Senior Member
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I'm looking for some feedback about my website. I'm slowly going to be moving into the wedding photography industry (and other types too, but mainly wedding). So if you had some free time and wouldn't mind taking a look and telling me what you think. I'm open to suggestions. I'm especially interested in what women think.
http://www.szajkowski.ca Three quick notes... 1) I plan on licensing some new music, but I don't think it will happen for another month or two. 2) It's not a flash site, unlike most photography sites out there. I'm not a big flash fan, but if everyone thinks that I should go flash I will consider it. 3)I don't care how it looks in IE 6... oh and one more thing, I'm not interested in 'budget brides'... and I don't shoot & burn... Thanks for everyone's help in advance |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Florida
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A big thing though. If your target is budget conscious women, you're going to want to care what it looks like in IE6. The worst thing you want is a potential client who looks at your site and turns off because it looks poorly in their browser. This is all done in Safari 3 on Mac with a window width of (about) 1024. The pictures in your portfolio are pretty nice. Are they from actual weddings or just to beef up the portfolio? |
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Senior Member
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My target is not budget brides... Some pictures are from real weddings... and some are models.
I will see what I can do to get things looking nicer on a low res monitor... (scroll bars that is)... I guess that's the one bad thing about using my 17" MBP for editing... |
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Veteran Member
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Colours - Too dark for a wedding. Looks like you are selling halloween merchandise.
Splash pages are just a pain in the ass, and aren't common anymore. The warning note about browsers- this isn't 1997, you have to be standards compliant. I know you may have a beef with IE6, but you aren't winning customers by not supporting a browser used by a quarter of internet users (and probably many more among your target) The background a repeating wallpaper in mine, please no. The tables or whatever are borked, and like jdcfsu said, scroll bars are everywhere - and I don't believe its because of screen size, it only seems to be in that top left corner. Oh and please don't have musak playing in your websites. Takes too long to load, and if I want music I'll choose it. That said, the photographs are nice. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Florida
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Senior Member
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I like it darker... but I hear what your saying... any suggestion for another colour?
It seems that most photography sites have a splash page... I can get rid of it... The navigation, I will look into... html isn't my strong point... Would a pain solid colour background look nicer? rather then the 1 image in the centre of the two frames? I believe I can set the music not to auto play, but again it's not the common thing to do (on photography sites)... The new songs will most likely be from this collection |
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Senior Member
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If it helps I'm going after the $3000 plus market... |
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¡Damned!
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
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1) Well, it's not very well designed, but I can look past that. I'm not looking for a designer, right?
1a) Blue hyperlinks on a black background is awful. 2) Auto-play music = me closing your website. Forever. 3) I'm not sure what you mean by "budget brides." Are you meaning you won't go under a certain price? Do they have to have a "look" for you to accept them as clientele? None of the women I've seen in the wedding shots are especially good looking...and certainly not models...so I'm wondering where you're drawing this line. 4) I'm a dick. 5) I don't think you should have equal focus on website and blog on your main page. A simple blog link on each page would suffice. 5a) Speaking of that, you could lose you main page all together. It's really unnecessary if you lose the blog link. I'm not sure how I feel about the browser specs. That seems a bit old-school nowadays, but on the other side of that coin I actually met a person today that still uses Internet Explorer. Seriously. So maybe it's not a bad idea to have that somewhere. 6) The photo pop-ups with the navigation on the bottom are super. I like that a bunch. 7) All in all it's not a bad site, but it doesn't make me reach for my checkbook. If you're so against shooting "budget gigs" you shouldn't have something that looks like a "budget website" either. So it goes. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: Florida
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Hum, well if that's your target you're going to really need something to wow them. I'm not sure if that's flash, but something to let yourself stand out from the rest and show that you're worth their money. Your pictures are really all that matter, but presenting them in a way that shows the client it's alright spending the $3000+.
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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If you want this to be a professional front for you business, you should. Just because you're a cutting-edge hipster doesn't mean the people in your target demographic are. Quite the the contrary, I would expect the opposite because I would think because you're catering to general public, most of which use Windows and don't care about the recent browser wars. "Budget-conscious brides" aren't the only people still using IE6. The white-collar money-makers in big businesses still use IE6; keep that in mind. Now, my initial reactions before reading everyone else's here...
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The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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Also, I'm moving this over to the Programmer's Nook.
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Melbourne
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I agree with the Halloween thing and the font in your logo makes it look like photography for children... not the right feel at all...
If you don't get rid of the splash page at least don't make it one that you have to scroll... Rich people aren't necessarily smart enough to not be using IE... remember that 70% of internet users still use it... Frames are a bit of a throwback to the 90s, I think they just look cheap, to be honest. No favicon? When I hover over Portfolio I get a scrollbar on the frame Another vote for no music, this is not a Myspace |
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Senior Member
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What would be the best way to avoid using frames, while getting a similar result? Having navigation separate from the content... Also I will change the music so it won't auto start, but is there a way without using frames to have it play while browsing around?
I'm going to try and make some of these changes, over the next little while... The other alternative would be to use something like bludomain, but it's flash... but i'd rather not. ----- The slash page is no more, also the music does not auto start... ----- The logo on the left frame is now gone... |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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Addendum:
The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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Note, however, that "position: fixed" is not supported by IE6 and is only supported in Strict Mode in IE7. Also, use of "position: fixed" is a bit of a rarity for navigation. Most sites simply have a navigation menu affixed along the top or left border, allowing it to scroll out of the way like normal content. On most pages, the user won't be (or shouldn't have to be) scrolling anyhow; so, allowing it to move isn't a problem. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Senior Member
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There would be two things that I would want.
1) To make it easy to get to another page 2) To keep all links in one file, so any changes would only need to be made once. |
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Selfish Heathen
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Zone of Pain
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In PHP, which virtually every shared hosting server has installed these days, such a feat can be achieved as simply as putting the menu's HTML in a separate file (let's call it "navigation.html") and including this on the pages where you want the menu to show up: [php]<?php include('navigation.html'); ?>[/php] Of course, there are lots of other server-side scripting languages to choose from. I only mention PHP because it is ubiquitous and easy to learn since there are millions of tutorials and sites that use it. The quality of this board depends on the quality of the posts. The only way to guarantee thoughtful, informative discussion is to write thoughtful, informative posts. AppleNova is not a real-time chat forum. You have time to compose messages and edit them before and after posting. |
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
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After visiting the site (four times) and after reading and agreeing with the overall majority of the comments here: why not hire a webdesigner/service that could make you a nice website, seeing that you'd like to cater for the $3000+ market?
EDIT: I'll try to answer my own question: It's probably not easy starting off into a new business like that. But maybe you have a friend that could help you design a site for you? Last edited by digitalprimate : 2008-07-06 at 23:22. |
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Senior Member
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Well I could do that... the most popular would be something like bludomain but it would be all flash... at the same time it would be cheap... it's either $100 or $400 for one of there flash websites...
I think that maybe in a year or so, it might make sense to hire a graphic/web designer... and put some real money behind this. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: Portlandia
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Yeah, that script type on your home page looks cheap and amateur. I'd lose it quickly. If you wouldn't see the typeface on a wedding invitation, it doesn't belong on your website. Same goes for colors and images/graphics.
Try any of these instead: Corinthia Wendy Std Monet If you're gonna do wedding photography as your focus, don't put non-wedding photographs on your site. I wouldn't pay $3k+ to a photographer that looks like they're hedging their bets with other photos. Also, the wedding shots you've chosen don't really tell the story of a wedding day. Mostly it looks like you've pulled aside friends at weddings and taken shots of them, nice shots, but still. Show some ceremony shots, reception shots, before and after event stuff, getting ready, etc. I would also cut down the number of photos, just show your top 12-15. Or at least don't put up so many shots from a single job. Again, it makes you look like you haven't done as much work, if you're showing so much from one job. Brad and the others can tell you how to make the HTML/CSS dance. "What a computer is to me is it's the most remarkable tool that we've ever come up with, and it's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds." - Steve Jobs |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: Melbourne
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The BluDomain ones look pretty good. Go for one of the $100 ones (they actually look simpler and thus more elegant and lose the music. If your time is worth $30 an hour and your saving yourself 4 hours of work and achieving a better result it's money very well spent!
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Wow. Is it still 1998?
Seriously, everything Brad said. |
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Senior Member
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I'm going to try and implement most of the things everyone has said... during the next week or two...
When I said I would wait about a year before getting a web/graphic designer, it's because I figure I would spend about $2000. But I could do $300 or $400 now. Could I get something good made for around that price? And if so any recommendations? |
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Veteran Member
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With wedding sites, trust me, keep it very simple, and with pastel, girly colours. Easy on the eyes and all the information easy to navigate. When you are looking at lots of sites to compare photographers (or whatever), you are not going to dilly dally trying to find stuff, you are going to move straight on.
Even if you make it with simple HTML, it will be completely browser compliant, quick to load, and readable. Add in your simple logo (in PNG obviously) at the top, and you have a nice simple site. |
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BANNED
I am worthless beyond hope. Join Date: May 2006
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This thread provided some good comedy. Thumbs up all around.
As for the feedback, I don't have much to add aside from the idea that clean, simple web sites are the way to go. How Flash and its godforsaken "please wait while the web site is loading" nonsense became ubiquitous is beyond me. |
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Antimatter Man
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
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</nods> Quote:
Seriously, almost everything those dudes said. Although to be fair, most wedding invites don't always choose web-friendly or accessible fonts. Late to the party, but my first impressions of the current design (warning: no punches pulled):
Things you can do:
<offtopicbutcurious> Pronunciation of szajkowski?¿ I'm guessing there's a silent letter or two in there? </offtopicbutcurious> All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand. Last edited by curiousuburb : 2008-07-07 at 20:50. |
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Veteran Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
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Just my two penneth. |
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25 chars of wasted space.
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All of what they said about the website are great idea, listen to them.
Take what I say with a grain of salt because I am elitist, worked in a professional photography studio for 4 years (part-time) and think I know it all, but genuinely want to try and help you. First I'll show me being an ass and say I think that at least the posing, composure, or lighting is off in almost all of your pictures. They aren't bad, and I have high standards but I think it is important that I first state this so the following hits home a little more. <-- maybe this isn't true, I was specifically looking just at your wedding pictures at the time, you do better with less formal Show the best, not everything. You don't have to show 79 pictures when 10 great ones will wow them a lot more. Especially when some of them are just downright not good (why are her earrings the focus of this picture? awkward positioning! awkward, unflattering, and too warm!). <redacted because I'm worried about being too much of a pompous prick> At least as far as lighting (to some extent) and temperature go, shoot in RAW so you can correct later if you don't have the time, skill, or equipment to do these things on the spot. Which is another benefit to having only 10 great pictures or so. You can retouch them to not only correct lighting but make the people beautiful. Really wow them as much as possible with a few pictures you show on your website. Like something as simple as this image you are showing. There are other neater shots that are more interesting and more vibrant which aren't wedding stuff but I'll stick to this because so far I've just been talking about weddings. She is relatively pretty, and while I don't completely dig the angle, that is personal preference I guess. BUT, she is completely over powered by her background. She is not only in a photo, she is the bride, the shining girl on a special day. Kill the vibrance of the background, punch up hers a little bit without blowing out her dress. It'll make this picture 'pop' a lot more for the right reasons. I know you can't retouch/correct all your pictures and that isn't how weddings go, but take good shots, give them what they want, but pick a couple to send through post production (or give them the option) and really knock a few out of the park so they are wowed and have a great memory caused by a few snapshots. Maybe less likely at $3k, but if that is your starting price it should be doable. All that said, some of your pictures are good, and others really have potential to be great. |
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Senior Member
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Okay time for an update...
I've ask for some help from one of friends... He's come up with a proof. Let me know what you guys think... |
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Veteran Member
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Much better. Please use a more romantic, curvy, clear font if possible.
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