sierrarisse wrote in post #12995238
I am color blind to greens, reds, blues and purple so I avoid photoshop. Without a doubt, I will mess it up thinking it looks better! I will look into vividness, as long as it does not change the color i should be able to do something with this. Thank you for the advice.
First, thanks for sticking with photography and loving it and not letting your unique vision let you down! If I were you I'd seriously look branching out into B&W photography - tone and composition thankfully translate very well to all people with sight. I would also look into having somebody around who can be relied on for a second opinion on color matters. It will obviously take some faith to let somebody else handle your images, but it might help a bit. On the other hand, I would not worry too much about default colors from the camera - I tend to like the colors presented to me in a scene and even my cheaper T1i seems to handle them quite right - when something's not right it's either white balance (which should be immediately obvious) or something even worse light contrast problems (blown highlights which should also be immediately obvious).
I would not let anybody sell your color vision short though - these are just my thoughts about ways you can branch out and test the images out. If somebody messes with your images, and you don't think it looks right, you'll be able to trust your eyes. The only challenge is that some colors might be shifted one way or another from something "preferred," but as long as WB is on a roughly correct setting, I think that cameras mostly get those right - contrasts you'll spot right away and I think are more critical.
As a bonus, you probably can spot some camouflaged animals (or things) quicker than some of us "normal seeing" folks and that may help you get a leg up on some interesting scenes.
About the actual store page: Composition is pretty critical here. There is a lot of empty space at the top of the page - scrolling isn't as critical a problem as it used to be in the '90s but you still want something big to catch your eye right away.
I don't see a lot of photographer websites that are branded like a corporate website, so having a big logo is perhaps not essential unless you are really trying for a "brand" that is different from just your name. And as far as brands go, "Nature Trail Photography" doesn't catch me - it is not a natural-sounding phrase, and it doesn't suggest to me something unique.
I wouldn't throw away the URL yet, because it is simple to remember and that may increase the chances somebody would go to the site - maybe even to your site instead of somebody else's.
The next order of business, of course, is to get that main page up to snuff. Frame-filling backgrounds are tricky and I don't think they age well - yours fills my 1920x1200 screen and that's about as wide as the usual screen gets these days, however the pattern isn't telling me anything in particular about your photography, and it also isn't especially interesting.
A real photo of a drought-cracked landscape would be an improvement (if that's the look you want to express), but an even simpler alternative might be either a single centered photograph on a black background, or one of those slideshow frontends that many photographers use to achieve the same effect (good photo on a black background and the user can switch to others if they are interested). I think the software to do that easily is out there at not too bad prices.
I would move the text lower, and only reserve it for things that are really important. It's nice to be thanked for going to your website, but I would be more interested if you told us what sorts of unique images you see right away. Now, I don't see this in your site, but I would resist going to a blog format because blogs often have update posts with no pictures - so getting one going that feels fresh and up-to-date (blogs have to be) while still demonstrating your photographs is going to be a challenge. I see lots of photographer blogs I like - but like that famous mag I mostly read 'em for the articles. :P More to the point the pictures on those places aren't selling to me.
Best of luck with the site and the career!
