I would love it if you would each check out my new website and tell me what you think of my wildlife photography. I recently returned from Costa Rica- http://brandonsideleau.weebly.com/index.html
Your website works fine in Firefox and Safari, but in IE the stylesheets are causing your navigation links to get partially covered up by the content below (particularly problematic on the gallery pages), and some of the links are overlapping eachother.
I suspect simply reducing the navigation links so that they only occupy one line would be sufficient, which works with my second recommendation of having "Home, Galleries, About, Contact" instead of listing every gallery on every page. Just have links to each gallery from one page and reduce the clutter in the navigation bar.
I really like your photo of the seal popping up with seaweed on its head - I'd replace the croc on your home page with it...
Brandon, you have very beautiful images! Website worked fine for me in Safari (Macintosh) also.
I am wondering about the "no photoshopping" attribute. Most digital camera images could use a bit of tweaking for the final product and not many folks would expect you not to use it! If nothing else, you SHOULD (imho) be using something to enter meta data or the "file info" data in photoshop which gives info on the image including your name and copyright. If you used some software to make a copy for the internet (your website), it stripped all that data out. I never use that kind of software or command for that very reason. Or perhaps these are scans from film...still need to enter that data! You also might look into seeing how your website can include "no right click" copying as I was able to click and drag an image from your site to my desktop, open it in Photoshop, change the dpi to something much larger, and had a fairly nice image of your file (which I promptly deleted)!!! Protect your images!!!
Hi Brandon: When I opened your site the first pix came up and was overlapping some of your words (links). I agree with Kenn on the seal with seaweed. That's adorable and my favorite. Good job!!!
In response to Troup Nightingale, by "no photoshopping" I just mean I don't adjust or correct anything with any tweaking program. I do use those wonderful programs to put watermarks on my photos and lower their size for the web. I just mean that, the photos you see are not adjusted in any way to make them look better than the originals. I just feel that, at what point is the image no longer mine and just a product of photoshop ya know? Anyone can take a picture and tweak it until it looks good. Don't get me wrong....I love photoshop and all of the wonderful ever evolving technology......I just think that it's more important that I learn how to get shots perfect without photoshop and using it more as a tool rather than a savior for photos that are way too dark or not sharp enough. I would prefer to have a very slightly dark photo that was 100% mine than a fixed version from photoshop, it just doesn't look natural. But, that's just my own trip.....I got no problem with anyone else doing it. And as for the technical aspects of the webpage.....I don't know how to fix it as it is a weebly page and I do not have deep editing capabilities. Someday I will make my own paid site from scratch when I learn HTML better....for now I was really more wondering what you guys thought of the photos, not the quality of the site......Thanks though.
Hey Brandon, Photos are wonderful and composition is excellent. You may find Photoshop processes can be as useful as film darkroom processes! It's not that you would be "saving" an image. I agree that most of the images you have posted look excellent as is on my monitor. However, for the best quality "print" you may be surprised what the "darkroom" has to offer. Anyway, you made your point very well and I understand where you are coming from. Keep up the good work!
I'd agree with some of the comments on the technical parts of the site: words are overlapping in IE.
As far as the photos, some constructive advice: pay more attention to your backgrounds. Many of them are very distracting: either too close, too many hotspots, or just too cluttered. This takes the eye away from the subject you're trying to feature.
I also noticed that an overwhelming number of your compositions are centered. Try taking the main subject off center (and have the animal looking into the frame rather than out).
This goes for your landscape images as well, most of the horizons are right in the middle of the frame. Try moving them up or down. Move the horizon up to make the foreground more dynamic. Move the horizon down to feature the sky. Ask yourself what's the most important part to you and then feature that. By putting the horizon right in the middle you leave the viewer rather ambivalent as to what you're trying to show us.
Best of luck and keep going out to get more images.
While you did not ask for comments on the tech aspects of your site, I find myself in agreement with others as to the overlapping text. I am using IE 7 and some text is overlapping some links making them unusable. Since you are using your site as a marketing tool to showcase your work, it is most important that your site work properly. A web site is a direct reflection on one's professionalism.
I am not a wildlife photographer and I give you a thumbs-up for your efforts, but I also agree with with Rod regarding some of the images. There are times when, from a creative standpoint, having a centerd subject or centered horizon line can be very effective when used sparingly in a portfolio format.
I agree with your suggestions on the site.....I need to work on it and I am but, as a person unfamiliar with HTML and basic site design, it is taking more time than I would like. As far as the photos go......I can see some of what you're saying...but I feel it is far more important to get the subjects eye and facial expression sharp and in focus......and capturing those special moments......not so much the background....unless of course the image calls for it. It is very difficult to photograph a Capuchin outside of the jungle canopy....the green canopy is part of the habitat so I do not see why it would not be included. I don't find wildlife photography to be dependent on backgrounds, but more on the capturing the moment clearly and creatively. I have seeing National Geographic photos far more cluttered.......but that's just my opinion. I'm not being defensive, just offering my two cents.....I appreciate the constructive criticism though. I like to think my strong point is the facial portrait, and given how difficult that is to clearly obtain from a wild animal I think I've done a decent job. I agree that I need more variety- which I am working on, I need to becoming quicker and more efficient with my equipment. I'm often stuck using my 70-300mm lens for everything from macro to long distance given the time it takes to switch lenses in the field. Very rarely will an animal stand still and allow you to fiddle around to change equipment. Anyway, thanks for all of the suggestions and I will work on expanding my horizons beyond facial close-ups. I will be hitting the San Simeon Elephant Seals this weekend again- it's not quite Costa Rica but it's still amazing. Hopefully you guys and girls can tell me what you think of them when I get back. And again I will continue to work on getting the site to run properly. I may have to switch to a different hosting site.
Brandon, html is not that difficult to learn, and there are many excellent references that you can use to learn it. Or, if you do not have time to learn it, perhaps a friend can help you fix the issues with your site. In terms of site design, it will be time well spent to look at various sites that you can use as a model; a site to market stock images may have a different look and feel than a site that is marketing primarily fine prints. Basically, it depends upon your goals.
Discussion
9 repliesI suspect simply reducing the navigation links so that they only occupy one line would be sufficient, which works with my second recommendation of having "Home, Galleries, About, Contact" instead of listing every gallery on every page. Just have links to each gallery from one page and reduce the clutter in the navigation bar.
I really like your photo of the seal popping up with seaweed on its head - I'd replace the croc on your home page with it...
I am wondering about the "no photoshopping" attribute. Most digital camera images could use a bit of tweaking for the final product and not many folks would expect you not to use it! If nothing else, you SHOULD (imho) be using something to enter meta data or the "file info" data in photoshop which gives info on the image including your name and copyright. If you used some software to make a copy for the internet (your website), it stripped all that data out. I never use that kind of software or command for that very reason. Or perhaps these are scans from film...still need to enter that data! You also might look into seeing how your website can include "no right click" copying as I was able to click and drag an image from your site to my desktop, open it in Photoshop, change the dpi to something much larger, and had a fairly nice image of your file (which I promptly deleted)!!! Protect your images!!!
You are a fine photographer, keep it up!!
Troup Nightingale
Sandi Winton
www.redbudphotography.com
Troup (again!)
As far as the photos, some constructive advice: pay more attention to your backgrounds. Many of them are very distracting: either too close, too many hotspots, or just too cluttered. This takes the eye away from the subject you're trying to feature.
I also noticed that an overwhelming number of your compositions are centered. Try taking the main subject off center (and have the animal looking into the frame rather than out).
This goes for your landscape images as well, most of the horizons are right in the middle of the frame. Try moving them up or down. Move the horizon up to make the foreground more dynamic. Move the horizon down to feature the sky. Ask yourself what's the most important part to you and then feature that. By putting the horizon right in the middle you leave the viewer rather ambivalent as to what you're trying to show us.
Best of luck and keep going out to get more images.
While you did not ask for comments on the tech aspects of your site, I find myself in agreement with others as to the overlapping text. I am using IE 7 and some text is overlapping some links making them unusable. Since you are using your site as a marketing tool to showcase your work, it is most important that your site work properly. A web site is a direct reflection on one's professionalism.
I am not a wildlife photographer and I give you a thumbs-up for your efforts, but I also agree with with Rod regarding some of the images. There are times when, from a creative standpoint, having a centerd subject or centered horizon line can be very effective when used sparingly in a portfolio format.
Carry on!
Kind regards,
-PB
-PB