Critique on my website and Pictures

[naikdeepak]

Hi all. I've been working on my website for quite sometime now. I wanted to build it from a scratch, which I started and then realized I did not have the time to work on it.

So I just browsed and found a neat wordpress theme which I used and got the site up and running.

The theme I've used is http://demo.graphpaperpress.com/fullscreen/

Link to my website http://deepaknaikphotography.com/

Please do let me know how I can improve the site and also my pictures.

Thanks..!!

[Kevan]

Fun to see the different themes that are out there.

Couple thoughts:

- it's sorta dark in there. Anyway to lighten it up some?

- opening page, can the images be resized? It's a bit confusing having 2 rows of images competing with one another, which also includes some repeats.

- I've found that when I ever work with a black background I never-ever use a purely white font, but rather aim for a light grey instead. It's less stark and more pleasing the the eye, me thinks.

Looks like you're having fun and getting the site tweaked just so...can be mighty frustrating at times. Least it was for this complete and utter novice. I might have saved a couple hundred doing my own, but I sweated the difference. Boy. did I.

[ceegee]

Love the images!

For the site, the headings (About, Gallery, Contact) are small and dim, making them very difficult to read - if you could brighten them up a little, it would help. Otherwise, the site is very nice.

[naikdeepak]

Thank you both for taking your time out to check out the site and reply.

I did hear about the dark/dim scheme on the theme.

I will be digging into the code and make the changes maybe sometime during next week. I do want to customize it some more. Like the font color, type, size and also the size of images.

Thanks again. :)

[AKphoto23]

I feel like you can leave off the titles to your pictures as you scroll over them. Let the viewer create their own impression of the photos

[DogDay]

I think it's an interesting theme, but as others have stated it is very dark and hard on the eyes. You can probably correct this by editing the css, rather than replacing the theme.

[Joergeske]

The theme looks alright to me, however it seems as though the galleries should follow a similar theme to the main page. I don't like how the galleries are blog style, makes it hard to go through a bunch of pictures quickly.

As for the images themselves you have a lot of color and good subject matter, but the polish isn't quite there. My suggestion would be to work on your processing a bit, but overall they look really nice.

[naikdeepak]

Thank you guys. I've actually started building a new layout and will be updating the site in the near future.

@Joe : I am trying to better my post processing skills day in and day out. I would really appreciate if you can pick a couple of pictures and let me know how I can improve them.

[Joergeske]

No problem. On the site I went through landscape and noticed that the image you have titled dream looks like an incredible shot, but it lacks that final bit of pop to push it over the edge. I am not claiming to be the master of landscape or editing for that matter, but what I see a lot is that when people process landscape they have a difficult time finding a nice balance of dynamic range in the image. Some of the HDR style stuff out there is just so overcooked looking and has way to much range and contrast. Other times people end up with images that are too flat in color and just don't pull the viewer in. On the image Dream on your site it is a bit flat, and that makes it hard to see all the beautiful detail and depth you have captured.

Now if you simply go in and pull the curves around for the entire image you will probably make it look to contrasty and loose detail in areas. To avoid that what I like to do is select the sky and ground separately and adjust each on their own. This way you can get all the detail in the sky and the ground without having to do an HDR or make it look like a fake looking HDR. Make sure you are shooting raw because this will help tons in that regard. Finally calibrate your display, my gut tells me your monitor is telling you things are brighter than what they really are because your images look a bit dark and your shooting style doesn't strike me as that dark.

[naikdeepak]

Thanks again Joe. I always shoot in JPG only. Maybe I should switch to RAW for my landscape shots which is better for post-processing. And yeah my monitor isn't calibrated. I can see different colors on my monitor at home and different ones at work. I should do something about it.