph turns into word porn and pontification, so I wouldn't add one of those.

[filmfan]

Originally Posted by anu L ogy

Nice job man. I have minor comments, which have already been mentioned. I like Lynns idea of having the date in an unobtrusive area near each photo. I like the idea of a clean website with a casual nature, rather than being hellbent on print sales and commissions. I don't like the idea of having titles for each set of photos, but to each his own. I think that often times trying to pair a titled set of photos with a descriptive paragraph turns into word porn and pontification, so I wouldn't add one of those.

I agree with just about everything you said. Thank you.

I will do what LynnB suggested and put a date/location under each image with maybe a plate# so that ppl can differentiate between images.

This is absolutely amazing. Keep up the criticisms and critique!

[dovi]

Beautifully subjectively intense. I assume you are an artist and brought myself to the titles as part of the experience. Great work and I like the site. The comments here are great as well. Keep having fun...

[filmfan]

So this process seems to be all about the little things, and mostly trial and error. After viewing more websites from photographers I like, I have realized a few things-- 1) I don't need the anti-spam "contact" form after all. There are many very recognizable photographers out there without this and if they don't need it, I certainly don't either. It just looks horrible and might deter people from the act all together. 2) I need fewer side-bar categories with more of a narrative flow to the images in them. 3) The photos may benefit from a very thin black border (especially the photos with a lot of white near the edges) to make them stand out from the white background.

[Tijmendal]

Great site Samuel!
I love it! Simple!

Especially Don't bother believing #11

[kutitta]

I think it's a great website, and the only issue I had was the font colour on the bio page. It's good to have that faint font colour on the pages that need to be dominated by your artwork, but on the bio page I struggled a bit to read the text. But again, great website plus photographs!

[maddoc]

I can`t add any recommendation after so many good comments were made so let me just add this, I very much enjoyed having a look at your website and navigating around. For my taste it is the right balance between information and your photographic work.

[Jamie Pillers]

I just spent an hour looking through the entire site. Beautiful images, great editing, simple & elegant site. Very inspirational.... .. BRAVO!!

[Larken]

Love the images. For lack of a better word, I can feel a strong sense of 'life' when I look at them.

I couldn't quite related to the naming of the categories either - it feels a little disconnected, and that each of the photos are named "_______ Untitled 01" and so on doesn't exactly help.

I would think that most of your images is strong enough to stand on its own, like a portraiture of life or a painting of sorts. Categorizing somewhat weakens it, especially when the link is not apparent.

[waynec]

Don't know if this was caught, but I was able to stop the scrolling by clicking on a image underneath the current one. You get what appears to be a play arrow in the image to start the slideshow again.