A \"different\" gallery

[Kintama]

Hello All,

I just posted a gallery that is a bit non-web like hope you all like it, but if not I'm VERY welcome to ideas on improvements. I feel like art needs a good frame to help put boundaries on a piece to let the viewer loose themselve in the art contained within.... I think the websites are our frames on line, but most sites really are bad frames for some of the wonderful art I see people doing, so this was my stab at presentation.... also my first presence on line so we'll see how it goes haha.

let me know what you think. My goal with this is to either get a job as a photoshop touchup / image enhancer and maybe some photography at a studio, or possibly other options with making money in photography... Not sure where I'm going yet.. I'm just taking it easy and following my heart.

I was laid off 6 weeks ago as a manager of R&D in the high tech industry so I thought I'd give my creative side a shot at making a living... this site is my way of marketing myself when they ask "do you have some images we can see?" so I can give them the link.

I'm also interested in any feedback about the images contained within the site too.

http://james.ixystems.com

Thanks,
James

[slejhamer]

kintama wrote:
I'm also interested in any feedback about the images contained within the site too.



Good thing, as I'm not qualified to comment on the rest. :)

Your portrait "461899" is simply stunning. It was a great image to begin with - the off-center composition, the way he leans slightly forward, the touch of a smile on the lips - but the digital retouching makes it a unique and compelling work of art.

(Okay, my opinion may be biased because I'm a fan of diffusion filter effects, but this really is a very nice image.)

Best of luck,

[Kintama]

Thank you very much.

(How did you get that ID number you mentioned though?)

James

[slejhamer]

kintama wrote:
How did you get that ID number you mentioned

James,

It's on that photo's web page, upper left corner above the image. On your other pages you have your comments in the same space. That ID also shows up on the main index page if I hold my mouse cursor over the image. I have viewed it on three different computers and get the same code, so I'm pretty sure it's somewhere in your html.

I figured it was the guy's prison ID or something, like Jean Valjean #24601. You never know...

[Kintama]

That is odd... maybe you have a mac? I didn't do the coding on this, I had a friend to it for me cause I don't know how... I just did the graphics part of it and send them to him and told him what I wanted. Of course he wanted to make it dynamic (which is good and efficient I know) but I wanted to keep all the lighting effects to entice people to buy based on how it looks on a wall as opposed to a web page.


I can assure you the guy is not in prison... he's typing this reply right now LOL I was desperate for practice with portraits so I used myself. I refered to him as "that guy" as I worked on it... he needed lots of help and I figured if I could make him look somewhat ok then I pulled a hat out of the rabbit (I bigger feat than rabbit out of the hat of course.) My wife and friend posed as the other guinea pigs. The one of my friend I did soon as I got my D30, the other two are were done with the G1 and made me decide to take this up a level and was the deciding factor for getting the D30.

I'm really new to photography, only been doing it for a bit more than a year. I decided since I recently lost my job I'd use this a golden opportunity to try a new path in life. (I was a manager of R&D at a company that makes computer hardware and software.)


I'm not sure how to go about finding the people who would buy prints. Nor am I sure how to get them printed in a way worth buying (I don't want to sell ink jet images that turn orange in 5 months and show those damn droplets of ink. I really want continuous tone if I'm going to sell these... I welcome any tips and feedback in this area.) I'm not sure what to charge either.

Lenswork magazine sells larger prints that were photographically processed at $80. The process is better than ink jet, and the art work is better than mine, so I'm "guessing" that makes me worth $40 for a 8x10ish size.... but I don't know... anyone with experience in this who could offer advice I'd sure appreciate it.

Thanks,
James