Website Feedback? I Finally Made My Own!

[D-B-J]

Simple as that. Can you ladies and gents give me feedback? I've never made a website before, but squarespace made it quite simple. I'm pleased with it, but I'm sure there are a million things I can improve upon. I know you often hate clicking outside links, but I swear this is legit :mrgreen:


Red Skies Photography

Cheers!
Jake

 

[Virgil]

I like it. Site is easy to navigate and i like most of your work.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Saying your portfolio is everchanging doesn't to me sound confident - yes, you'll probably make changes as you go but I don't think it's necessary to say so.

I like your use of lines from your photos in your background but I'm not sure if it works against the photos scrolling down, seems maybe too contrasty? not sure if that describes it well. Maybe a different color than white? seems to need something...

To offer portraits I think it would help to show more, the cropped band shots may not be representative of what people would be looking for. Those not so cropped might be better in a section related to bands/events.

 

[tirediron]

Not bad at all! Definitely a much better product than many 'first 'sites' we see here. A few minor nits:

-The 'site seems VERY slow to load
-A little more about what you can do for me and why I should hire you. Can you photograph my wedding? My birthday? My poodle? I realize you have some information on your pricing page, but people are lazy. They are not going to look for; it should be there bright and bold on your home page.
-Why are you offering digital files with $100 sessions and listing print prices? No one's going to buy the cow if they've already got the milk for free.
-Get your e-mail onto your domain name; 'gmail' does NOT scream 'pro'!
-Your print prices make no sense to me; a 4x6 is almost 63 cents a square inch, but an 11x14 is down to 25????

 

[D-B-J]

Not bad at all! Definitely a much better product than many 'first 'sites' we see here. A few minor nits:

-The 'site seems VERY slow to load
-A little more about what you can do for me and why I should hire you. Can you photograph my wedding? My birthday? My poodle? I realize you have some information on your pricing page, but people are lazy. They are not going to look for; it should be there bright and bold on your home page.
-Why are you offering digital files with $100 sessions and listing print prices? No one's going to buy the cow if they've already got the milk for free.
-Get your e-mail onto your domain name; 'gmail' does NOT scream 'pro'!
-Your print prices make no sense to me; a 4x6 is almost 63 cents a square inch, but an 11x14 is down to 25????

Thanks! And yeah.. I definitely struggle with pricing. I have no idea what to charge or how to charge. The "business" aspect is all so new to me. Is it easier to set a price/square inch and just judge that way? As they are it was mostly arbitrary on how much each cost. Should I not bother with print prices?

Cheers!
Jake

 

[D-B-J]

Saying your portfolio is everchanging doesn't to me sound confident - yes, you'll probably make changes as you go but I don't think it's necessary to say so.

I like your use of lines from your photos in your background but I'm not sure if it works against the photos scrolling down, seems maybe too contrasty? not sure if that describes it well. Maybe a different color than white? seems to need something...

To offer portraits I think it would help to show more, the cropped band shots may not be representative of what people would be looking for. Those not so cropped might be better in a section related to bands/events.

Crap! I meant to get rid of that line in my portfolio section. Thanks! And yeah, maybe I should separate out the band photos. Maybe into events?

Cheers!
Jake

 

[D-B-J]

Not bad at all! Definitely a much better product than many 'first 'sites' we see here. A few minor nits:

-The 'site seems VERY slow to load
-A little more about what you can do for me and why I should hire you. Can you photograph my wedding? My birthday? My poodle? I realize you have some information on your pricing page, but people are lazy. They are not going to look for; it should be there bright and bold on your home page.
-Why are you offering digital files with $100 sessions and listing print prices? No one's going to buy the cow if they've already got the milk for free.
-Get your e-mail onto your domain name; 'gmail' does NOT scream 'pro'!
-Your print prices make no sense to me; a 4x6 is almost 63 cents a square inch, but an 11x14 is down to 25????

Oh, but I should add I did actually set the prices based on what it would cost me to print, and marked up for profit.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Maybe a section on bands, it doesn't seem to me like those would show prospective customers what to expect from a more standard portrait session.

Pricing info. etc. on American Society of Media Photographers . For art prints I go by the price range at shows in my area, or price according to the range at any given gallery when I do submissions out of state.

 

[lambertpix]

Definitely nice & simple. You might be able to speed up the first load by putting your background on a bit more of a diet -- especially since it's B&W. It's still showing as almost 5MB for me, and it's sized at 4000+ pixels in width, which is definitely great in the "upward compatibility" area, but maybe more than you really need. I bet you could get it closer to 500Kb without working too hard at it.

 

[D-B-J]

Definitely nice & simple. You might be able to speed up the first load by putting your background on a bit more of a diet -- especially since it's B&W. It's still showing as almost 5MB for me, and it's sized at 4000+ pixels in width, which is definitely great in the "upward compatibility" area, but maybe more than you really need. I bet you could get it closer to 500Kb without working too hard at it.

Oh, right! i downsized all the rest but forgot that one.

 

[runnah]

Background image is way too big, reduce file size.

 

[Steve5D]

I like it. It's simple, uncluttered and easy to navigate.

I have one criticism, though. Remove this sentence from your "About Me" page: "I hope to continue learning and improving my skills, so let's set up a shoot today!"

As much as I know what you're trying to say, a potential customer might think they're hiring an amateur.

Otherwise, it looks good to me...

 

[D-B-J]

I like it. It's simple, uncluttered and easy to navigate.

I have one criticism, though. Remove this sentence from your "About Me" page: "I hope to continue learning and improving my skills, so let's set up a shoot today!"

As much as I know what you're trying to say, a potential customer might think they're hiring an amateur.

Otherwise, it looks good to me...

I added that as a last minute idea. Thanks for the comments!

Cheers!
Jake

 

[Msteelio91]

Soooooo I'm at work and I apologize to anyone who may have mentioned similar points but I don't have time to read through:

The good:

Site looks great! Really easy on the eyes, as a photog website should be.

I like the gallery dynamics, easy to navigate and easily shows your work. Well done on that, I think a lot of people mess this up.

The bad:

I'm on a 1gbps connection and I noticed some lag on the background. This is due to the size of the image in the background, you should probably correct that by bringing down the quality a bit so folks on slower connections don't experience issues. Compress the image but keep the res and you'll be fine.

The red title font is a little TOO simplistic and shows too many pixels IMO. It reminds me of crappy 90's websites. Choose something with a little more smoothness to it. I hate to jump on the bandwagon but helvetica is a great font.

Overall:

10/10 would click again

 

[D-B-J]

Soooooo I'm at work and I apologize to anyone who may have mentioned similar points but I don't have time to read through:

The good:

Site looks great! Really easy on the eyes, as a photog website should be.

I like the gallery dynamics, easy to navigate and easily shows your work. Well done on that, I think a lot of people mess this up.

The bad:

I'm on a 1gbps connection and I noticed some lag on the background. This is due to the size of the image in the background, you should probably correct that by bringing down the quality a bit so folks on slower connections don't experience issues. Compress the image but keep the res and you'll be fine.

The red title font is a little TOO simplistic and shows too many pixels IMO. It reminds me of crappy 90's websites. Choose something with a little more smoothness to it. I hate to jump on the bandwagon but helvetica is a great font.

Overall:

10/10 would click again

Thanks! And yes, I significantly reduced the size of the background. That was the only one I DIDN'T resize. Haha.

Cheers!
Jake