The following is a link to my new website:

http://www.jimmy-photo.com

Please check it out and let me know what you think. Its still a work in progress and needs a lot more info added so any feedback out be cool.

Cheers

Ian

Your link doesn't work.

Fixed....

Nice start, Ian.

The first thing I would consider changing is the bright red/orange color in your logo. It takes a lot of attention. Things like that can give me an instant headache, not good. The picture take to much time to open up and there are a bit small in my eyes. That the background doesn't change while opening a picture makes the background a little messy. If you know what I mean. I thing your photos deserve a calmer background.

That's my opinion. Other can disagree.
As I said, a nice start. And you've plenty of really good pictures.

Anna :)

Thanks Anna for taking the time to look at my site.

I need to look at the gallery as you said it would be better if the grid of images disappeared when an image is selected. The current setup is a standard gallery on the software but with a little effort I can make it work better. I will look at the image loading time by making sure they are optimised for the web.

Thanks again for your time.

Ian

I agree with Anna. The logo needs to be toned down a little and the images should open against a black (or faded) background.

I am not a big fan of flash, and one big disadvantage is that if I want to send a link to a photo on your webpage there is no way of doing so.

Otherwise you have a professional look and good images!

/ Jacob

Thanks Jacob,


I will look at both these aspect I like the red but think you guys might be right I will try toning it down and see what it looks like.

With regard to the flash I can see where you are coming from but one think I do like is that it all happens on one page so no jumping between pages. The site was designed using a site called Wix so was very quick and easy which was great as I wanted to put a website together for a forthcoming exhibition.

It still needs a lot of work to flesh out the information which I hope to do soon.... the about section really needs some information very soon.

It is possible by using things like swf address
http://www.asual.com/swfaddress/

My website is full flash, though I can send you links to different images :
http://www.julienlegrand.com/V3/#/content/Portfolio/DSC_0140.jpg/
http://www.julienlegrand.com/V3/#/content/Portfolio/4202969072_0a9353e204_o.jpg/
http://www.julienlegrand.com/V3/#/content/Portfolio/4186814771_5ecd1816f6_b.jpg/
etc...
Every page has its own link.

You can, but can the guy who found your site and wants to share it with someone else, or buy a print of a specific photo do it also? And besides that, flash is also very bad for search engines.

@Ian: it looks good, but please add an about page. Also, the gallery is quite a pain: images are small, there is no way to get from one image to the next without going back to the thumbnails, and most of all, since the background doesn't fade away, it's very distracting and hard to really look at the photo itself.

Thanks Alexandre for looking. I agree with all your comments. I am going to sort out the about page today and I really need to look at how the gallery works which I am not happy with. I might try the thumbnails along the bottom bigger then allow the image to expand into the space above the gallery. Are you referring to the size of the wedding images or in general?

Thanks

Ian

Why couldn't he share it with someone else ? And about buying a print, my website is not an e-commerce website, if somebody wants to buy a print, he sends me an email., my goal is not to send print on internet. (Exhibitions are better for that because people want to see the print).


It was true before.
Type Julien Legrand in Google ;-)
SEO is not only about optimization of the pages, links to your page are very important too and other kinds of stuff too.
And you know, for a small image gallery like mine, I don't know how it could be better with an HTML website (I had one before, no changes in everyday visits).
;-)

Julien,

I checked out your site very nice. What software did you use to set it up. Your gallery is far more effective then mine when I have the time this will be a priority. Have you had many requests for prints from your site?

If you have not already check out google analytics amazing data for tracking the use of your site.

Hi,

At the beginning I had a flash gallery that I developped myself. (I'm a webmaster)
Then an HTML one and now, back to flash with a "ready to use" system called "imagevue", but to make it properly, it is nice to have some HTML / CSS skills.

And yes I know Google Analytics, I've used it for all my websites at my job for several years now.

I had many feedbacks about my work but very few requests for print.

I have my first exhibition next month and will be interested to see if anything comes from that. I have sold some images at a site called Redbubble but its all gone a bit quiet there now as its expanded a lot since I joined the site.

Yes I know it, there are many websites like this one but I don't like to sell my images by this way.

Yes, I know it is possible. I was talking about Ians page, not flash pages in general.

/ Jacob

ok ;-)

Just to go back to the orignal question in the thread:

I like the first look - except for the very bright logo as pointed out by others.

I also find it very distracting that the full-view pictures are shown on top of the picture grid - but what I dislike the most is that there is no way to go through the pictures in the gallery. You have to click on a picture to open it, click again to close it and then click again to see the next one. Takes too much time and doesn't make me want to go through your galleries.

And I'm not a flash fan either :-)

Today we did a big redesign on the galleries and its all looking a lot better thanks to the comments above. We have limited the use of our logo and will be using a grey version on the gallery menu pages so it does not detract. We will also be reviewing the red and maybe make it a deeper colour so it a little less loud.

Thanks to everyone who has commented its very much appreciated.

I find your logo somewhat overbearing. Also the quote at the bottom of the page is extremely heavy. My eyes bounce between the logo and quote and ignore your links on the sides. :). Otherwise a great start and professional feel.

Nathan,

Thanks for taking a look. i think your right about the size of the logo / quote we will look at this and see what we can do. The logo may look better half the size.

Cheers

Ian

Going through the galleries works a lot better this way - but now I miss and overview of what's in the galleries...

Stefan,

You may be right we will look at it. Its hard to get a good balance between showing everything and people exploring the images. If its all on show are people less likely to look at the bigger images if they can already see them as thumb nails. Tricky....

Ian

Can Anyone advise whether I should be working in RGB or CMYK for web images....

CMYK seems to give bolder colours when uploaded.

Any other advice for tweaking images for website. I am trying to keep the image sizes down to a minimum for fast loading and all at 72dpi and a the excact pixel size they will be viewed at.

Check out the progress of my site at: All comments appreciated.

http://www.jimmy-photo.com

Hi Ian

My only advice is 'don't use flash'
It is not necessary and adds nothing to your photography.

People want to see your pictures, present them in the simplest and most web-friendly way possible.

Thanks Mark, I think your right but the problem I have is I have built it with online software that runs with flash. It was quick and easy but I am not that happy with the way it loads. One day I will rebuild it using something like dreamweaver. I have a rolling monthly charge with the host so it will not be a problem to relocate the site just a time thing. I put this together mainly to coincide with my first exhibition later this month but if we are serious about what we are doing we will rework it.

Thanks for your time and comment.

It feels like an Urban assault with no purpose to me. The two brothers is a fun idea. Is that both of your feet in bed together?. Picture content might be a personal project to work on as well as escaping the what can we do wit a camera that's cool. In American there was a cool cartoon show called Doofis and Buthead. Well this feels like that. It good if your about 10 to 12 years old. In fact it became a underground movement.

So are you taking this type of thing around the world. If so stay clear of any country or religious society that might get offended.

The website has to many bells and dealy-bobs before the image comes up.

but very cool.

Wings, thanks for looking at our site and thanks for your comment. I agree it does all seem a bit random at the moment but we are planning to divide up the gallery into categories and add more images. I have been reluctant to work more on the site as I have had problems with the loading time. I am working around it now so hope to add more depth.

The feet are mine and my wife's not my brother's thanks....

We have been trying to make our site not too serious like most photographic sites that end up being very dry and dull. Anyway not sure from your comment whether you like it but hey ho still lots to do.

I will check out Doofis and Buthead and see if we can get any inspiration for our site.......

Cheers

Ian