Your images are good and the general site layout is good. But the text reads a little bit too intense, as if you are trying a bit to hard to convince people. I think you could ease back a bit on that.
You only get married once
Actually, some people get married more than once.:D
As Denise (always a reliable commentator) said, I'd drop the personal stuff about family. It doesn't sound very professional. If clients call you then yes you can reassure them verbally that you a good regular family guy, but I wouldn't state it on the site.
I started in photography as a hobby over a decade ago. The more I've spent with a camera, the more I realize that it’s what I love doing and it's gradually turned into a career that I love.
No need to tell them that - they can make their own minds up, and they may decide something else that is even better?
'weber county' should be 'Weber County'?
What is LDS? Does it mean anything to people there?
The first and main thing that struck me about your site was the single opening shot of baseball - obviously. I waited for it to change and it didn't - not being a huge baseball fan and seeing this was not a pro level game I left your site. Done…
After reading another forum comment or two I decided to take another look at your site thinking maybe I didn't wait long enough for the image to change. I waited it still didn't change. I took the plunge, because it is a good baseball shot, and selected something else in one of your menus. Low and behold there are a lot of good pictures in here that are not baseball related!
So without rambling on I think you get the point. You barely kept my attention with the baseball shot, but there is plenty other stuff on your pages that would have held me instantly. I'd show some of it up front.
Second, the whole Paul~Pablo thing is confusing. Are you both? Is it your son? Brother? Father?
Nice work, glad I saw it. I'll be going back for a more thorough look see.
For this one I use "Copy of Ludwig" template, quite easy to setup.It's not finished yet, I've a few things to do on it , if you've any critiques or advices, please let me know.
Regards
Eric,
A lot of great work here. If I might make one simple suggestion and I don't mean to be critical at all… 'Less is More.'
You have so many HDR images I looked at fewer than I probably would have purely because of volume. I probably missed many of the best ones as well. The traditional Smugmug gallery style is good for huge volumes of work. But the intensity of your HDR images for example are so similar in small scale that the format becomes a bit overwhelming and they all kinda look the same ~ very generally speaking.
I think the journal style of gallery might be more advantageous to the huge volume of images you are showing. That way the viewer can actually see the image as they scroll through. Another benefit might be that the viewer doesn't know how many are to come and continue looking. Verses seeing six page of HDR images ahead and quickly scrolling through the pages picking a couple random images to look at. Which is what I did.
Anyway, a LOT of surprisingly good work - beautiful actually, and of an area I've often heard of and never experienced; the French Riviera. Textures, portraits, panoramas and Macro stuff is all great stuff.
I did leave with the feeling that I didn't see your best HDR stuff though.
I'm new on smugmug, this forum is very helpful for customization !
Here is mine : http://slegars.smugmug.com
Advices are welcome !
Thanks
Hi Slegars.
You didn't specify any unique pricing!
Out of curiosity, seeing all your pictures were for sale, I looked at the shopping cart and was surprised to see that I could buy a beautiful abstract of the forest for only 0.21¢!
Perhaps you are a generous person… but I might consider disabling the purchasing option until you are ready with more professional pricing.
I like your pictures but felt the site required a lot of work… going back and forth for three pictures like the way your landscapes are set up.
A simple showcase; no messaging, no bells, no whistles.
This latest iteration of www.jlsPics.com makes it that much easier for those who follow my photography to see what's new… while maintaining easy access to what's old. Well, more or less.
Hoping you enjoy the site, the photos, the video!
JLS
Beautiful Pictures JLS.
Since you have all the Gabby pics in the Gabby gallery(s) I would tighten up (edit) the images on your main page… For example, the shot of Gabby washing the car looking out from the garage is so strong you don't need the additional pictures of her and mom outside - on your FRONT PAGE. The 'garage' image makes for a much stronger showing by itself than it does with the others. Same for the upper Gabby pics.
The painful lesson for us all… 'Less is more' will make your stunning front page even stronger than it already is. Especially when we can see all the additional images in galleries if we want to. You're not removing them from the site, just making a stronger presentation up front.
A simple showcase; no messaging, no bells, no whistles.
This latest iteration of www.jlsPics.com makes it that much easier for those who follow my photography to see what's new… while maintaining easy access to what's old. Well, more or less.
Just looked quickly and wanted to let you know I like the general look of the site.
A couple simple recommendations might be to combine your best bride portraits into one gallery. I'd rather see three images of Tyler mixed in with the others rather than 11 of Tyler and then 10 of Shailey etc. One gallery showing all these beautiful women and the variety of images you make seems more advantageous than bouncing back and forth to an individual gallery of each of them.
Also, when showing the complete weddings I don't really feel a need or desire to see every good frame… show me the absolute best. Any more and I get bored and move on. These huge galleries showing multiple shots of the same scene (honestly I only looked at two wedding galleries because it was too much…) are for the wedding party - not us viewers that want to be 'wow'ed by your work.
Again, perhaps combining the absolute cream of the crop into one wedding gallery will be much more effective than showing thousands of pictures that nobody is going to look at other than the people involved. It's just too much.
Hightlighting ONE or two weddings to show coverage is customary, but again, edit tight and strong. Pick one shot of each scene with a maximum of 25-30 images showing the entire event. 'Less is More.'
Any client that is interested and wants to see an entire job will contact you and then you can send a link or have them come by the studio for a look.
Your best images are totally lost in here, and that's a shame because you're doing strong work.
Out of curiosity, seeing all your pictures were for sale, I looked at the shopping cart and was surprised to see that I could buy a beautiful abstract of the forest for only 0.21¢!
Perhaps you are a generous person… but I might consider disabling the purchasing option until you are ready with more professional pricing.
I like your pictures but felt the site required a lot of work… going back and forth for three pictures like the way your landscapes are set
Dennis
thank you, I disabled purchases. Sales are not my priority, I must first produce content
Hello world! There are still a few bugs I need to clean up, but love to hear what everyone thinks: http://www.visionsbybaker.com/
Thanks
Another Worcester Photographer!
Here are my thoughts:
-The color combination/background/blue text of your site is certainly making it look very dated. Your work is good but your site is so distracting that it isn't giving the pictures a chance. The pictures should be the star, not the background. I hope you consider a plain, simple background.
-Your directions page is certainly thorough, but by the bottom of the page the directions are out of order due to the different amount of text. Also, the pictures are the only way of finding you! If you want to keep the turn-by-turn directions, you at least need to have an address and map link at the top for everyone else.
-In your about page, the text at the top is written in the first person and the text at the bottom is in the third person.
Need your feedback
I think I am done with my site creation with new smugmug. Though I am using it for a long time, but I was not sure about the design. Finally,. I have felling that I will stop here.
Please let me know how you feel about this design. Please let me know if you there is some obvious scope of improvement, I will do that with you guys help.
Only horizontal scroll bar is disturbing to me, not sure how to deal with that.
I think I am done with my site creation with new smugmug. Though I am using it for a long time, but I was not sure about the design. Finally,. I have felling that I will stop here.
Please let me know how you feel about this design. Please let me know if you there is some obvious scope of improvement, I will do that with you guys help.
Only horizontal scroll bar is disturbing to me, not sure how to deal with that.
Your work is great and the site design is excellent and I would not change anything EXCEPT... From your site I am assuming that:
1. English is not your first language
2. You are located and shooting in the US
I think you should have someone sit down and help you to go through all the text to correct the grammar and semantics.
ALSO, your header is not scaling correctly. On my big monitor it is fine, but as I make the screen smaller the links in the header go off the screen. It looks like you have the header links attached to the left side of the screen and padded instead of attached to the right side.
jarboedoggart, thank you - appreciate your feedback, it is really helpful. I agree with your 1st point, I have trouble with English and working on it and now after your feedback I will look at it seriously.
For point 2, it could be a bug from Smugmug site or I don't know what it is. Even, it is behaving the same way in my screen too when I downsizing the screen, but it settle down after a refresh, it is adjusting as needed.
Do you know if any special setting I need to do for this?
jarboedoggart, thank you - appreciate your feedback, it is really helpful. I agree with your 1st point, I have trouble with English and working on it and now after your feedback I will look at it seriously.
For point 2, it could be a bug from Smugmug site or I don't know what it is. Even, it is behaving the same way in my screen too when I downsizing the screen, but it settle down after a refresh, it is adjusting as needed.
Do you know if any special setting I need to do for this?
Thanks,
Sudarshan
I am really not great with the technical stuff, everyone here has been a huge help for me. If you make a thread in the support section I am sure you will have an answer quickly.
Following on from my previous post a few pages back; I have had a total revamp of my site; including a new logo.
The final changes were made to the shopping cart today, with all credit going to Leftquark and Hiking Mike for their great work and sharing the css codes. Not forgetting all of the others that so willingly share their knowledge (Allen, Denise, Lamah etc.)
I am open to suggestions if anyone can point out any issues with the design / layout or ease of use of the site.
Following on from my previous post a few pages back; I have had a total revamp of my site; including a new logo.
The final changes were made to the shopping cart today, with all credit going to Leftquark and Hiking Mike for their great work and sharing the css codes. Not forgetting all of the others that so willingly share their knowledge (Allen, Denise, Lamah etc.)
I am open to suggestions if anyone can point out any issues with the design / layout or ease of use of the site.
Thanks in advance
Robin
Looks pretty good! You've got some nice fleshed out content on there that makes the site worth exploring.
I only noticed a couple of things which stood out for me.
- Social Media icons box. maybe change the color or get rid of the grey box around the icons. It has a dated look.
- Some individual galleries feel a little disjointed with the spacing alignment between things like the gallery heading, slideshow button, thumbnails and preview image. Maybe just tighten up the placement of things a bit.
- Blog page. Personally I would change the font alignment to 'left' rather than 'center' on some of your entries.
Looks pretty good! You've got some nice fleshed out content on there that makes the site worth exploring.
I only noticed a couple of things which stood out for me.
- Social Media icons box. maybe change the color or get rid of the grey box around the icons. It has a dated look.
- Some individual galleries feel a little disjointed with the spacing alignment between things like the gallery heading, slideshow button, thumbnails and preview image. Maybe just tighten up the placement of things a bit.
- Blog page. Personally I would change the font alignment to 'left' rather than 'center' on some of your entries.
Shinrya, Thank you for the reply.
I will have a play around with the social icon box and see if it looks better without it or a different colour.
I will see what I can do to tighten things up in the galleries; it's not something I noticed until you pointed it out.
As for the centring of text on the blog, this is something that I have recently read about on a various forums and that centring should be used sparingly. SomI agree with you and will start adjusting them to left align.
Thanks again for the constructive criticism..... It always allows us to see things differently.
Looks pretty good! You've got some nice fleshed out content on there that makes the site worth exploring.
I only noticed a couple of things which stood out for me.
- Social Media icons box. maybe change the color or get rid of the grey box around the icons. It has a dated look.
- Some individual galleries feel a little disjointed with the spacing alignment between things like the gallery heading, slideshow button, thumbnails and preview image. Maybe just tighten up the placement of things a bit.
- Blog page. Personally I would change the font alignment to 'left' rather than 'center' on some of your entries.
I just wanted to say this - what a beautiful site Shinrya! Kudos.
After years of taking photographs and doing very little with them I thought I should start to share them and get some prints made. I would be grateful for any feedback good and bad
After years of taking photographs and doing very little with them I thought I should start to share them and get some prints made. I would be grateful for any feedback good and bad
I think your site is beautiful and I love the frames. I would like to see a zoom effect on the photos. They look so much like windows, I could imagine the subject coming towards me would be like walking to the window.
My new site http://vivpix.smugmug.com/
It's taken some learning but I've finally made the switch to new SmugMug and I like it so much more than old SmugMug. Here it is, I am open to any suggestions... http://vivpix.smugmug.com/
I think your site is beautiful and I love the frames. I would like to see a zoom effect on the photos. They look so much like windows, I could imagine the subject coming towards me would be like walking to the window.
Thank you for your kind comment. I will have a think about how this could be done.
It's taken some learning but I've finally made the switch to new SmugMug and I like it so much more than old SmugMug. Here it is, I am open to any suggestions... http://vivpix.smugmug.com/
Thanks all!
xo,
Vivian
I like it Vivian - a nice easy site to follow.
My only thought is that you could possibly do something with your main image on your home page, something that would really sell your site, as opposed to an image of yourself holding a camera.
Thank you for your kind comment. I will have a think about how this could be done.
Christian.
I am not sure how to do it either, you could post a new thread asking for the code.
This is one example, except it is a full-screen zoom: http://www.southeasternphotography.com/
copyright/terms of use
does anyone have a paragraph on their website that explains the copyright info for pics that they wouldn't mind sharing? at one point there was a paragraph explaining the different prints from matte, to lustre so if anyone has a paragraph explaining the difference b/w those please share!
I did most of this the day the new customization came out. I just haven't posted it here until now.
2014 Travel Photographer of the Year, Society of American Travel Writers
2013 & 2015 Travel Photographer of the Year, North American Travel Journalists Association
I did most of this the day the new customization came out. I just haven't posted it here until now.
You do have a serious security issue. In all of the galleries I looked at, you have "Originals" set as the maximum viewing size. This allows anyone to download your high resolution, original files without buying them.
Not that it makes much difference to an experienced user, but you also have not disabled right click ... so you are making it even more convenient for people to take your images.
In gallery settings, you need to set the maximum viewing size to anything LESS than Original. I set mine to XL to reduce screen capture quality. I'd suggest you enable "right click protection" to at least highlight that they are your photos and they shouldn't be taken.
Whether you add a watermark is entirely up to you. Some people hate them with a passion, others see them as a necessary deterrent.
My opinion does not necessarily make it true. What you do with my opinion is entirely up to you. www.acecootephotography.com
The entry to your site looks good and pulls me in. Unfortunately as soon as I click on a folder I see a presentation of folders and galleries with a gray haze over the images representing that folder / gallery. No colors means my eyes aren't pulled in and I'm not interested in clicking further.
You have two menu bar items that open new browser windows or tabs. That is a trigger to me to close the site. If I want to open something in a new tab I will specify that myself.
I second AceCo55's recommendation to not allow access to the Original-sized images. I don't think the right click protection buys you much since it is well documented how to grab images from the browser cache. That's personal preference though.
Comments
Your images are good and the general site layout is good. But the text reads a little bit too intense, as if you are trying a bit to hard to convince people. I think you could ease back a bit on that.
Actually, some people get married more than once.:D
As Denise (always a reliable commentator) said, I'd drop the personal stuff about family. It doesn't sound very professional. If clients call you then yes you can reassure them verbally that you a good regular family guy, but I wouldn't state it on the site.
No need to tell them that - they can make their own minds up, and they may decide something else that is even better?
'weber county' should be 'Weber County'?
What is LDS? Does it mean anything to people there?
Hi Paul, Pablo
The first and main thing that struck me about your site was the single opening shot of baseball - obviously. I waited for it to change and it didn't - not being a huge baseball fan and seeing this was not a pro level game I left your site. Done…
After reading another forum comment or two I decided to take another look at your site thinking maybe I didn't wait long enough for the image to change. I waited it still didn't change. I took the plunge, because it is a good baseball shot, and selected something else in one of your menus. Low and behold there are a lot of good pictures in here that are not baseball related!
So without rambling on I think you get the point. You barely kept my attention with the baseball shot, but there is plenty other stuff on your pages that would have held me instantly. I'd show some of it up front.
Second, the whole Paul~Pablo thing is confusing. Are you both? Is it your son? Brother? Father?
Nice work, glad I saw it. I'll be going back for a more thorough look see.
Dennis
Eric,
A lot of great work here. If I might make one simple suggestion and I don't mean to be critical at all… 'Less is More.'
You have so many HDR images I looked at fewer than I probably would have purely because of volume. I probably missed many of the best ones as well. The traditional Smugmug gallery style is good for huge volumes of work. But the intensity of your HDR images for example are so similar in small scale that the format becomes a bit overwhelming and they all kinda look the same ~ very generally speaking.
I think the journal style of gallery might be more advantageous to the huge volume of images you are showing. That way the viewer can actually see the image as they scroll through. Another benefit might be that the viewer doesn't know how many are to come and continue looking. Verses seeing six page of HDR images ahead and quickly scrolling through the pages picking a couple random images to look at. Which is what I did.
Anyway, a LOT of surprisingly good work - beautiful actually, and of an area I've often heard of and never experienced; the French Riviera. Textures, portraits, panoramas and Macro stuff is all great stuff.
I did leave with the feeling that I didn't see your best HDR stuff though.
dennis
Hi Slegars.
You didn't specify any unique pricing!
Out of curiosity, seeing all your pictures were for sale, I looked at the shopping cart and was surprised to see that I could buy a beautiful abstract of the forest for only 0.21¢!
Perhaps you are a generous person… but I might consider disabling the purchasing option until you are ready with more professional pricing.
I like your pictures but felt the site required a lot of work… going back and forth for three pictures like the way your landscapes are set up.
Dennis
Beautiful Pictures JLS.
Since you have all the Gabby pics in the Gabby gallery(s) I would tighten up (edit) the images on your main page… For example, the shot of Gabby washing the car looking out from the garage is so strong you don't need the additional pictures of her and mom outside - on your FRONT PAGE. The 'garage' image makes for a much stronger showing by itself than it does with the others. Same for the upper Gabby pics.
The painful lesson for us all… 'Less is more' will make your stunning front page even stronger than it already is. Especially when we can see all the additional images in galleries if we want to. You're not removing them from the site, just making a stronger presentation up front.
Very strong work here. I like it a lot.
Dennis
Jonathan,
You have an AMAZING eye! Love your stuff!
d
Hi Zach, a lot of good work here.
Just looked quickly and wanted to let you know I like the general look of the site.
A couple simple recommendations might be to combine your best bride portraits into one gallery. I'd rather see three images of Tyler mixed in with the others rather than 11 of Tyler and then 10 of Shailey etc. One gallery showing all these beautiful women and the variety of images you make seems more advantageous than bouncing back and forth to an individual gallery of each of them.
Also, when showing the complete weddings I don't really feel a need or desire to see every good frame… show me the absolute best. Any more and I get bored and move on. These huge galleries showing multiple shots of the same scene (honestly I only looked at two wedding galleries because it was too much…) are for the wedding party - not us viewers that want to be 'wow'ed by your work.
Again, perhaps combining the absolute cream of the crop into one wedding gallery will be much more effective than showing thousands of pictures that nobody is going to look at other than the people involved. It's just too much.
Hightlighting ONE or two weddings to show coverage is customary, but again, edit tight and strong. Pick one shot of each scene with a maximum of 25-30 images showing the entire event. 'Less is More.'
Any client that is interested and wants to see an entire job will contact you and then you can send a link or have them come by the studio for a look.
Your best images are totally lost in here, and that's a shame because you're doing strong work.
Dennis
thank you, I disabled purchases. Sales are not my priority, I must first produce content
Regards
Another Worcester Photographer!
Here are my thoughts:
-The color combination/background/blue text of your site is certainly making it look very dated. Your work is good but your site is so distracting that it isn't giving the pictures a chance. The pictures should be the star, not the background. I hope you consider a plain, simple background.
-Your directions page is certainly thorough, but by the bottom of the page the directions are out of order due to the different amount of text. Also, the pictures are the only way of finding you! If you want to keep the turn-by-turn directions, you at least need to have an address and map link at the top for everyone else.
-In your about page, the text at the top is written in the first person and the text at the bottom is in the third person.
Jarboe Doggart Photography - jarboedoggart.com
I think I am done with my site creation with new smugmug. Though I am using it for a long time, but I was not sure about the design. Finally,. I have felling that I will stop here.
Please let me know how you feel about this design. Please let me know if you there is some obvious scope of improvement, I will do that with you guys help.
Only horizontal scroll bar is disturbing to me, not sure how to deal with that.
my site: www.sudarshanmondal.com
regards,
sud
sudarshan mondal
website | blog | facebook | flickr| 500px | instagram
Your work is great and the site design is excellent and I would not change anything EXCEPT... From your site I am assuming that:
1. English is not your first language
2. You are located and shooting in the US
I think you should have someone sit down and help you to go through all the text to correct the grammar and semantics.
ALSO, your header is not scaling correctly. On my big monitor it is fine, but as I make the screen smaller the links in the header go off the screen. It looks like you have the header links attached to the left side of the screen and padded instead of attached to the right side.
Jarboe Doggart Photography - jarboedoggart.com
For point 2, it could be a bug from Smugmug site or I don't know what it is. Even, it is behaving the same way in my screen too when I downsizing the screen, but it settle down after a refresh, it is adjusting as needed.
Do you know if any special setting I need to do for this?
Thanks,
Sudarshan
sudarshan mondal
website | blog | facebook | flickr| 500px | instagram
I am really not great with the technical stuff, everyone here has been a huge help for me. If you make a thread in the support section I am sure you will have an answer quickly.
Jarboe Doggart Photography - jarboedoggart.com
The final changes were made to the shopping cart today, with all credit going to Leftquark and Hiking Mike for their great work and sharing the css codes. Not forgetting all of the others that so willingly share their knowledge (Allen, Denise, Lamah etc.)
I am open to suggestions if anyone can point out any issues with the design / layout or ease of use of the site.
Thanks in advance
Robin
Looks pretty good! You've got some nice fleshed out content on there that makes the site worth exploring.
I only noticed a couple of things which stood out for me.
- Social Media icons box. maybe change the color or get rid of the grey box around the icons. It has a dated look.
- Some individual galleries feel a little disjointed with the spacing alignment between things like the gallery heading, slideshow button, thumbnails and preview image. Maybe just tighten up the placement of things a bit.
- Blog page. Personally I would change the font alignment to 'left' rather than 'center' on some of your entries.
Follow me on:
Instagram | Facebook | Flickr
Shinrya, Thank you for the reply.
I will have a play around with the social icon box and see if it looks better without it or a different colour.
I will see what I can do to tighten things up in the galleries; it's not something I noticed until you pointed it out.
As for the centring of text on the blog, this is something that I have recently read about on a various forums and that centring should be used sparingly. SomI agree with you and will start adjusting them to left align.
Thanks again for the constructive criticism..... It always allows us to see things differently.
Robin
I'm new here and wanted to share my site - http://allegrophoto.co. Be brutally honest... what do you think?!
Thanks!
I just wanted to say this - what a beautiful site Shinrya! Kudos.
After years of taking photographs and doing very little with them I thought I should start to share them and get some prints made. I would be grateful for any feedback good and bad
My theme is a modified version of Sophie.
http://www.christiancaterham.com
Regards
Christian
I think your site is beautiful and I love the frames. I would like to see a zoom effect on the photos. They look so much like windows, I could imagine the subject coming towards me would be like walking to the window.
It's taken some learning but I've finally made the switch to new SmugMug and I like it so much more than old SmugMug. Here it is, I am open to any suggestions... http://vivpix.smugmug.com/
Thanks all!
xo,
Vivian
Vivian
SmugMug Hero
Thank you for your kind comment. I will have a think about how this could be done.
Christian.
I like it Vivian - a nice easy site to follow.
My only thought is that you could possibly do something with your main image on your home page, something that would really sell your site, as opposed to an image of yourself holding a camera.
Otherwise, it is good.
I am not sure how to do it either, you could post a new thread asking for the code.
This is one example, except it is a full-screen zoom:
http://www.southeasternphotography.com/
does anyone have a paragraph on their website that explains the copyright info for pics that they wouldn't mind sharing? at one point there was a paragraph explaining the different prints from matte, to lustre so if anyone has a paragraph explaining the difference b/w those please share!
Instagram Twitter Facebook
I did most of this the day the new customization came out. I just haven't posted it here until now.
2013 & 2015 Travel Photographer of the Year, North American Travel Journalists Association
Facebook | Travel Blog | Travel Photography | Instagram | Google+
Hi, I saw your site. It look nice and simple to browse your galleries. I loved the
Anguilla album. Great shots there. Keep sharing
You do have a serious security issue. In all of the galleries I looked at, you have "Originals" set as the maximum viewing size. This allows anyone to download your high resolution, original files without buying them.
Not that it makes much difference to an experienced user, but you also have not disabled right click ... so you are making it even more convenient for people to take your images.
In gallery settings, you need to set the maximum viewing size to anything LESS than Original. I set mine to XL to reduce screen capture quality. I'd suggest you enable "right click protection" to at least highlight that they are your photos and they shouldn't be taken.
Whether you add a watermark is entirely up to you. Some people hate them with a passion, others see them as a necessary deterrent.
www.acecootephotography.com
You have two menu bar items that open new browser windows or tabs. That is a trigger to me to close the site. If I want to open something in a new tab I will specify that myself.
I second AceCo55's recommendation to not allow access to the Original-sized images. I don't think the right click protection buys you much since it is well documented how to grab images from the browser cache. That's personal preference though.
Other than that, your site looks good.
--- Denise
Musings & ramblings at https://denisegoldberg.blogspot.com