New Website - Feedback Welcome

I am developing a focus group for my website, and would like to include any willing POTN Wedding Photography members on it. I value your opinion and feedback, and appreciate any information and insight you can give.

What I am asking is that you take a little bit of time (maybe 20 or 30 minutes) to give the website a thorough look-through. Put yourself in the mindset of a bride and/or groom to be. You are looking for a photographer for your wedding in eight months; you have been to countless websites, seen tons of images, and have spoken with a few already. You have a modest budget (typically around $1500), and are looking to have a photographer that you will like and will get along with, while getting the best photos you possibly can.

Take a peek at all the sections, take a read through all of the write-ups and glance at the photos to get a thorough understanding of what I'm about, my style, and my personality.

For comparison purposes, here are a few of the other photographers in the area that I consider to be inspirational:

http://www.vetronephot​o.com/
http://www.klicphotogr​aphicdesign.com/
http://www.loridphotog​raphy.com/
http://www.niagaraprop​hotos.com/
http://www.vbphotograp​hy.net
http://stephendominick​.com/

Here are some questions that I have made up that will get you thinking about things:

- Do you like me after visiting my site?
- Did the website keep your attention? Did you get bored? Did you want to keep reading more (i.e. in the about section) or did you just have enough after the first page?
- Did you like the music, or did you turn it off right away?
- How was the navigation of the website? Straight forward? Were you confused? How was the flow of the site?
- Did you get a feel for my personality? What would you say my style is - am I fun, boring, interesting, honest, etc?
- What do you think of my choice of photos for the pages? For the galleries? For the homepage? After seeing the photos, are you thinking "Wow, this guy is a great photographer, we need him"? If not, why not?
- Overall presentation of the website
- Logo - do you like it?

This is just to get you thinking. If you want to add anything else, feel free. If you don't want to answer all of the questions, don't feel like you have to. I would appreciate any information/insight/fe​edback you can give.

The website is:

http://www.mimphoto.co​m/juliet

Thanks in advance!

You forgot the web address in your email

While this will probably not be an issue for many, if you choose to stop the slideshow and use the arrow navigation, on some of the photos where the background becomes VERY light/pastel you can no longer find the navigation arrows. Again, no major issue if you leave your mouse ready to click but a small annoyance IMHO.

I do really like the style and layout, it's easy to navigate, but keep in mind it would KILL anyone with a slowish connection. I'm not sure about the first splash screen that links to your photography or your blog, the blog link just seems odd to me.

Not sure I like a slide show on the home screen - it's that what galleries are for? It goes quick too. I'd put more fields in your contact form, like date, venue, and anything else you'd like to know. I like the photo of you but it doesn't look professional enough for a website IMHO.

"You have undoubtedly discovered..." is not about you, and sonuds a bit funny. Talk about yourself on the about page, rather than selling any professional.

All my first quick impressions

i'm on the equivalent of dial up speeds and the site takes a good five minutes to load. then you have to load the galleries on top of that too.

in regards to the music, you might want to check if you're breaching copyright laws by having hoobastank and dashboard confessional music. by the music i figure you're trying to reach a young market and the music doesn't really reflect with the website. when i see a classy website like yours i expect soft piano solos.

i've always liked you bryan, but you never seem to talk to me..

the site is extremely easy to navigate around and i even showed my mum it. i think the problem with us photographers is that we care _WAY_ too much about presentation. we critique ourselves too much - which is good, but sometimes it's just way too over the top.

in regards to the photo selection, i quite liked it - but as i said.. if your clients are likely to be on dial up or even 128k adsl it's going to take them a fair while to load the website. for that reason, if it was me, i would offer a html website that mimics the look of the flash website so they don't miss out on too much.

overall, it's a great website - should help you break into the market quite well.. it feels a bit template-ish but that's because it is, i don't think the general public will notice this though, they'll just love the site.

sorry i went off on a bit of a tangent and i really didn't answer the questions properly it's more of a thought pattern then a properly formatted post. hope it helps though.

also, just noticed the order basket - not entirely sure what it's for..

music skips and I am on Cable Modem...
Slide shows are a bit fast. When you enter the main site there's no option to stop it, but i feel compelled to watch it. I think it should go to an introductory page and then when i click on galleries, then have the slideshows...but give the client control over the slideshow.

Background change with slideshow draws the eyes away from the images.

need larger font or different color on the about page. hard to read with the light purple and white background.

IMO - Album options should be displayed. I know they are additional to your package, but maybe list the albums you offer and prices that they would cost in addition.

I am confused by your mimphoto.com website and watermark on the blog photos, when your company name is Bryan Caporicci Photography

now to your questions:

- Do you like me after visiting my site? Yes, you seem personable and professional

- Did the website keep your attention? For the most part
Did you get bored? No
Did you want to keep reading more (i.e. in the about section) or did you just have enough after the first page? I honestly didn't see that there was more than one page until I read this question! lol. I would have never looked at the following pages. Maybe a stronger colored font? or black? Also, I think the first page should be about you as a photographer, why you are a photographer, how you became a professional photographer, what training you have, etc.
Album about page should be added to Wedding page. About should be just about you and your photographic history.

- Did you like the music, or did you turn it off right away? It skipped for me, and might be a bit contemporary for some.

- How was the navigation of the website? Straight forward? Were you confused? How was the flow of the site? the multiple pages on each frame was a bit confusing, as i said before...wouldn't have seen the additional about pages had I not gone back to look for them.

- Did you get a feel for my personality? What would you say my style is - am I fun, boring, interesting, honest, etc? I would say fun and unconventional. Not a lot of traditional style posing, more fun and easy going, looking for the wow shots.

- What do you think of my choice of photos for the pages? For the galleries? For the homepage? After seeing the photos, are you thinking "Wow, this guy is a great photographer, we need him"? If not, why not? for the most part yes. The front page starts out with mostly weddings, since you are more than just a wedding photographer, I would mix it up a bit more so that some of your portrait style photos pop up. You have some beautiful family photos that have a great pop to them.

- Overall presentation of the website? I think I have hit that pretty well above! lol
- Logo - do you like it? YES! I actually love it, I need one, wanna design mine? hehe

p3photogal wrote in post #4229155
I am confused by your mimphoto.com website and watermark on the blog photos, when your company name is Bryan Caporicci Photography

i noticed this as well. i think you're going to need to start water marking your images as bryan caporicci photography and also possibly contemplate buying bryancaporicci.com or something similar - having two company names is just confusing. but then i suppose it could be used in your favour.. people will look at 'both' of the websites not realising that mimphoto and bryan caporicci photography are the same.

"Mimi" doesn't sound very professional, and "Bryan Caporicci" is hard for me to pronounce and a bit of a mouthful. I bet you have to spell it for everyone too.

how do you pronounce caporicci tim? i pronounce it as 'kay-po-ree-key', probably the australian coming out in me.

I believe it's pronounced:
Cap-o-rich-ee
or somewhere close to that

Brian,
its neat, clean and easy to get around, I like it and the photos you choose are excellent
great work!!

asxu wrote in post #4229496
how do you pronounce caporicci tim?

No idea, i've never tried. I bet from how it's said I couldn't spell it though.

Bryan, I love the website. I think the galleries are a little slow and a few pictures didn't load on the main page but I really like the articles in the About section. I love the Album photo and wording... mind helping me with mine? However, the "splash page" where I can choose the website or the blog and blog photo should be changed to a wedding/portrait photo. Also, you should always put your strongest images at the beginning of every gallery. Why? Because people wont sit there for 30 minutes on your website waiting for every image to load. They will probably spend 5 minutes tops and those 5 minutes better be amazing. Oh, your about section with info about you. I read the whole thing and I know nothing about you. Other then the fact that wedding planning is stressful and you'll be there to capture the memories.

Anyway, overall I love the clean look of the site.