Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

After sitting stagnant for a few months, I made some minor tweaks to my site, removing even more excess stuff.

I'm assuming, like always, that half of the people will hate it and half will like it.


www.mpkelley.com

Would like any constructive feedback that isn't completely ridiculous. The pink is staying.

Take my short opinion for what it's worth:

I really like it (albeit I have not seen the previous website to compare). I like the simplicity of the background and how everything is "clean cut." The fact that your website loaded quickly on my slow internet connection is a major positive. The before and after roll-overs are very neat. Only thing I don't like is the font size, where I'm sitting now its readable for me, but if I'm any further away from my screen I'll be hitting "CTRL +" to make it bigger.

I'm sure there are more qualified people to make judgement, but that's just my two cents.

Really like the site, simple and quick. I normally hate lightboxes, but yours is pretty well implemented - only suggestion I might make for that is to add a bit of padding to the anchors around the arrows, because if you miss them by even a little the lightbox closes out.

Always a fan of your work, btw.

Thanks for the kind words and feedback. I like your idea regarding the padding around the arrows, and text size.

I like the site design. I'd definitely agree that simpler is better in most cases. The only thing that struck me as an issue was the lack of a header or anything that prominently says your name or company name on the main page.

I'm sure it's fine if they know who you are and navigate to the page intentionally but for people that just find it off a search or click a link, they might not think to read the title bar and not know who you are or remember the name later

I do note that you don't have a "description" metatag, so Google's using your first bits of text off the page for the description. That happens to be the start of one of your testimonials, so I suppose it's not completely bad, but I think I'd help Google out a bit with a more clear description. You're fighting for search engine eyeballs against a lot of Mike Kelly/Kelley Photographers...

I happen to be building a house, so I'm in the mood for great architectural shots and really enjoyed yours.

Dave

kjonnnn wrote in post #12872631
In the about section, the "retouched" photos,... are those the same image retouched, or two different images with one raw and one retouched. Its looks like the latter. A bit misleading if im wrong, I apologize.

I can see from cars moving, etc that they aren't the same shot but I guess I don't really see it as misleading. To me I took it as a comparison between "snapshot with expensive camera" that the realtor might be able to take themselves and a true polished photo

Overall, I like the simplicity of it all. A few points, though:

About: Need consistency; in your before/after comparisons, some of them show the 'after' first and then the 'before'; and some of them show the 'before' and then 'after'. Also, I'm not convinced that the shot with the tail lights through it shows as one of your best pieces of work; might want to consider showcasing one of the other shots.

Lightbox: Please give some visual context as to how to get out of there once you've gotten in. It took me a few seconds to get to "click" as being the exit. Just long enough to be frustrating...

Thanks all. Snydremark - that is bothering me. I cleared my cache and checked across 4 browsers, and it looks right to me (e.g. retouched version first). Anyone else having that problem? I can't get the problem to show itself to me.

As far as the retouched vs. non-retouched go, of course it's not just retouching - but retouching is a huge part of it. I can't really say 'relighting' as nobody knows what the heck that means.

Fine other that it wouldn't work in a 1024x768 resolution.

Can you elaborate on 'wouldn't work?'

mikekelley wrote in post #12874452
Thanks all. Snydremark - that is bothering me. I cleared my cache and checked across 4 browsers, and it looks right to me (e.g. retouched version first). Anyone else having that problem? I can't get the problem to show itself to me.
...

If it helps you feel better, I can't reproduce the behavior here on my home computer; so it looks like a possible browser/machine thing rather than a site issue.