I've just finished with my photography website after many pain-staking hours in front of the monitor, but it was fun. Please check it and, and let me know what you all think of the photos. Thank you!
www.cmhuangphotography.com
Chun Ming
P.S. Do you think the price of my photos are reasonable? Too inexpensive? I've had that comment from several people, but I guess since I have no name, I can't really make it too expensive. At this point, I'm just glad if someone will buy any of my photos.
Looks good Chun! I especially like your Maui photos. Good job!
As for your prices, I personally think they're too inexpensive. Of course I don't know how easy it is for you to produce, package, and ship them, but is your profit even worth the time you spend doing that? Not to mention all the effort taking the photos. I wouldn't worry about your name-recognition... your photos stand on their own, and besides, there are very few photographers who are famous anyways. Anyhow, good luck and I hope you sell lots of prints regardless of the prices!
That's a great start, Chun Ming. Congratulations! The thumbnails look really good together and I like your choice of background color. I must say that to my eye almost all of your gallery images are stronger compositions than your homepage image, which also has a cyan cast to it. Also, many of your images at full display size look too soft. As a potential customer I would want to see them displayed sharper as well as know what camera you work with so that I would be reassured that a large print would be crisp and detailed. You may be using too high a jpeg compression and/or not sharpening enough prior to compression.
Are some of your China picures from Huangshan? I think so. I have visited there also, but unfortunately I saw almost nothing as the weather was horrible: we were in a thick cloud the entire time. But it was still a treat just to be there, and I didn't have a good camera with me anyway so it would have been torture to have seen it in all its glory and not be able to make good images. I hope to return there someday. Cheers! -Don
In terms of the pricing Jack, I'll definitely consider/re-consider..... I know I won't make much from them, but you're right about the time and other stuff I put into producing the image... Hmm...
Don, I'll definitely look into the softness issue. When you say you look at the full size, did you expand the current image? Or is it viewing straight off each individual photo from the the page? I did do a lot of jpeg compression due to loading time on the web, and I didn't do any sharpening after that...
Yeah, that was Huangshan, wasn't it a great place? I do wish there were clouds and fog when I was there though, it was too sunny (too nice of weather!) I hope to go back to that region soon.
I totally agree with all the earlier comments! Well done on the site as it gets out of the way, for the viewer to view your wonderful photographic work!
It looks like a good start. IMHO you might want to consider another option for printing. Noritsu prints are not considered really archival. I know that we can dial in good prints to the big Noritsu's (you have misspelled Noritsu) at Costco with Dry Creek Profiles and I always make my proofs and small (up to 11x14) prints for my wedding customers with them. But personally I would try to offer a "better" product to the customer and you can uplift the price if you like. Also, I would avoid having shots that look the same right next to eachother like your lighthouse shots on the CA coast section. Pick your best and show only that one. The images are showing up good on my screen meaning that you have profiled them correctly.
You also might want to talk a little about the technique you employe (equipment, techniques etc) taht you go through to make prints and why they are worth what customers might pay. Again make sure you are using quality materials and tell the customer why they are worth the price.
Chun Ming, re my softness comments, I was viewing the images at their native size (1:1 pixels) on a 21" crt monitor at 1600x1200, not expanded to fit the screen. And since some of the images look adequately sharp I don't think it is just my monitor. (The aspen pix look fine but the lighthouse pix look soft, for example. And maybe it's just me since no one else has commented.) Final sharpening should always be done after downsampling and before jpeg conversion/compression. It sometimes helps to oversharpen a little before compression so that there is some residual sharpness after compression. -Don
Alright, I'll definitely make some changes, and start shopping around for possibly another printer. I thought of putting the techniques in there, and then I gave up on that idea. But I think I'll re-introduce that idea.
Don, thanks for pointing the softness issue out. I'll play with it to make it look better.
Discussion
7 repliesI've just finished with my photography website after many pain-staking hours in front of the monitor, but it was fun. Please check it and, and let me know what you all think of the photos. Thank you!
www.cmhuangphotography.com
Chun Ming
P.S. Do you think the price of my photos are reasonable? Too inexpensive? I've had that comment from several people, but I guess since I have no name, I can't really make it too expensive. At this point, I'm just glad if someone will buy any of my photos.
As for your prices, I personally think they're too inexpensive. Of course I don't know how easy it is for you to produce, package, and ship them, but is your profit even worth the time you spend doing that? Not to mention all the effort taking the photos. I wouldn't worry about your name-recognition... your photos stand on their own, and besides, there are very few photographers who are famous anyways. Anyhow, good luck and I hope you sell lots of prints regardless of the prices!
Are some of your China picures from Huangshan? I think so. I have visited there also, but unfortunately I saw almost nothing as the weather was horrible: we were in a thick cloud the entire time. But it was still a treat just to be there, and I didn't have a good camera with me anyway so it would have been torture to have seen it in all its glory and not be able to make good images. I hope to return there someday. Cheers! -Don
In terms of the pricing Jack, I'll definitely consider/re-consider..... I know I won't make much from them, but you're right about the time and other stuff I put into producing the image... Hmm...
Don, I'll definitely look into the softness issue. When you say you look at the full size, did you expand the current image? Or is it viewing straight off each individual photo from the the page? I did do a lot of jpeg compression due to loading time on the web, and I didn't do any sharpening after that...
Yeah, that was Huangshan, wasn't it a great place? I do wish there were clouds and fog when I was there though, it was too sunny (too nice of weather!) I hope to go back to that region soon.
You also might want to talk a little about the technique you employe (equipment, techniques etc) taht you go through to make prints and why they are worth what customers might pay. Again make sure you are using quality materials and tell the customer why they are worth the price.
RichieV
Don, thanks for pointing the softness issue out. I'll play with it to make it look better.