site review

[DJ72]

Hi Gurus

 

I have just finished putting together my site

 

https://fotoscopic.com/

 

If anyone cares to take a look i would really appreciate the feedback many thanks. 

[Joseph Clemson]

I think the first question which comes to mind is what is the piurpose of the site? You don't seem to have any way of your images being licenced or available for print. There are no links to any stock agency? If you are just using it as a way of displaying your photos, in what way does having your own website have an advantage over any of the photo sharing sites, where they are far more likely to get found and viewed?

 

The other question which comes to mind is whether having a gallery of cockfighting pictures is a good idea. Cockfighting is illegal in the UK and in most civilised countries around the world. Whether or not it is legal wherever these pictures originate, I don't think I would want to be interacting (as a buyer or an artist) a website where what I view as an abhorrent practice is being prominantly displayed.

 

Other questions about the design and viewability of the website are subsumed in significant by my inital impressions above. The website  may have potential, but at the moment I'm not sure what it is intended to do

[Steve F]

Hi DJ72,

I think I agree with a lot of what Joseph has written above. But I'm just going to comment on the website design. I've opened the website on a desktop - so on a large screen. There's no menu though (i.e. a row of buttons you can click on), just a hamburger (the 3 white lines at the top right). So your website may be optimised for phones, but it is not suitable for wider screens like tablets or computers. This is just in terms of the menu though, the photos are fine at different screen sizes.

 

If you click on the 3 lines on Firefox or 3 dots on Google Chrome at the top right of the browser, you get the option of clicking on "Web developer" in Firefox or "More Tools" then "Developer Tools" in Chrome. Then click on "Responsive Design Mode" in Firefox or to the left of "Elements" in Chrome, click on the "Toggle Device Toolbar" button. Assuming you've got there okay, you now have the option of resizing the browser screen on the right hand side so you can see what your website looks like at different screen widths. Firefox even gives you a list of different phones and tablets you can click on to see what your website looks like on e.e a Chromebook or iPhone X.

 

Here's an example website:

http://www.frostsfineart.com/

Go on "responsive design mode" (Firefox) and you can see there is a cutoff point where the website switches between having a menu for mobile phones, and then for wider screens.

 

 

If you've survived all that I would add to what Joseph wrote, there is no "About" tab telling you about what the website is for or about yourself as a photographer, and no way to sell your photos. Have you got a particular reason for not just using your Alamy "my Portfolio page" rather than having your own website?

 

Finally! the "Terms and conditions" page seems a bit superfluous. A lot of the text is not relevant, the rest can be covered under "privacy policy".

 

Hope this helps,

Steve

 

Edited September 20, 2019 by Steve F

[DJ72]

Hello Both.

 

It has been a while since I needed to make some changes to the site. I have taken on board your comments and hopefully the improvements are there to be seen.

 

Thanks.

[M.Chapman]

Some beautiful images. I really like the simple compositions and colours and the way you have isolated details of a scene, you have an artistic eye IMHO. 

 

Mark

[Ed Rooney]

Putting aside the valid advice of the other commenters for a moment --- I love your visual sense of humor!  😃

[Matt Ashmore]

I don't know if it is maybe worth considering making your watermarks bigger? It would take me all of 30 seconds using either the healing tool or the crop tool in photoshop to get rid of the little copyright notice in the bottom left corner of each image.

[Harry Harrison]

Yes, great use of colour and humour as has already been said, for me a far better showcase than the somewhat limited Alamy Portfolio page. The galleries work very well and the individual images are a good size and navigation is easy either with the mouse or the cursor keys. I'm not usually keen on black backgrounds but it looks fine, probably because of the bold colours, not sure it works as well with the Wedding pictures.

 

I know when you go with a theme you are limited by certain design criteria but for me the separate Menu page is a slight distraction and here maybe the black background is a bit overpowering. but that's a very small point. The grid view works very well, especially when you've gone into one of your categories (Mundane, Unposed, Minimal etc.) but slightly less so imho when the images are unrelated as on the Home page, not that I've got a solution to that and I don't have a website myself yet, quite possibly because I overthink things like that.

 

I'm not sure about watermarks, Matt is right to say that they can easily be removed but I've looked at a lot of websites recently, mostly from professionals and many by photographers with a well established reputation in their respective fields, none had watermarks. Actually, I tell a lie, I can think of one, a very well established and prolific British photographer who is also on Alamy, he has very prominent watermarks on his commercial Photoshelter site but all the others presumably think that they detract from the image, which they clearly do.

 

Yes, you have a very good eye.

[DJ72]

Harry, Matt, Ed, Mark:

Wow thanks to all for your considerations I really appreciate it, all of it.

I had zero experience of web design a month ago.

I worked hard for a month on this and I took advice from lots of people, including this forum.

Thanks to Mark Chapman who helped me a lot when I needed it with my camera and Lightroom.

David. 

 

 

Edited October 10, 2019 by DJ72