New Website (C&C Welcome)

Waking-Dreams

Long time reader of this photography forum, first time poster.

Some of you guys have some stunning shots. Here's a personal website I've been adding to in the last year:

www.wakingdreamsphotography.com

Be gentle.

AnCatDubh

and brave enough to post at 11:30 on a Saturday night too

I've had a quick look and some really nice photographs there - certainly to be proud of. A suggestion now that you're no longer lurking - come out of the photographic darkroom so to speak, is to post an occasional one into the random thread, or if there is something in particular, then post up for C&C.

The web site itself is ok but personally I think the aesthetics are a bit fussy and over the top - hey, each to their own on that one. Upper banner is complicated imho and takes up a lot of screen real estate.

I think you need to clarify for yourself the difference between your portfolio and gallery - it may be ok the way it is currently constructed but coming to it cold i'm seeing duplicates in there and wondering why ie. why something in your portfolio is also in a general gallery. Overall I think that aspect is confusing. Perhaps have only one and call it a portfolio or a gallery.

I'm not gone on the outer page background - blue and dark. It's not saying anything to me about photography. For the inner page, I personally feel that there are too many boxes.

Again personally speaking, I think simplistic design is best for a photography related site - particularly a personal photography site which the site purports to be. A single plain background seems to work best on what i've seen about the web - plain black or plain white.

The home page has a lot of text. I think when people come across a photographers site whether randomly or with purpose they don't want to read lots - they want to see. I'd suggest to have you best / strongest image as the landing point and work out from there. People will find out all about you in your 'about' page but they will click there if they wish to find out more.

All the above is a personal perspective and could be completely wrong It's easy to be a critic. Others may like areas that I dislike and I think you've got to be measured in your interpretation of anything that would be posted.

Good luck with it and I look forward to seeing more of your work around here.

Cheers.

Tallon

Waking-Dreams wrote: »

Long time reader of this photography forum, first time poster.

Some of you guys have some stunning shots. Here's a personal website I've been adding to in the last year:

www.wakingdreamsphotography.com

Be gentle.

I like it, good job

Gambler

I have to say the website itself is just too fussy for me.. Between the blue, the red and the textures it all just distracts too much from the pictures themselves for my taste.

Once I ignored "the shell" and spent some time looking at the pictures I found some really nice stuff but if I'd stumbled across the site instead of following a link here I wouldn't have looked too deep into the site.

Maybe try a plainer template with more muted colours so that the pictures themselves can take centre stage?

anoble66

I agree with the above, in that the red, blue and black is very distracting. I also think you might need to trim down the "about" page, when someone sees that amount of text they will generally just hit the back button. Maybe cut it down to 10 lines or so.

You should also sign up to Paypal, you can then add the paypal "buy now" button to your website, they will be the merchant for your payments including credit cards etc.

good luck with it.

mehfesto2

I like the website - nicely done.
But I do think that that particular shade of red is doing it no favours.

Everyone seems to be using whites, blacks, greys and toned down colours on fotosites these days - give more focus on the pictures, I guess! But otherwise a solid job!

jebuz

Nice site - congrats, but some quick points

- Don't navigate away from the page when the user clicks an image, open in the same window and offer the options 'next/previous' and 'back to 'gallery/portfolio'
- Agree with point above, best image on the landing page, get it out there straight away
- I would be a little concerned with the techonologies you have used for this site, don't mean to be harsh but it's a little old fashioned. You have gone with plain html coding which is very limited in terms of user interation and future expansion of the site.

Unless you are generating the HTML pages automatically for each snap, it might prove tedious when adding new images or redesigning some features. Noticed you are selling the images too, users will be more inclined to buy when they are presented with a professional site that can guarantee a safe transaction.

Maybe you don't have the resources right now but it would be something to look into in the future (when you get famous ) you might end up shelling out a few bob but once the work is done you should be able to seamlessly add new images, allow user comments and other interaction, perhaps ability to use a rich javascript library to display the full size image more impressivly without having to navigate away from the page.

All these factors enable your visitors to really enjoy the experience and stick around to browse your portfolio - hopefully that would result in more exposure and possibly a few sales for you.

By the way, I did have a look, some beautiful work in there, look forward to seeing some more.

Good luck!

Waking-Dreams

and brave enough to post at 11:30 on a Saturday night too

I'm in Vancouver, Canada, so 'tis more like a Saturday afternoon for me.

Some good feedback guys, thank you for taking the time out to do so.

It's a work in progress of course, and still in the early stages of development. That background will have to go I guess and I'll be putting the strongest image first as suggested, but other than that I'm very happy with it and wouldn't change a thing.

Cheers guys!

dinneenp

HI,
Nice pictures but here's a lot of constructive criticism.....
1.I don't like the heading font (looks cheap)or the loud red.
"A personal photography website" - don't really get this....

2.Why do you need the url in large letters under the title? The title/header is too big for me- it pushs everything else down so some users might have to scroll to view portrait images.

3.Too much text on the home page- it should give me a brief intro and tell me what site is etc. Not an essay

4.You have the copyright 2008-2009...at the end of the page so no need to have it on the top as well, it just takes your eye away from the images. Why is it so big at the end of the page anyway- should be more subtle.

5.About page-
*why not put an image of you in there.
*There's too much text.
*Personally I wouldn't say "In many ways, photography is still a fairly new game to me." if I was selling pictures as well....
*On each photo page you mention what camera, settings used but in your about page you don't mention your camera make/model- why not?

6.Portfolio-
* if I click on an image it opens in a new window- why? If a user wants to view a lot of images then it's a lot of new windows open, which is annoying.
* If I hover over an image the title of the image should be shown, this is simple to do.... Same thing when on actual page for a image.

7. Gallery-
*there's three pages (1,2,3) but nothing to highlight which page I'm on. If I'm on page 2 then it should be bold or itallic....
* I don't like the layout of the galleries- it's not simple or intuitive.
* Some galleries have the same title "Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada". People might wonder why these aren't in the same gallery. You could break galleries up into categories- architecture, people, nature etc.

8. Purchase-
*if you can't sell pictures at present why do you have the page up? OR at the least put in a line saying 'contact me if you wish to purchase and I will reply when possible...' with e-mail link there.

* "At present I am unable to offer any prints until I return to Ireland this summer but I will upload some samples as soon they are ready" isn't professional.
* What samples are you going to upload? Can't people see from the images on your website? Unless you mean boardered photos?

9.Contact- just add a line "your e-mail address will not be passed onto 3rd parties, blah, blah etc"
10. Links-
* ???? These look more like ads! You need to add a few words about what the links are, otherwise why would somebody click on your link?
*Why only two links (that look like the same band?) Do you not have any photo sites, inspirations etc. that you want to mention?

Good luck with it,
Pa.

Waking-Dreams

*there's three pages (1,2,3) but nothing to highlight which page I'm on.

Great pointer, thank you. I didn't give that much thought at all but as the gallery grows it would make complete sense.

* "At present I am unable to offer any prints until I return to Ireland this summer but I will upload some samples as soon they are ready" isn't professional.
* What samples are you going to upload? Can't people see from the images on your website? Unless you mean boardered photos?

Yes, I mean samples of photos in frames. 'Tis a work in progress still. That's why I'm looking for some feedback from other photographers first.

*Personally I wouldn't say "In many ways, photography is still a fairly new game to me." if I was selling pictures as well....

I did think about this beforehand, but honestly, I'm not going to pretend I'm somehow "better" or more experienced than I am just to give off a false sense of professionalism (I'd have thought a picture would speak for itself, not how many years I've been doing it, etc). Whether a band has been playing 1 year or 10 won't influence whether I want to purchase their wares; it's down to the actual quality of the "product", no? Well, that's the way my mind sees it.

And while the pics will become available for sale (because if someone wanted to buy one, they have that option), I don't have any big plans about a future career in this field. I take photos mainly for recreation but, heck, why limit myself by making them unavailable?

Anyways, I really do appreciate your in-depth critque. It's all subjective at the end of the day, but already I've made three changes to it for the better thanks to some of the people on this board (yourself included).

gary82

Hey, firstly welcome out of the shadows of boards!

I had a look through the site and some excellent images! Looking forward to seeing more of your work on here!

As for the website structure I do have a few pointers. I do a bit of web design myself and may be going into it more full-time soon. After you've worked on a site for some time some comments may seem harsh but it's all constructive criticism and will improve your web design skills!

• You need to simplify your design. It actually takes a lot more work to make a site look basic but especially in a photographic site you don't want any distractions from the content. (My first ever site had everything from scrolling text and roll-over images to a gecko randomly crawling over theh page! awful stuff! :rolleyes:)
  • The first thing I'd do to simplify the page would be remove most of those borders.
  • The red background is very distracting, I'd rather let the photos add the colour to this site.
  • The title image is too big and complicated.
    • You don't need the web address on it - if people are looking at it they already know the address. If you want to keep it I'd make it much smaller.
  • I'd remove the initial page that you have to click through... that's a feature that used to be quite common but has been mostly phased out now from sites.

Here's a very quick mock-up I did of a simplified version of the site... I removed most of the borders and those I left, I made more subtle...

CLICK for full version:

• Not sure what's with the links page, they paying for advertising? I'd generally stick to a text list of links which users would be interested in viewing. It's not a necessary page either so if you don't have pages to share, cut it out.
• The About page is too much of a block of text. I wouldn't necessarily cut it down, but break it up with a few images of yourself in action and the text wrapping around them.
• Having both "Gallery" and "Portfolio" seems distracting. I'd go with one or the other, and use the set of photos in your portfolio as some form of "Best of" or "Favorites" which comes up first.
• Contact Page
  • Is the mailing list form working? If so I'd land on a "Thank you for joining the mailing list..." page after filling it out, instead of jumping back to the mainpage.
• For the gallery/portfolio pages I'd definately use some form of lytebox script integration. This is free and very easy to integrate into the site.
  • At the moment each large image is opening in a new page with is very annoying. If you don't choose the lytebox option then I'd stop the linking to new pages (by removing target="_blank" from the link).
    
• When you do want to get the Purchase page working - PayPal will be your easiest option. They have wizzards for setting the price etc and they'll generate the button script to use on the site.
  
• Finally, jebuz gave you a warning about using plain html. He speaks the truth. I wouldn't worry too much about it but maybe give some PHP a go. With that you can even do simple things like have the header and footer parts as different files, then include them as you need them. Plenty of tutorials available via google. So if there's anything you want to do, or have seen on another site, then google it until you find a solution... best way to keep learning!

Drop me a message if I can be of help with the above.

Waking-Dreams

I was a bit puzzled as to all the red background comments until I looked at the site on a different computer. Wow! That's horendous. I can't beleive the difference between my laptop and other computers.

I'm on tour in Canada right now (but when I get back to Ireland I'll be giving it a decent overhaul). So glad I posted it here for some C&C beforehand.

So all around, decent photos, very questionable layout? :P Least it's not the other way around.

THANK YOU FOR ALL THE FEEDBACK

*Not sure what's with the links page, they paying for advertising?*

That's just the band I play in.