Updated website

kjt

Hey guys and gals,
It's 5.20am and time for bed. I've finally finished coding and uploading my new website. I've redesigned and recoded the website/blog along with putting my whole new portfolio online.

I thought I would pop the site up here and if people have a spare minute during the day, maybe you could check out the site and let me know if there are any issues/your thoughts?

New Photography website

Nap time
Kyle

dazftw

I think you need to put this in your about me section on the site



I think anyone would hire you if they saw that face, you look like the friendliest person ever

For the portfolio section is it portraits, weddings, miscellaneous?

Its very nice anyway. Simple, professional, great photo's and easy to view.

I dunno if its my internet at the moment but the blog part isnt loading up fully. Or is that how you want it?

SinisterDexter

http://www.kyletunneyphotography.com/Portfolio/ - starting from the 5th row down some of the photos have moved slightly right forcing the 4th photo on that row down (I presume it is forced down, I have a 1366 wide screen) and this happens several more times.

Photos on the above page loading in the same tab without a navigation button, back to the portfolio page and/or next photo. Yes I know what the back button is.

Blog loaded fine and fast for me.

How often do you change site layout?

Looks good, the photos always do, good look.

Will

DaireQuinlan

It's kinda busy when you hit the page first. On the first page you have a sort of ABOUT ME bit (the 'photographer, dublin, ireland') followed by another ABOUT ME bit, and then a third ABOUT ME tab. I reckon that's at least one too many about mes. I'd expand the first one on the first page, dump the second one, and put whatever you want to into the more detailed about me tab.

The social media buttons are pretty large and obtrusive.

I think there should be some way of distinguishing which tab you're currently on, highlight, or some styling to make the tab appear part of the page or something, or just redo them so they're links and don't appear as tabs.

hoganpoly

Great work, love the street photography especially the one with the 2 old boys and the muslim guys, great capture.:)

sineadw

Yeah I'd make the social networking buttons and the logo a little smaller too - they're taking up valuable real estate! And if you don't mind me saying, I think the logo is a little fussy? (sorry.. personal taste mind you..)

On your portfolio, which is gorgeous, the first two images almost look like a different crop/conversion of each other? I'd either lose one or move one somewhere else on the screen.

And yeah, I'd lose the About Us section.

Looks really great though!

kelly1

I like the girl in the red dress lying on the rocks beside the sea. Bet she had to lie very still!

Waking-Dreams

Looks fantastic. Great result.

Hugh_C

Sophie S rocks & Love the bathtub image.

What Sinead said - a little too curly for me too.

kjt

Hey hey,
Thanks so much for taking the time to have a look at the site guys. I really appreciate it and take it all on board!!

@dazftw I like your thinking on that image. I also don't want to scare them away from the ginger giant haha! The portfolio is pretty much Portraits, Weddings, Advertising-Travel. The blog was down when you looked at it, I had a 'P' instead of a 'p' within one of the files. Thanks!!

@SinisterDexter/Will Interesting about the images moving. What OS/browser are you using buddy? I've been changing the site every year/two but the last one wasn't ever properly finished, I just never made the time to tweak it.

@DaireQuinlan Thanks for your thoughts!! I see what you're saying on the 'about' bits, some of that is for search engine rankings but also didn't notice how much there is there. I'll look into tweaking it. Do you mind me asking what resolution your screen is at? I only ask as you say the Social links are obtrusive, they must be taking up a large part of your screen? Thanks again!

@sineadw Thanks Sinead, you know I like the truth when it comes to C&C. I shall have a look into the header sizes. Good spot on the 1st two images! Thanks!

@kelly1 Glad you like that shot, she was actually only there for a quick second. She's then imposed from that exact spot onto another capture that is 30-60 seconds long. This kept her tack sharp and without a sore back

@Hugh_C Cheers, Ramie (bathtub bride) was amazing. We tried so many fun things on the day, it's one of my favourite images.

SinisterDexter

FireFox 3.6

Thecageyone

I like it As with any site it could do with a little refining [pointers mentioned above] but it's a great start. I need to overhaul my own at some point.

pearljamfan

nice site, like the logo, and i love the climbing wall photo! where is that??

kjt

Cheers! That's Trinity climbing wall just off Pearse st:

Images & Map

dinneenp

Hi,
Overalll a nice site and great pictures.
. And I've only included my constructive criticisms and not 'I like this'. Just mentioning as I gave feedback to someone else (very detailed) and their only reply was 'is there nothing you like about my site', not even a thanks....

Anyway, some comments similar to previous ones, some not:

homepage has too much going on for my liking.

at the bottom of the page you have 'home, blog, sitemap and contact'. why not include all your pages in you 'main' navigation' links (about, portfolio etc.)

you have a services page but it's hidden- not in the top, bottom navigation or sitemap!

your logo is a bit fussy. could you make the swirly bits lighter that your name. The word photogrpahy gets lost.

for me the linking buttons on top (facebook, twitter etc) are extremelly large. I'd put your 'slideshot' photos where the 4 links are and put the links somewhere else and smaller

In your 'Photographer, Dublin, Ireland' section the following text is very much out of line with the text above it (and should have a ":" or "-" after "more".
Find out more about me & my photography!
very small but this sentence is grammatically wrong, it should have "I'm"
An enthusiastic fresh minded professional photographer from Rathfarnham, Dublin, Ireland.

The four images/links on the rhs of 'about me' might confuse some people. At first I didn't see the 'Intersting Blog Post' link. The text below them is faint, i'd make it a bit stronger. and maybe some divider between that and about me section.

On your blog page 'blog archive & Categories' doens't fit within the button (IE 8)
And the 'search' button is appearing on the text 'New Photography Website – New Portfolio'.
could you possible include a 'categories' link in the rhs of your blog page?

About page:
I'm not mad on the 'if you' part. The text spacing is differnet from above text, the 'I'm the photogrpaher for you' part is very much indented and I'm not mad either on the double !!

Can you include any of the images you created for reebok or other clients?

Just nitpicking but personally I'd put blog and portfolio links next to each other and same for about and contact (as blog and portfolio both relate to images and about and contact both relate to you).

Portfolio page:
why not include a little intor blurb?
also maybe include 'portraits', 'wedding' and 'whatever your last category is' filters.
someone mightn't scroll down and notice you have a wedding photo section.

Cheers,
Pa.

kjt

Hey Pa,
Sorry for only getting back to you now but I didn't want to just say a 'thanks' as you put a lot of time into your reply and I really appreciate it. THANK YOU!!

dinneenp wrote: »

homepage has too much going on for my liking.

at the bottom of the page you have 'home, blog, sitemap and contact'. why not include all your pages in you 'main' navigation' links (about, portfolio etc.)

I don't have everything down there as it's seems a bit more tidy and the main nav covers it well imo..

dinneenp wrote: »

you have a services page but it's hidden- not in the top, bottom navigation or sitemap!

I do have a services page but there shouldn't be any links to it. How did you find it? I'm going to work on the services pages in the future but for the moment they should divert to my main/about page.

dinneenp wrote: »

your logo is a bit fussy. could you make the swirly bits lighter that your name. The word photogrpahy gets lost.

I'm updating my logo at the moment.

dinneenp wrote: »

for me the linking buttons on top (facebook, twitter etc) are extremelly large. I'd put your 'slideshot' photos where the 4 links are and put the links somewhere else and smaller

A few people seem to think this so I'm going to resize them a little when I get a spare minute.

dinneenp wrote: »

The four images/links on the rhs of 'about me' might confuse some people. At first I didn't see the 'Intersting Blog Post' link. The text below them is faint, i'd make it a bit stronger. and maybe some divider between that and about me section.

Taken on board!

dinneenp wrote: »

On your blog page 'blog archive & Categories' doens't fit within the button (IE 8)
And the 'search' button is appearing on the text 'New Photography Website – New Portfolio'.
could you possible include a 'categories' link in the rhs of your blog page?

Thanks for that! I have the categores within the search/archive/category dropdown and prefer it that way.

dinneenp wrote: »

About page:
I'm not mad on the 'if you' part. The text spacing is differnet from above text, the 'I'm the photogrpaher for you' part is very much indented and I'm not mad either on the double !!

Personal preferece I guess? Appreciate your thoughts on it though! (only one exclamation mark there)

dinneenp wrote: »

Portfolio page:
why not include a little intor blurb?
also maybe include 'portraits', 'wedding' and 'whatever your last category is' filters.
someone mightn't scroll down and notice you have a wedding photo section.


Can you include any of the images you created for reebok or other clients?

I plan to update and add some text/titles to the Portfolio page over the next while. I wanted to get something online a few weeks ago so this is a temporary page layout.

dinneenp wrote: »

Just nitpicking but personally I'd put blog and portfolio links next to each other and same for about and contact (as blog and portfolio both relate to images and about and contact both relate to you).

Interesting, I see where you're coming from on that.


Thank so much for your in depth C&C Pa. I really appreciate you taking that amount of time to go through the site!!!

Kyle

magicbastarder

first impressions - the introductory text is a bit cheesy for my liking (i'd lose the 'i'm very creative' line); if you're selling a professional service, a drier style would be better. a more conversational style would be fine in the blog sections, mind. most other comments i'd have have been covered above.

kjt

magicbastarder wrote: »

first impressions - the introductory text is a bit cheesy for my liking (i'd lose the 'i'm very creative' line); if you're selling a professional service, a drier style would be better. a more conversational style would be fine in the blog sections, mind. most other comments i'd have have been covered above.

Cheers Magic! I hear what you're saying & I take it on board but dry/conversational style just isn't me. I want to be myself (on & offline) and if somebody likes the way I come across, their the clients I want to work with.

artyeva

kjt wrote: »

Cheers Magic! I hear what you're saying & I take it on board but dry/conversational style just isn't me. I want to be myself (on & offline) and if somebody likes the way I come across, their the clients I want to work with.

i don't get the irish thing of being afraid to be personable and familiar in your business. especially in something like photography, where you want to make people feel comfortable standing there/smiling/holding babies/dogs/whatever. kyle's got it spot on i think.

magicbastarder

because making statements like 'i love photography!' on a pro photographer website comes across as amateurish and superfluous. IMHO. i'm not saying it's massively off-putting, people will ultimately judge based on the strength of the images; i think it has negative connotations because it's the sort of thing you more usually see on personal rather than business sites.

kjt

Personally I don't agree with you. If I was on the lookout for somebody to redesign my garden, fix my car, do my plumbing, cut my hair - If I knew the person absolutely loved what they do and didn't want to do anything else in the world, if I could see that passion, I'm a million times more likely to use/hire that person. As long as they're as good as somebody who has a boring website with a decent portfolio to go along with it, their passion would sell it to me.

magicbastarder

kjt wrote: »

Personally I don't agree with you. If I was on the lookout for somebody to redesign my garden, fix my car, do my plumbing, cut my hair - If I knew the person absolutely loved what they do and didn't want to do anything else in the world, if I could see that passion, I'm a million times more likely to use/hire that person. As long as they're as good as somebody who has a boring website with a decent portfolio to go along with it, their passion would sell it to me.

as a friend of mine who works in advertising would warn - you're trying to sell your site to yourself. bear in mind that it's people who are *not* you you're trying to sell it to.

artyeva

of course it's all personal preference though. i chose a wedding photographer based not only on their images, but also on the fact that their website was full of little personable touches like that. they screamed exuberance and fun and enthusiasm and when it comes down to it, i'd rather pay someone that's gonna be fun to be around, rather than someone afraid to show a 'lil personality and is all up in my shnizz with business english 101. :cool:

kjt

artyeva wrote: »

of course it's all personal preference though. i chose a wedding photographer based not only on their images, but also on the fact that their website was full of little personable touches like that. they screamed exuberance and fun and enthusiasm and when it comes down to it, i'd rather pay someone that's gonna be fun to be around, rather than someone afraid to show a 'lil personality and is all up in my shnizz with business english 101. :cool:

magicbastarder, This is the exact client I'm selling to!!

tricky D

In addition to what's already noted.

Grey on grey is bad for readability. Contrast is your friend.

Talk more about what you can do for clients as a professional and try to use 'I' less. The text at the bottom of the about page is more like it. That would be better on the homepage with a call to action.

The animated graphic on the homepage is done using Flash. Use jQuery instead, it's much better.

Footer has inconsistent fonts and sizes.

Case studies with prices would be good. Prices are far too important to be omitted, lack of them annoys potential clients. Provide more sales oriented copy.
On your current 404 page http://www.kyletunneyphotography.com/404.html you have link to a clients page way up in the top right corner. When you fill the content for that do add it to the regular navigation.

I would look at grouping the portfolio differently or more explictly into Portraits, Weddings, Advertising-Travel. Consider giving each their own gallery page as large galleries lose effectiveness after a certain number of pix (30 is a very general guideline, depends, can vary wildly).

Make the email address a mailto. Provide a postal address which will help increase trust. Also helps for location based SEO.

Some of the text on the site is in graphics when it is generally better to have text as text.

Make a proper 404 page with your sitemap in it.


magicbastarder is correct. Yourself and artyeva are approaching the site from your own perspectives only (confirmation bias), not a potential clients', who cares a lot more about value and trust than passion and art than you both. Just look at all the wedding tog threads. This not to say that passion, touches, fun, enthusiasm are not important, they are, but they row in behind price, reliability, trust and enough skill, experience and expertise to produce the core goods foremost. It's easily possible to tick all the boxes for these, you just need to find a better balance between all those parameters.

hth and gl

magicbastarder

kjt wrote: »

magicbastarder, This is the exact client I'm selling to!!

you're trying to sell the site to a fellow photographer, so. who understands and shares your passion.
however - your customers, almost by definition, will rarely be photographers. you need to seek feedback from non-photographers.

kjt

Thanks Tricky,
Some super points layed out and I'll take them all on board when putting the final touched to the site.

Thanks again for taking the time to give the site a good once over!!
Kyle

FoxT

Hi there,
I like the site & you have some fantastic photographs there. Your enthusiasm certainly jumps out, and it is clear that you are very good at what you do.

I would suggest the following:

- the site need to be simplified a little, it is too 'busy' and it also seems a little bit slow to load. As others have already said, your facebook, twitter etc., are too prominent. Also, I hate the red bold type. Maybe a typographer could take a look at it and try give it a more focused, approach.

- I am an amateur photog., and from my personal POV it is a lovely site.

-But, if I was a client, how would I feel? Certainly if I was looking for a wedding photographer, a shot of a skinny boy in a gasmask would not really float my boat! The point here - identify the clients you want to attract, and structure the site in such a way that they will get to see what they want, fast. Quick navigation to, say, Commercial & product, travel & fashion, portrait & wedding, and personal image portfolios would work much better IMO.

- I would also formalise the language just a little. From a commercial POV, this reads just a little cheesy..


If you haven't guessed already, I'm Kyle Tunney!
An enthusiastic fresh minded professionalphotographer from Rathfarnham, Dublin, Ireland.


How about

I am Kyle Tunney, a creative & energetic professional photographer based in Dublin, Ireland.
I am available to cover xyz locations for product/wedding/travel/etc assignments.

..or similar. To be fair, your enthusiasm & freshmindedness jumps out from your photos, you don't actually have to spell it out!


In writing this I googled up a few other pro sites, and most of the ones I saw, I would apply many of the above criticisms to. So, some of this is definitely a reflection of my own personal preferences, rather than what is 'wrong'

Finally here is a resource you may find helpful....links to 99 pro photographer sites, all on one page.

http://bit.ly/9Bibbr



Best of luck !
- FoxT

smelltheglove

Just looked at it now.... Im slow on the uptake. Looks really nice, you say the about me was for search rankings and this definitely worked, I have been trying to move up on the search myself and even after spending a bit on adwords I noticed your site came up before mine so what ever you have done, it has worked, you werent too far down, page 4 iirc.

I really dont like the image at the top of the about me section. I really couldnt be bothered searching for it but I love the image of you hanging out the car window would you consider using that? I just think it is a really cool image and suits your personality really well. I think you have the text bang on as in you will most likely attract your kind of people but I would consider removing the waking up at night bit, haha, rang through to me though as I woke last night after a nightmare of my main camera being stolen at a wedding, couldnt sleep after that:o

As Dineep said I would consider portolfio folders, I know my own isnt great if you were to click directly on portfolio so this is something I will need to work on when I get it up and running again later but I find a dedicated folder works well as you are not too constrained in the amount of images you can use and people will go look at the portfolio they are interested in i.e. weddings or sports or whatever. Also the buttons ont he top right are a bit large for my liking but I do like the logo.

Finally on the personability, my take on it, I enjoy work, as you do, I want to keep enjoying work, I don't want to be dealing with the ultimate bridezilla who has a million demands as this is not how I work or relate to people and I am guessing you are the same. My site is desiged to be personable, to attract people of like minded thinking so if Lady Jane looked at my site or your site she may think, oh no this person is too casual in their speech and I have no interest in why they love their work and move on to the next site. Well to me thats a bonus as if my site gives that interpretation to Lady Jane then I am delighted because I havent potentially wasted time trying to book a client that I never would have gotten anyway. Now what I do appreciate is the girls who call me and say wow I love your site, I love your blog, its so sentimental and had me gushing and I think its great you have fun working I want to book you, yes these are the people who I work well with and want to attract.

So bad business sense to me is dry, bland terms that may attract enquiries from 90% of the visitors to your site but upon meeting you book 50% only, good business sense is relateable truthful description on your attitude to your work which may only attract 50% of the visitors to your site but books every single one!

TinyExplosions

I think most of the Criticisms have been covered in the posts above, but I can't help adding my 2c

First would be getting a "landline" number as well as a mobile -it builds confidence in the same way having an address on the site does. Blueface will give you an 01 number for a tenner a month or so, with no line rental (it's all IP based), so you can easily check messages etc on your mobile, or on your PC.

I also think Artyeva and Smelltheglove are correct that having your personality on the site is great -as they've said, if your personality puts off a client, you probably don't want to work for them anyway.... even though you're not selling to yourself, you ARE selling to people like you!