 Amber Mizer |
Need your opinions on my site... http://www.locationphoto.net I just finished my rough draft of my site and need to know what you experts think. Please be brutally honest and comment on anything and everything... from the look of the site to my pricing structure. I'm JUST getting started professionally and only have a couple of weddings and portrait sittings under my belt.
Amber http://www.locationphoto.net
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
I'm not an expert on websites so I can't offer much there other than to say it was easy to navigate. Pricewise, no one's going to accuse you of being too expensive. I would be careful about being to cheap though. Have you ever shot a wedding? It's a lot of work (and only part of it is the actual wedding). At your prices you'd be lucky to average minimum wage. The problem with being the discount photographer in the area is that you end up working a lot of weddings and all your clients are the ones with very little money who are going to use you, keep the proofs, and never order reprints. So you end up with the $350 less all the costs of film, developing, proofs, equipment, and your time. Add up all the time you spend per wedding. 8 hours for the wedding plus all the time before and after doing all the other things (probably another 8 hours) and suddenly you're barely making any money. The other guys don't charge a lot because they're trying to gouge people. They're trying to make a living. Just food for thought.
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Crystal L. Finkboner |
Amber, I have designed many websites and worked for some bus. designing there websites. Your site is a decent start. You have good pictures. I suggest giving it a little more spark. Try to stay consistant through out your site. Have a navigation bar on each page. Have your copywrite info at the bottom of each page also. You may eventually put a Recomendations board on your page. Ask people whom you have done work for to go to your website and post recomendations there for future and perspective clients to see. Also, If you are new to the world of web design and html, etc. I recomend using software with predesigned templates you can edit and change to suit your needs. Microsoft Frontpage does a wonderful job of this. You can change one thing on a page and also have it change the same thing on all your other pages with one click. If you have more questions or need more assistance email me at finkbonerc@comcast.net Crystal Finkboner
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Wayne Attridge |
I agree with Jeff about the prices. If you do good work for your clients you will be swamped with work right up until you move into the poorhouse. Everyone likes something different, but I found your pages were not flattering to your work. Ease of navigation keeps people who are not internet gurus around a little longer. My son created his website pages from Photoshop files that he designed himself. They were then set up with Frontpage for the web. It is simple and easy to get around because the navigation buttons stay the same on every page. I didn't do the setup so I can't tell you how to do it. If you want to broaden your idea base, have a look at www.ehsquared.com
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Wing Wong |
Hi Amber, Sitewise, I would say that your site is a good start. As others have noted, it could use some work. Images benefit greatly from having a thin border applied to them to seperate them from the background. The thick border you have on the pictures on your site tend to dominate the pictures and make them seem smaller than they are. Thin up the borders and they will look cleaner. Links from the small pictures should go to a small simple page highlighting the larger copy of the picture. The larger picture should also have a border around it to give it emphasis. A link to a free-floating picture forces a visitor to use the back button and as a result, it loses a professional feel to the site. One one page, you have everything centered. The picture is by itself and the descriptive text is under it, centered. This makes the text hard to read and seperates it from the photograph. Another way might be to left align the photograph and have the text wrap around the photo in a block paragrpah format. This creates association between the text and the image. Last note would be your site logo. It is quite faint and blends into the white background quite a bit. Your page is your calling card, your first impression to many potential customers. Tweaking the site might get you more customers. :)
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StoneHorseStudios.com - Eric Highfield Contact Eric Highfield Eric Highfield's Gallery |
Hi Amber, I would also include an opening blurb on the home page about your company and services. One such thing I'm wondering about is geographical location. Which State, Province, Territory, or even Country are you based from, and/or offer services too? A website is viewable to the world (e.g. I live in Canada), so you need to define your market upfront. In general, most people in the early planning stages are not likely to call to ask this kind of basic information, they'll just move on to the next site. As for the page itself, I think it's a great start, but find myself looking at a fair bit of white space. I suggest using more or larger photos, or maybe a faint background to add interest. (I know that my site is not a good example, but I'm working on it). Good luck, and leave us a post when you update it. I'd love to see how it turns out!!
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Joy Carlsen |
Hi Amber - Agree with the others, nice start. I would also look into better scans of some of the color images. Not sure if you do that on your own or have it professionaly scaned for you, but some of the color images seem off...Your photos are what sells you and your work, you want them to pop! Good luck and keep us posted! Joy
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