Posted by Phillip Noll on June 3, 2011 at 10:37 PM
After many months spent getting control of my completely out of control image collection, culling out the rejects (lots!), tweaking some keepers, writing content, and working with the most patient, generous, and capable web guru out there....
I am very pleased to announce the launch of my new website:
Only took me 2+ years to get off my rear and get 'er done! Its actually been live since the beginning of April but now I have uploaded a respectable number of photos and wanted to share! Lots more to add as time allows.
Many thanks to Jack Brauer for all his help, patience, and professionalism. If you need a website, I can't recommend Jack highly enough!
It looks very nice, quite elegant. I personally don't like the background image though, I think it clutters it up and distracts from your great images. Plus you can barely see your raven logo. I liked it much better before the page finished loading and there was no background image. I'm much happier with my site after removing the background image too
I will have to disagree with the presence of the background image. I think it adds needed texture to an otherwise generic black background. I suppose black is the most oft chosen background because it makes colors pop, but, it is seen in every Smugmug, Zenifolio site on the web it seems. If you use it, it needs something to give it more omph and the texture helps.
Joe Rogers
The background image choice is actually quite interesting because the images look as though they are popping out from the page. There's a bit of a three dimensional feel to it. I rather like it.
Very professional looking site, Phil! Several things impressed me very much:
All of the images are top quality. Good job with the culling.
Spelling, punctuation and grammar are perfect. You'd be surprised how many websites I see with errors like this that diminish the overall professional quality. This former proofreader is impressed!
Extremely intuitive and well thought out design.
I like the image on your Fine Art Prints page showing the print sizes up on the wall. A very unique thing to see that really impresses me.
The stern looking owl on the Copyright page is absolutely classic!
I like that you have print prices below every single image. Much better than having to navigate to a separate page!
Only two very minor nits:
Using IE9 with a 24" screen (1920x1200), there is about a two inch black border on both sides of my screen. As your background images are nearly black, that hardly matters. When I hit a page that needs to be scrolled down, the background image sharply goes to full screen (no borders) as I scroll. Not a big deal, and if this is the only problem you had with IE, then I reckon you're lucky.
And why aren't your print prices rounded up or down to the nearest dollar? Having the odd cents (.05, .11, .21, .38, etc.) strikes me as somewhat odd.
Regardless, this is one of the better photography websites I've seen. You, Monica and Jack did a fantastic job here!
Posted by Art Escobado on June 4, 2011 at 12:19 PM
Nice website that gives the viewer a smooth experience...with images to match.
Great stuff Phillip! You have some fabulous images on there! Like some of the others I'm not sure I like the scrolling text against a static background, but that's a personal preference.
Been looking forward to this for a while, Phil, great work! Nothing intelligent to say, just that you've got an awesome portfolio in there. Oh, and I love the Truchas Sunset shot, I've always wanted to get one like that!
The odd print prices stem from being a science geek. I did a lot of research on pricing and using my costs + shipping + taxes + PayPal fees as a starting place I put everything into a spreadsheet and fit a polynomial to the data and just used the prices that it spit out! Maybe I should round them to the nearest dollar but I'm not sure its worth the effort. (Yeah, I'm lazy!).
It was very difficult to get the look and feel I wanted across all browsers (with IE being the worst one to deal with though Opera gave me fits too). Had to compromise more than I wanted and just gave up on Opera and IE. I even see different behavior (though subtle) between Safari and FireFox! It sure would be nice if all browsers abided by the Internet Standards.
Glad to hear it looks OK on IE9, John. And I try very hard to mayk meye spellng purfect and got good grammer!! Erik, I actually had folks request the scrolling text on a static background! I think I'll leave it that way unless I get a flood of complaints! The backgrounds are supposed to change randomly on page load but it doesn't always work that way! And the backgrounds are very dark on some displays and quite bright on others. Another issue I just gave up on! They are supposed to fill the screen and resize automatically as the window resizes (some new CSS). Sounds like IE9 isn't playing nice (big suprise!). The backgrounds are 1440 x 1080 and I thought that would be a good compromise. Oh well, its good enough for gov't work!
Discussion
14 repliesI am very pleased to announce the launch of my new website:
Raven Mountain Images
Only took me 2+ years to get off my rear and get 'er done!
Many thanks to Jack Brauer for all his help, patience, and professionalism. If you need a website, I can't recommend Jack highly enough!
Would love to hear what you think!
Joe Rogers
All of the images are top quality. Good job with the culling.
Spelling, punctuation and grammar are perfect. You'd be surprised how many websites I see with errors like this that diminish the overall professional quality. This former proofreader is impressed!
Extremely intuitive and well thought out design.
I like the image on your Fine Art Prints page showing the print sizes up on the wall. A very unique thing to see that really impresses me.
The stern looking owl on the Copyright page is absolutely classic!
I like that you have print prices below every single image. Much better than having to navigate to a separate page!
Only two very minor nits:
Using IE9 with a 24" screen (1920x1200), there is about a two inch black border on both sides of my screen. As your background images are nearly black, that hardly matters. When I hit a page that needs to be scrolled down, the background image sharply goes to full screen (no borders) as I scroll. Not a big deal, and if this is the only problem you had with IE, then I reckon you're lucky.
And why aren't your print prices rounded up or down to the nearest dollar? Having the odd cents (.05, .11, .21, .38, etc.) strikes me as somewhat odd.
Regardless, this is one of the better photography websites I've seen. You, Monica and Jack did a fantastic job here!
The odd print prices stem from being a science geek.
It was very difficult to get the look and feel I wanted across all browsers (with IE being the worst one to deal with though Opera gave me fits too). Had to compromise more than I wanted and just gave up on Opera and IE. I even see different behavior (though subtle) between Safari and FireFox! It sure would be nice if all browsers abided by the Internet Standards.
Glad to hear it looks OK on IE9, John. And I try very hard to mayk meye spellng purfect and got good grammer!!
Thanks again for the comments!