It's an improvement to your current one, for sure. It's much cleaner and more to the point, displaying images well and kind of fading into the background. I mean, I say "Wow, great images." instead of "Cool, what a great website."
The large size of the images is great - I'm glad the photographer web paranoia seems to be fading. That improvement alone is worth a new site (says the guy with images half that size on his own site...)
The categorization and sequencing seems a bit haphazard. I think it makes sense for the blocks of like images to be together, but the progression between them and some of the more standalone images might be tightened up.
I wonder about the number of images. If you want to show the breadth of your experience, then a lot of images is good, but if you want to make an immediate impact and cause people to query for more, maybe less images would be good.
In some cases, particularly with the landscape format images, it's taking them a couple seconds to load. A status indicator displayed during those seconds would help the user understand something's happening.
For the thumbnails, I'd prefer it if the image would persist, once I've clicked on the image. Now, it disappears, and I have to hunt for it if I want to see a particular image again.
The Contact link seems to do nothing at this time.
The Blog link goes to your blog alright, but once there, no navigation to get back to your site exists. True, the user has his back button on his browser, but it's an (old-school) web no-no. You could solve the problem by including a link to your own website where you link to other photographer blogs.
The title bar always reads "main", regardless of what section I'm browsing.
Hi. I too really like the new look -- much cleaner, bigger images, all good. Yes, very much more about the images than the website.
But -- I agree that there is a problem with the thumbnails. I was thinking that because they are white (blank), that there was just nothing there/nothing loaded. Eventually I got it, but it may be more of a learning curve (albiet a small one) where busy people won't make the leap. I like that there is nothing distracting from the loaded image, but again, busy people may need more of a cue that there is more, or that there is nothing wrong with their browser. (Which is what I thought for a bit; that my browser didn't load all of the thumbnails or that you just didn't load anything other than one image for your beta.)
I don't know man ... It feels to stark to me. I'm in the process of rebuilding mine as well. Take it from someone who has lived with a clean white website for years - you'll begin to feel as though the images are getting washed out against the bright screen.
I like the look and feel of your old site but I can understand why you'd want to change the gallery set-up.
To do it justice, my opinion would take two one hour meetings. Trust your instincts - they've done you well.
Your thumbnail selection is backwards. You should white out the currently selected photograph, and display all of the other thumbnails instead of the reverse.
It is a bit stark, but I kind of like that. It makes for a better focus on the photographs.
6 comments:
It's an improvement to your current one, for sure. It's much cleaner and more to the point, displaying images well and kind of fading into the background. I mean, I say "Wow, great images." instead of "Cool, what a great website."
The large size of the images is great - I'm glad the photographer web paranoia seems to be fading. That improvement alone is worth a new site (says the guy with images half that size on his own site...)
The categorization and sequencing seems a bit haphazard. I think it makes sense for the blocks of like images to be together, but the progression between them and some of the more standalone images might be tightened up.
I wonder about the number of images. If you want to show the breadth of your experience, then a lot of images is good, but if you want to make an immediate impact and cause people to query for more, maybe less images would be good.
In some cases, particularly with the landscape format images, it's taking them a couple seconds to load. A status indicator displayed during those seconds would help the user understand something's happening.
For the thumbnails, I'd prefer it if the image would persist, once I've clicked on the image. Now, it disappears, and I have to hunt for it if I want to see a particular image again.
The Contact link seems to do nothing at this time.
The Blog link goes to your blog alright, but once there, no navigation to get back to your site exists. True, the user has his back button on his browser, but it's an (old-school) web no-no. You could solve the problem by including a link to your own website where you link to other photographer blogs.
The title bar always reads "main", regardless of what section I'm browsing.
Hi.
I too really like the new look -- much cleaner, bigger images, all good. Yes, very much more about the images than the website.
But -- I agree that there is a problem with the thumbnails. I was thinking that because they are white (blank), that there was just nothing there/nothing loaded. Eventually I got it, but it may be more of a learning curve (albiet a small one) where busy people won't make the leap. I like that there is nothing distracting from the loaded image, but again, busy people may need more of a cue that there is more, or that there is nothing wrong with their browser. (Which is what I thought for a bit; that my browser didn't load all of the thumbnails or that you just didn't load anything other than one image for your beta.)
Thanks for taking the time for a blog.
I don't know man ... It feels to stark to me. I'm in the process of rebuilding mine as well. Take it from someone who has lived with a clean white website for years - you'll begin to feel as though the images are getting washed out against the bright screen.
I like the look and feel of your old site but I can understand why you'd want to change the gallery set-up.
To do it justice, my opinion would take two one hour meetings. Trust your instincts - they've done you well.
I think you have to show personal work and in progress work.
all the best
Your thumbnail selection is backwards. You should white out the currently selected photograph, and display all of the other thumbnails instead of the reverse.
It is a bit stark, but I kind of like that. It makes for a better focus on the photographs.
would be nice to have a preloader so you don't have to wait to see the first gallery
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