Camera Labs

Hi all for the first time in my life I've created a website to showcase my photography and hopefully sell a few shots.
Could you please look at critique for me please. I'm a newb in both areas

Many thanks

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Sony alpha 300 18-70mm
Canon 40d 17mm-85mm 50mm f1.8
http://www.joncharlesphotography.com

It's a decent website, doesn't stand out from the crowd much as it uses a fairly default template, but hey, it works, and it's functional.

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Thanks for the comments , hopefully as i understand the website program more i can make some changes. Need to be taking photos though not staring at the screen haha!

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Sony alpha 300 18-70mm
Canon 40d 17mm-85mm 50mm f1.8
http://www.joncharlesphotography.com

Nice and simple

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Victor
Nikon D300 - Nikkor 16-85 VR - Nikkor 70-200 2.8 VR I
www.victorhoffmann.com

Site has now been changed! got rapidweaver and have found this to be a very easy program to use which gives great results.
Now looking to find a good gallery to use with it, anybody got suggestions for a decent gallery maybe flash?

Many thanks

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Sony alpha 300 18-70mm
Canon 40d 17mm-85mm 50mm f1.8
http://www.joncharlesphotography.com

Try the flash autoviewer. I use it here: http://westerbeek.biz/Fotos/natuur/index.html

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I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".

Very nice! The only problem I see is on your homepage, the right column has dark text on a dark background.

What did you think of iWeb? thats what i'm using to create my site....

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Canon 40D + 70-200mm f/2.8L IS + 50mm f/1.8
Manfrotto 055CX3 + 496RC2
www.thomaslowe.com

Or try simpleviewer. Very similar, better in some ways:

http://simpleviewer.net/simpleviewer/

- Bjorn -

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Street and documentary photographer | Google+ | Twitter | Blog | Tumblr

Leica M9-P (my article on Camera Labs) | Leica D-Lux 5 | 50mm Summilux

Riiight here we go. I hope you don't mind my niggling

simpleviewer really is a great tool, I use it on my website as well.

as for your site: as allready pointed out: black on dark grey in the right column doesn't work. And anyway: too many different grey/black/white tones for my liking! break it down to 2 or 3. it's also a little too busy - way too many borders around each picture, title, banner, link and even structured grey around the banner etc.

And while the banner picture really is a good picture, I think it can interfere with pictures in your flash gallery.. green doesn't match every picture as a "background" (or well "top-ground" would be appropriate in this case ) It can also distract the eye from the actual picture one's looking at.

That zoom-fading stuff in the pictures section is not my cup of tea either - I like the pictures to appear pretty quickly.

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Canon EOS 5D Mark II | Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM | Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM | Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM
...and a lot of lighting stuff. -> complete list of equipment

Website
Blog

Thanks for your comments! I see what your saying and will continue to tweak.

Found simple viewer and like it a lot, nice touch.
Changed sidebar colours but i'm unable to change the border.

Getting there slowly..........

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Sony alpha 300 18-70mm
Canon 40d 17mm-85mm 50mm f1.8
http://www.joncharlesphotography.com

Your simpleviewer implementation turned out to be great, good work on that!

I don't like the font you use though. Your logo has a good design, great fonts, but the text that says "Welcome to this site"doesn't look attractive at all.
Also, I'd get rid of the date. Doesn't add anything.
Could you make the grey bar near the top a complete bar, including the picture, without the date bar/contact sheet, etc. overlapping it? That'd look a bit better I think.

- Bjorn -

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Street and documentary photographer | Google+ | Twitter | Blog | Tumblr

Leica M9-P (my article on Camera Labs) | Leica D-Lux 5 | 50mm Summilux

You'd benefit from redesigning your logo and having it stand out from the background through better contrast. Try to stick with one or two typefaces for punch and consistency. In your currently logo, JC is script, JonCharles is monospaced, and then photography is in serif. At first glance, all three forms look out of place and I don't see an apparent theme. Say you were trying for a formal, dependable, and conservative take, keep the serif and change all else. Conversely, if you opt for elegance, I would remove the monospaced font and stick to script and serif.

You might like to research a bit about design aesthetics such as typography and color, and then continue on the road to improvement.

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a900 | D700

I've listened to your comments and think i may be near completion, thanks for all your advise so far.

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Sony alpha 300 18-70mm
Canon 40d 17mm-85mm 50mm f1.8
http://www.joncharlesphotography.com

Its looking pretty good Jon! One thing I noticed on the page your buttons are just slightly higher than the content of your site. its not a really big deal but I'm OCD and stuff like that sticks out like a soar thumb to me.

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Canon 40D + 70-200mm f/2.8L IS + 50mm f/1.8
Manfrotto 055CX3 + 496RC2
www.thomaslowe.com

much better.

One thing that still bothers me, is that I have to scroll (22" screen, 1680*1050 resolution), just to be able to view the images - have you tried placing the thumbnails on the left hand side and getting rid of some dead space? I think nowadays, most people have 16:10 or even 16:9 ratio screens, so a WIDE website is usually no issue.

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Canon EOS 5D Mark II | Canon EF 35mm f/1.4L USM | Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM | Canon EF 135mm f/2L USM
...and a lot of lighting stuff. -> complete list of equipment

Website
Blog