Finally got my wedding web site up - critique please.

[Wedding Shooter]

Hi Everyone,

After not having done anything for four years I have finally done something about it.

Please have a look and let me know what you think. Definitely open to ideas.

http://www.smallpackagefilms.com/

Thanks,

Chris

[Lunajen]

I like your site and your images are wonderfull, but I do wish that you would just have the pictures fill the area instead of having to scrool up and down and side to side just to see the entire picture.

[jlozano180]

you have some nice wedding pics, great job on the website, i really like how its put together. Very easy to find things, everybody can find how to contact you and very easy to view your work.

[Wedding Shooter]

I like your site and your images are wonderfull, but I do wish that you would just have the pictures fill the area instead of having to scrool up and down and side to side just to see the entire picture.


Which page was giving you this grief? Or was it the whole site. This is the first time anyone commented like that. Thanks for the feedback.

[leninglass]

Good photos..

but the site... hmm.. Iframe isn't really an ideal tool to use for websites. It is very annoying for many.

Many dead links, I don't know if you are done or not.

Your links.. make it easy for your self and keep them lower case; from Contacts.html to contact.htm

[SDJNJ]

You have too many clicks to get through your website. For instance, you have http://www.smallpackagefilms.com/ which takes you to your home page? No, you have to click on "be amazed" to get to your actual website. (And, although I realized you had to click that, no where does it direct you to.) Then, you are on your home page. Gallery is ok because you have sub-categories. On your price link, again, you have to click packages and the prices aren't displayed. You have to click again to download them. If clients are at work, they may not be able to download and because of that, will just move on, if they haven't already because they have had to click so many times already to get where they are. Your about page is great. Be nice to have a phone# or email address after you tell where you are based. Otherwise, they have to click again. Your images are beautiful! Good luck!!

[SDJNJ]

Sorry... one more thing, your home page doesn't really look like a home page. It's more like a raves and reviews or testimonial page.

[ErikM]

Small Package? ;)

Sorry...... had to.

[Wedding Shooter]

Good things come in small packages - I know its subtle. Still trying to think of something better.

Thanks for all the feedback. I don't know about the dead links. They all seem to work fine - perhaps a specific example please.

I did have the price list on the site before - but the text formatting was terrible. So I just took it down and left the PDF until I can get the formatting sorted. I want to change the home page to testimonials and have the opening splash as a home page.

Just trying to decide how to set up the links.

I really appreciate the feedback.

Cheers,

Chris

[Fabrian]

Bandwidth exceeded??!! It's time to move to a new host friend. Personally I recommend hostgator. I can't see your site due to the BW quota, but you'd do well to start off with Wordpress (blog/cms), Coppermine (photo gallery) or Joomla (cms). Any one or a combination.

http://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml

Dooo it. Dooo it.

[Wedding Shooter]

Thanks Fabian - it has gone crazy since I put the site up.

The guy who hosts it is in Europe - so It will be down until he wakes up :(

[Kiddo]

Your site is really nice! You do amazing work!

[dburg30]

Bandwidth exceeded??!! It's time to move to a new host friend. Personally I recommend hostgator. I can't see your site due to the BW quota, but you'd do well to start off with Wordpress (blog/cms), Coppermine (photo gallery) or Joomla (cms). Any one or a combination.

http://www.hostgator.com/shared.shtml

Dooo it. Dooo it.

Thanks Fabian - it has gone crazy since I put the site up.

The guy who hosts it is in Europe - so It will be down until he wakes up :(

Oh Geez. Yes, try to find someone local and make sure you have ample bandwidth!!

I personally liked it, I didnt really find to to have too many clicks. Maybe on your initial page, you should have just something that states click the picture to continue or something. If anything that would be my only complaint, I really dont like those types of pages, take me to where I want to be. The click didnt bother me though.

And as someone else stated, maybe get a mailing address also, even if it's a PO Box.

I like your pricing page, maybe have it open in a separate window? I closed your page down because I thought the PDF opened in another window, but it didnt :)

[Wedding Shooter]

Thanks guys - more great feedback. What I am thinking of doing is changing the home page to testimonials and making the splash page the home page.

Cheers,

Chris

[Nyobie]

Wow, the more I read about wedding photography, the more I realize how diverse the opinions are out there on even the smallest things. All feedback is good though as it lets you know what others are thinking could be better.

Personally, I love the black background for wedding galleries in general. It sets a very nice mood. I've seen sites where there is no need to scroll within the main window and I personally prefer those but I didn't find yours the least bit distracting. It's just different.

The photos themselves are very nice. You've got an excellent eye for color balance which can be one of the trickiest things to get just right. Your ability to handle mixed lighting is very good and it's obvious you have very good equipment - the sharpness of many of the photos was amazing.

Lucky you to have so many great locations to shoot too! Nice job!!

[craiglee]

use frames. have the left column be one frame and the main page another. the whole refreshing of the whole page is distracting.

[Wedding Shooter]

Thanks for the continuing feedback. This is the first time I have done any web design and have really no clue - so the ideas and opinions are great.

Thank you Nyobie - glad you liked the photos. The reason for this whole thing was my nomination for Australia's top Wedding Photographer. I needed a website so people could vote for me.

I will continue to work on it - but I needed something quick.

Cheers,

Chris

[strancali]

Chris, I have the perfect domain name for you. WeddingLeader.com . I was going to launch a site catered to weddings (photograpers, caterers etc) but I have way too many projects to devote anytime to it. If you are interested, pm me with an offer.


Thanks for the continuing feedback. This is the first time I have done any web design and have really no clue - so the ideas and opinions are great.

Thank you Nyobie - glad you liked the photos. The reason for this whole thing was my nomination for Australia's top Wedding Photographer. I needed a website so people could vote for me.

I will continue to work on it - but I needed something quick.

Cheers,

Chris

[jermscentral]

You've got a major "no-no" with the way your pictures are formatted (not in the slideshows). I viewed the original image location, and the photos look alright that way, but on each entry page (galleries.html, home.html, etc.), the photos are stretched to fit the full iframe, making them super pixellated. You might want to either resize the originals or set the images to display at their normal size, or it'll deter folks when they see a picture that looks like it was taken with a 1 megapixel camera. :)

[Wedding Shooter]

Is that because you are viewing on a 30" monitor? Even if I stretch the screen to maximum on my 20" monitor they still look ok.