Site Update: C&C

[Tumeg]

I have posted here a few times now, about my site.
Only a few of you may have seen it through each stage.
It started as a very basic (well it still is) site, that I hated within weeks. So I decided to make my own, with my very little HTML knowledge that I have left (Yeah, I used html, o'well). I am using simple viewer for my portfolio page, because it is the easiest photo viewer I have come across so far, that is free. I have tried a few, and all are way to hard to just add one photo.

Since the last change to the site, I edited the text on each page, changed the home page photo, added and removed some photos from my portfolio, and changed the colors (from black, white and green, to black, white and blue).

Anyway, I don't have this site to gain business, I just have it up for personal use, and to possibly get my name out a bit more for when I do start wanting some business\clients.
So keep that in mind, it is not a professional flashy, cool designed, site. Just a simple thing.

So yeah, please C&C on the ease of use, colors, photos, ect.
I have tried to add music, but was unsuccessful, but I will keep trying unless you guys suggest against it.


www.photosbybradley.com



EDIT: I also changed the name, from Photography by Brad Capote, back to (it was originally this) Photography by Bradley.
I am having a hard time deciding between the two, so far 5/5 people that I have asked prefer Photography by Bradley, due to the fact that it sounds and looks more professional.

[souporman]

I like it, and there's some great photos in the gallery too.


1. The text in your menu images are at different heights. It's most evident when you compare blog & portfolio. Some people might say to just use plain text instead of images, but I don't know that it would make much difference in this case. You might want to include some alt text on them though.

2. For me, the balance seems a bit weird with your logo at the top and the bottom. You could probably get away with just your copyright statement at the bottom, dropping "to photography from bradley" completely.

3. The sentance on your information page starting with "If I find that you..." is a bit odd. Maybe swap that out to the standard "no authorized use without permission" type statement?

4. Actually, I'm not sure you even need that Info page. Anything you have there that you feel is really important could be included on your About page, and I would drop the bit about not being able to publish your best images. It sounds like you're making excuses for the photos you have published when they're quite good on their own :)

5. You've got your own domain name, can you not use it for your contact email as well? brad@photosbybradley.com or something like info@ would be better than the spamex.com account you have displayed.

As for the name, have you thought of just changing it to "Photos by Bradley"? Then it matches up with your domain name exactly. That's not really a big deal though.

[Tumeg]

Thanks! :)


1. Not sure I really know what you mean by this, sorry...

2. Others have also said this to me, but I personally like it but if too many people are against it, I will remove it.

3. Yeah, I will probably just remove the info page

4. ^^^

5. My dad setup my hosting, and all that. When he started we had the option of adding the e-mail address for only like, $10 more (yearly, so $20/yr total). I also agree with the spamex account, too awkward... But my dad is way too "over protective" and wont let me use any other e-mail addresses, and that might be why he doesn't want my to have the brad@photosbybradley.com address? Anyway, I will talk to him about this....

I would do Photos by Bradley, but that seems to short and may not look "balanced"

Thanks for all your advice!

[Tumeg]

I just realized, I have another e-mail account (also spamex :( ) that is a lot shorter then the one currently on the site... Bradc@spamex.com which is probably more personal and may be better? What do you think? I did end up removing the information page, and will do the other updates asap...

[ek20ai]

15 years old and already into photography and have your own site. i must give you props man!

[bakerbranded]

Hey best of luck and your photography is really nice.
I myself am 15 and trying to save up for my first DSLR
My parents dont support the goal at all so its slow but hopefully soon.
Keep it up, you have a great portfolio started. :D

[Tumeg]

Thanks all for the support\encouragement :)

Few more questions: Would you guys recommend me putting a link to my flickr somewhere on the site? I was thinking on the portfolio page, but not sure...

[tbisaacs]

Don't be ashamed using HTML! Remember 99% of the web uses it :)

[tbisaacs]

Ok, a few notes:

Center aligned blocks of text are generally hard for people to read. Centering titles is ok, but left-align (or block justify) larger bodies of text.

The logo at the top and bottom of the site is a bit much. You'd be ok to keep just the top.

Your logo and navigation are just simple serif fonts, why not just make it plain text and style it with Georgia or similar? Avoid using images for text whenever possible.

There isn't much to do on your homepage, other than go somewhere else. Maybe think about bringing some content up front to keep it fresh, maybe recent pics, or the latest post from your blog.

You can combine info and about, the content between the two is pretty thin. Also, don't apologize for your site ("Please remember that my portfolio is still a work in progress"), it makes you sound unsure of yourself. You should be really proud of what you have so far, it's better than a lot of sites here on POTN by photographers twice your age.


Good luck!

[Tumeg]

Thanks tbisaacs!
I did remove the information page, and I will be working on not centering the body text, but still have it in the center section of the page (to align with the logo\banner).
I did edit the about me page with a short statement about my blog.

About the simple fonts, I have gone through basically every font I have, and they are all pretty, over-done (as in, everyone sees them everywhere, they arent original) and I like the all caps font, :-p I used it for the links, for it to math the banner. I am pretty set on the font for the banner, I may experiment, but I can\will update the font for the links.

Also, great idea for the latest blog post on my homepage!!
I will do this, if it looks ok, From the way I am picturing it, it may look a bit off, but I will experiment! The updated site should be up tonight, tomorrow night at the latest.

Haha, are you guys sure I should remove the logo\banner from the bottom?? It makes the site look even more plain, =\
And I personally, as said before, love it :-p but that's just me.


EDIT: Also, has a bit of color(lol) to the about me page, I will be adding a photo or two of myself (taken by the photographer I work for) but this wont be added until next week, :-p

[Tumeg]

When you say add my latest blog post to the home page, do you mean, remove the photo and add it? Or have it WITH the photo?

[Tumeg]

I am unable to align the text to center-left (As in, not to the total left of the screen, but not directly centered either)
So if someone has a code that could help me out with this, that would be great!

[souporman]

Thanks! :)


1. Not sure I really know what you mean by this, sorry...

This is what I meant:
http://www.kevinleitch.com/images/potn/photosbybradley.gif

You can see that Info, About Me and Home are all level, Blog is 1 pixel higher and Portfolio & Contact are 1 pixel lower. To me, it looks all lop-sided, but you may consider that nit picking :)

That all being said, things would sort themselves out if you just used plain text for those links instead of images.

As for the other spamex email account, I don't think it matters too much. Would your dad be ok if you set up brad@photosbybradley.com as an email address that just forwards mail to one of your spamex accounts? I presume those accounts do some heavy filtering which is why he wants you to use them?

That way, you'd get the nice looking email with the protection of your filters. Your replies would come from the spamex account of course, but I don't think that would be a problem.

Lots of other good advice here, looking forward to seeing the changes :)

[Tumeg]

The spamex accounts do go through a bit of filtering, but no major, he wants me using the spamex e-mails because he can shut them off, and block them from coming to me, so if I do start getting spammed through it, he can turn off the e-mail address

[souporman]

You can turn off, disable, delete, etc your other accounts just as easily. Regardless of which one you use, if you've posted the address online like that you'll quickly find there isn't much you can do about spam apart from delete it as it comes in...

[Fenster]

Inconsistent watermarking in your portfolio, I count four styles. Remove the computer screenshot, the image of the child with the beer and most of the flower photos. The landscape photo is fairly generic, too.

Navigation to your blog is a problem because it is a wholly external site. Once I go there I cannot go back.

The navigation links are all backwards. Home should be the leftmost, and work right from there in order of importance.

[Tumeg]

There are only 2 dif watermarks,
The photo is not a computer screenshot,
Why remove the photo of the kid?
What flower pics are most, and why delete them?

I thought of that, and I am working on fixing that, (On the bottom of the blog is a link back to my site)

And for the navigation links, I like it, I have seen it on several sites and I really like it, your the only one who has been against it

[souporman]

I did find the home link way over there on the right by itself a bit odd, but it's not unusable so I don't think it requires much of a change if you like it that way. I'd also make your logo a link back to the home page as well...that's a fairly standard practice.

One thing about your portfolio, you may find that as your photo collection grows throwing every photo into the same album becomes a bit unwieldy. I don't know much about simple viewer, but can you create sub-albums in there? Like "people", "landscapes", "abstract", etc...

Really just thinking ahead on that last one. If you don't plan on having that many photos at one time in your gallery (rotating old ones out for new ones) then it's fine as is.

Oh, and I really like the photo of the kid with the (empty) beer bottle and wouldn't remove it. Some people are just overly sensitive to things like implied underage drinking...

I do agree about the navigation to/from the blog, but as it's a separate entity that will be tricky to get around. I'm not sure what you'll be able to do with that though.

Just a thought, but it might make more sense to put the blog link over on the right where Home is currently to sort of signify that it's sort of "all on it's own". Something to differentiate it from the other links somehow would be a good idea at least.

[Fenster]

There are only 2 dif watermarks,
The photo is not a computer screenshot,
Why remove the photo of the kid?
What flower pics are most, and why delete them?

I thought of that, and I am working on fixing that, (On the bottom of the blog is a link back to my site)

And for the navigation links, I like it, I have seen it on several sites and I really like it, your the only one who has been against it

I count a different placement as a different watermark.

I would remove the photo of the child because of a phrase I've stolen from robotics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley). There are photos of children that a parent/customer/whatever is going to find disturbing.