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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Feedback on new portfolio website
Sean Popke, Photographer
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San Diego | CA | | Posted: 9:05 PM on 09.08.09 |
->> After nine months of procrastination, I just finished my portfolio site. I'd love to get feedback from anyone who has a chance to take a look. I'm using a few CSS3 elements (rounded corners, shadows), so the site works best in Firefox 3.5+ or Safari 3+. Thanks in advance.
Here's the site: http://seanpopke.com |
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Kevin Clifford, Photographer
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Reno | NV | United States | Posted: 10:05 PM on 09.08.09 |
| ->> Love the clean look and snappy feel. The only problem that I had with the site is the fact the sub categories are below the images (kinda hidden). It would be better to position them up top or have drop down menus. |
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Kevin Clifford, Photographer
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Reno | NV | United States | Posted: 10:07 PM on 09.08.09 |
| ->> Also, I think you should move the "about sean" link after the "blog" link. It seems out of place next to your "home" link. |
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Gregg Riess, Photographer
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Overland Park | KS | USA | Posted: 10:51 PM on 09.08.09 |
| ->> Sean, I just realized you did that site with Autoviewer. Wow - that's pretty good. I know it's very difficult to properly format a webpage with Autoviewer---it has a mind of it's own, doesn't it? |
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Jamey Price, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Charlotte | NC | USA | Posted: 11:10 PM on 09.08.09 |
| ->> Wow. Thats an incredible use of autoviewer. I tried unsuccessfully to deal with it on iWeb. Props for making it work. |
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Sean Popke, Photographer
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San Diego | CA | | Posted: 11:57 PM on 09.08.09 |
->> Thanks for all the feedback so far. I used Autoviewer Pro and made a custom version, getting rid of the image number and captions, and making the left/right arrows blue. I'm then using "svmanager" from the same company to manage the galleries.
If anyone has and questions on using autoviewer, I'd be happy to answer them. |
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Dirk Weaver, Photographer, Assistant
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Charlotte | NC | USA | Posted: 12:41 AM on 09.09.09 |
| ->> Sean...very nice site! I'm inspired. Very clean and very neat. No clutter and easy to navigate. Kudos! |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 12:43 AM on 09.09.09 |
->> Double-check the spelling/grammar in your "About Sean" section. Two popped out at me:
... "a" San Diego, CA... (not "an")
complement not compliment
I do not want to be forced to take the time to go though a linear presentation. I want thumbnails.
--Mark |
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Kent Nishimura, Student/Intern
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Honolulu | HI | USA | Posted: 3:54 AM on 09.09.09 |
| ->> nicely done sean. how;d you get your URLs so clean? |
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David Gordon, Photographer
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Somerville | MA | United States | Posted: 11:36 AM on 09.09.09 |
->> overall, this is a very nice site. just one suggestion...
as kevin said, the subcategories are not obvious. it wasn't until i read kevin's post that i even realized their were subcategories.
again, though, everything else looks, feels, drives great. |
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Sean Popke, Photographer
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San Diego | CA | | Posted: 11:58 AM on 09.09.09 |
->> Mark, thanks for the spelling corrections. As for the thumbnails, I left them off so visitors could focus on the images without distractions. I believe the linear method is just as fast as clicking on thumbnails - you just don't get to pick and choose which images you see.
Kent, when I built the site, I put each section in a separate folder. Then, in each folder the html file is just called index.html. So, to get to the still portfolio section, the link would just be " /still-portfolio ". No need to add index.html to the link, because that's the file it looks for by default.
Kevin and David, I'm assuming you couldn't see the portfolio sections because they were cut off and you had to scroll down to see them? I'm using a 23" screen, so I didn't notice. I'll move them to the top. |
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Allen Murabayashi, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 3:01 AM on 09.10.09 |
->> "I believe the linear method is just as fast as clicking on thumbnails - you just don't get to pick and choose which images you see."
What leads you to believe that? I'm not trying to be provocative, I'm just curious if you have something more than just a hunch to back up this crucial design/usability decision. |
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Mark Loundy, Photo Editor
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San Jose | CA | USA | Posted: 10:23 AM on 09.10.09 |
->> Sean,
I guess it depends on who your intended audience is. I'm looking at your site through the eyes of a busy photo editor.
--Mark |
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Sean Popke, Photographer
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San Diego | CA | | Posted: 12:07 PM on 09.10.09 |
->> The reason I believe it's just as fast is because you can leave your mouse positioned over the right arrow and just click to see the next photo. That's versus clicking on a thumbnail, viewing the photo, and then locating the next image you want to see, moving your mouse to the thumbnail, and clicking. I guess part of that depends if someone clicks on every thumbnail in order or picks and chooses which photos they want to look at (which, if the thumbnails are small, could be a hard decision.)
Having said all that, I appreciate the perspective of a busy photo editor, and I'll be looking into getting thumbnails added. In the end, I'd rather have it functional over anything else. |
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Derek Montgomery, Photographer
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Duluth | MN | USA | Posted: 12:23 PM on 09.10.09 |
->> Would it be hard to add thumbnails below the main image while maintaining the navigation arrows you already have in place? If you are only dealing with a few images in a gallery, a luck of thumbnails could probably suffice, but the more you add, the more helpful it is to have thumbnails.
Suppose an editor sees an image they like, but wanted to continue browsing your gallery. Now they want to go back and find that image. It doesn't sound like a lot of work to go back through all the images the way you set it up and in reality, it's not, but it's often things like this that can push an editor over the edge to where they will just give up.
I think you could have the best of both worlds if you could include thumbnails with the navigation system you have now. Nice looking site though. Clean, snappy, nice job. |
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Ethan Magoc, Student/Intern
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Erie | PA | United States | Posted: 1:35 PM on 09.10.09 |
->> Looks good, Sean.
One other thing on your bio page:
"Sean Popke is a San Diego, CA, based photographer, photojournalist, and director of photography that shoots both stills and video."
I'm assuming you are not a machine of some sort, so "that" should be "who."
I like how you integrated your blog right into the Web site, instead of jumping to a Blogspot page or something along those lines. Also, love the EX1 work!! |
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Matthew Sauk, Photographer
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Sandy | UT | United States | Posted: 3:49 PM on 09.10.09 |
->> I love the site. Very very clean and very easy to navigate. Your site right away attracts my eyes to your images.
I don't mind not having thumbnails, I think it serves it's purpose just fine |
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Allen Murabayashi, Photographer
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New York | NY | USA | Posted: 4:12 PM on 09.10.09 |
| ->> who is your intended audience? |
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Jesse Beals, Photographer
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Tracyton | WA | USA | Posted: 3:59 AM on 09.11.09 |
->> Sean,
Ok the site is clean and easy to work. The slide show is a bit slow and after a few minutes I was starting to tap my fingers.
First off who do you plan to show this to? I think your editorial section should have some sports, features, general news, photo illustrations and maybe more spot news.
If this is to be your portfolio you want to show the wow factor. |
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Sean Popke, Photographer
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San Diego | CA | | Posted: 12:42 AM on 09.14.09 |
->> Thanks everyone for the feedback and comments. I see the need for thumbnails and I'm trying to see if I can integrate them into the viewer I'm already using. I'm not a programmer, so it's going to be tough.
As for my target audience, I'd have to say I haven't defined that yet. I'm afraid I'm falling into the "jack of all, master of none" realm, so I'll have to focus on a specific subject for the majority of my work. |
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David Manning, Photographer
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Athens | GA | | Posted: 1:04 AM on 09.14.09 |
| ->> Everything looks really overexposed to me. |
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Francis Specker, Photographer
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Riverside | CA | USA | Posted: 3:31 AM on 09.14.09 |
->> I'm not a big fan of flash websites.
Looks like you could use some better SEO (search engine optimization). The title tag should have, at the very least, some keywords. The images look good, but don't under-estimate the marketing power of SEO.
Good blog integration, but you don't have a RSS feed.
Can I suggest a contact page that is a form page? It is a lot easier to send an email that way instead of clicking on a mail:to link that launches a mail program. |
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