1st attempt at Website setup - please let me know what you think.

mikeyw

mikeyw

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Guys,

Just about set up my website now to host images for sale and hopefully source further work. I realise i need to set more albums up for portrait and landscape work along with some more wedding pictures but i was wondering if you guys would be as kind to feedback (good & bad on layout / content etc) as things stand

Anything good or bad to improve the overall feel of the site would be much appreciated :-

www.mjw-photography.com

Many thanks,
Mike.
 
Well the website doesn't say "Professional" - you are mixing professional pics (weddings) with other pics, which although nice, don't have any relevance.

Also the top pic, again although nice, should be replaced - maybe with a collage of wedding pics - or simply removed altogether.

Personally I would have more than one website - each devoted to just one aspect of your work - mixing different kinds of work on one website, as far as I'm concerned, detracts from the overall professionalism.

Also the pricing you mentioned "Images hosted on the site a low resolution versions of the original pics. Prints ordered from this site will be maximum resolution." - should come up when people look at the images.

You already have links to your gallery on the top so ther is no need to repeat it undeneath your main pic.

Also when I tried to enter your site I couldn't because you require cookies - why?

Admitadly my computer is always on high protection and I was able to enter your site but cookies on a site such as yours aren't really necessary.

And even when I had enabled cookies I still had to click on "Enter" - why?

Totally unnecessary.

I hope you appreciate that these comments are not meant as derogatory but are my impressions as an ex professional.

On the good side your front page validated on w3.org - haven't checked the other pages but that's always a good sign.
 
I agree with the last poster regarding your top banner image... amontage of smaller photos would perhaps be better, particularly as it looks like you are into more than one area of photography.

Personally I would dump the large photo in the middle of the page and use this space for content details. There is a useful advertising term to remember here: "Above the fold" - it goes back to the days of the old broadsheet newspapers whereby advertisements were more effective on the top half of the page. It still applies to websites- so this is where you need to draw attention to whateve service you are providing.

Do the above and then lets see how it looks.
 
Just my opinion but the main image on the front page doesn't work, I immediately thought 'blurred image' and then thought 'superimposed' when I saw the young girl. Whether she has been stuck on or not I don't know, but the image as a whole doesn't tempt me to look further into the site. It sort of clashes with the banner as well, which is a different width.

Edit: Just seen that you've got random images on the homepage, so people may not understand what picture I'm talking about.

Personally I'd get rid of the red line going along the top, and the image numbers. Also be wary of having pictures of other people's kids accessible by anyone on the site.

Has the makings of a nice site though, hope you don't think I'm being unnecessarily harsh, just trying to provide constructive criticism.
 
I'm also not a fan of the banner at the top, but if you feel you have to include it my suggestions would be to make it the same width as the image below it and to give it some padding to the red line.

I can only see about half of the main image, getting rid of the banner would help this.

The gallery list page is a little bit confusing as on my set up (OS X Safari) the number of images in the gallery looks like it is part of the gallery description, a bit more padding needed, or a different colour font?
 
Thanks guys - some great feedback so far....all points duly noted.

Will remove the large pic straight away as I was uncertain about it before so pleased in a way you don't think it works.
 
I'm afraid you misunderstood my post.

The large pic was fine - especially when the wedding pics were used - but not the pic you have now.

Try by using only the large pic and the navigation links above and get rid of all the writing underneath.

You could try overlaying the large pic with "MJW Photography" in roughly the same position it is now.

You can stop people downloading your pics by overlaying them with a 1 pixel transparent overlay expanded to cover the whole picture.
 
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