Originally posted by: akugami
If you have Dreamweaver then that should simplify things. There are lots of Dreamweaver templates (many free) on the web so I'm sure with a little bit of looking you should be able to find something that will suit your needs or close enough that you can modify and adapt it to your needs.
I'll have to look around and see what I can find then. Dreamweaver is something I have never worked with, but am definitely willing to learn (and would enjoy that I think).
Tell your GF that the web site should not be about fun. It's a business and should look professional. This can be tough. I know because sometimes I just give up when my wife wants something done and I try to convince her it's a stupid idea. You'll never win. Unfortunately in this case the consequences can be huge if you are trying to make a living as a photographer and your site is turning off potential customers.
I can't tell you how many times I've said that. I don't think it should be "fun", and should be professional. There is room where you can have a little bit of "fun", but it shouldn't be the priority (which it kind of feels like shes making it that way).
BTW, you can have a "fun" web site and still be professional. It still should follow the KISS rule and be easy to navigate. One of the things to avoid is over use of Flash. Not everyone has broadband and I always hated web sites that took a minute or more just to load an intro page.
Yeah, that's one issue I've had with this WIX place. It's slow to load, looks crappy while it loads, and once it's loaded it still takes some time to become fully loaded and you can use it. As for the broadband aspect, I agree. A lot of professional photography websites have flash pages (or it appears to be similar to flash).
Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
I would agree that being too "fun" can work against her and if not done right can devolve into inferred unprofessionalism both in character and aesthetic taste. She can certainly show her fun side through her About Me, Blog, and photo gallery though. If she posts photos of couples looking like they're genuinely having fun, then that will reflect positively on her. You can portray a truck as fun by showing photos of people using it at a tailgate party, car camping out of it, etc. But the truck by itself still retains professionalism. Or you could try for that fun vibe by painting the car in poka dots with swinging rubber testicles on the trailer hitch. Then it's just too much and can reflect badly on the car, the car owner, and the car maker. She's trying to paint the car.
Those are great ideas. Never thought of them. THANKS! Quick question on this subject though, the morning show here does a big festival in the summer (about 2 weeks away). This morning the thought I had driving to work was, "what about contacting them to see about doing free shooting for them, and I/we gain experience?" Any thoughts about that?
The fun being portrayed through the photography, and NOT the website itself I think might be a good idea.
I wouldn't call Dreamweaver a really easy to use WYSIWYG editor, but if you've got it you might as well use it. Just be open to learning and fiddling around with CSS, HTML, pre-made javascript, getting a web host, etc. Definitely check out pre-made templates though to give yourself a head start.
I've worked with HTML, CSS, some Java, etc but I've only done very, very, very simple stuff. Nothing that I'm even proud of, let alone professional lol. I will definitely look at it though and see about programming it.
As for building her portfolio, tell her to do a few weddings for free. Seriously. It's not a good idea to place herself into a paid situation where she has full liability for any mistakes she may make as a result of only having had one wedding under her belt. Offer them for free to start with. That way she'll get jobs easily, build her portfolio, build her name, and probably gather some great testimonials. And the website will be better off as well because it'll actually have content to display. Possible paying clients aren't going to be impressed at a website with almost zero content even if it is well designed...
Yeah, I agree here also. Where are places to be able to find weddings to shoot for free? I am also interested in it once I get the basics down, so I can hopefully get into it as well (under my own studio/site ).
I would invest in Lightroom because it will make her workflow a lot faster and easier. Leave Photoshop for the heavy duty stuff like cloning out large objects and the like. I personally don't know of any photographer who deals in even moderate volumes that uses Photoshop as their only image editing software. Most use something in the Lightroom/Aperture/Capture One category.
We use PS simply because we have it. I'll look into Lightroom and the like though. It seems LR is what most people use though, so it's definitely something to look into.
Originally posted by: fuzzybabybunny
Do you have the resources to hire a local web design guy? Maybe even someone from the local high school who would work for cheap?
I do, but she doesn't right now. Unfortunately, some of our friends who do it aren't willing to help (haven't offered to pay though, which we kind of wanted to avoid).
Originally posted by: zebrax2
1.) the picture transition on the front page is pretty distracting
2.) remove the border of the picture in services, about and portfolio or at least change it
3.) add a border to the scrolling text box in the about section (i almost didn't noticed you could scroll it)
4.) the portfolio page needs to be changed. a suggestion would be to put the classification on the left side then put a bunch of thumbnails on the right
Thanks.
1- would slowing down the transitions make it better? From the 3 secondish delay to 5-7 seconds?
2- Do you mean that whiteish border on the left/top, or the bubble type deal of the pictures?
3- Yeah I was wondering how to fix that, because it's hard to tell it's scrollable.
4- I've been trying to get her to do something like that (like the earlier links I posted to other photog websites).