LF Web sites

[David A. Goldfarb]

Thanks for the complement, Frank. I also really like Mark Tucker's work.

[John Flavell]

A mixture: www.flavellphotography.com

[Frank Petronio]

I just revisted Tucker's website and saw his latest. He really is overdoing the Photoshop blurring and fake distressing of his images, but many of the core images are simply excellent shots to begin with. He has a good eye, but can be heavy handed sometimes.

Also Raymond Meeks is kinda the same thing: http://www.jacksonfineart.com/myindex.php?mode=contemporary&artist_id=175

Love blurs but be subtle!

[tim atherton]

actually some of Mark Tuckers stuff is LF - we had the whole saga of him buying an Ebony to take on holiday to Mexico - as well as insights into his blind date holdiay buddy... :-)

So the Mexico stuff is all LF and some after that.

Also not all the blurr (if any>) is in PS - much is fromthe Hasselbad plungercam

He is the expert of blurr though... and also prolific

[Scott Rosenberg]

thanks for the constructive criticisms fellas; i appreciate all your opinions, even yours, dean! please don't take this as snide, but i would very much appreciate you posting a couple of links that are, in your opinion, not terrible examples of online portfolios.

hogarth...
if you don't mind, i'd very much like to contact you via email off the forum about some of the browser issues you are having. i was very careful when authoring the site that it be compatible across all browsers. it so happens that i run mozilla on one of my pc's, and everything check-out as it should on my box. i'd be interested to learn of the issues you are having, as i'm sure you're not the only one who is! if you wouldn't mind the intrusion, i'd very much like to send you an email. if this is agreeable to you, please reply in turn.

witold...
you are correct in that one with some web prowess will still be able to get to the source of unaltered images. folks with the know-how to do this, however, are in the vast minority of visitors to my site. your average computer user will simply right click and save as or save as background. anything beyond that is out of the scope of most folks.

frank...
thanks for the feedback and kind words. i've been meaning to add 'next image' and 'previous image' buttons to the site, but haven't gotten around to it yet. it's still very much a work in progress. i tried to break away from the typical online portfolio and design the site with a little personality... maybe i need to scale it down a little and focus more on the photograhy.

wrt to the roll over copyright message... image piracy is a something anybody with intellectual property on the net needs to be concerned with. for years i paid it absolutely no mind what-so-ever. then i received an email from a friend of mine in Melbourne, Australia. he sent me a link to a site, simply saying 'you'll get a kick out of this...'

well, i went to the site and found that some of my images were being used there unbeknownst to me. i contacted the owner of the site, and he basically told me to take a hike. i got a little more serious about protecting my work after that, and have gone through many, many different measure to try to combat image piracy, from disabling the right-click to embedded watermarks, to java roll-overs. the roll-over copyright notice, this crowd withstanding, was most palatable to the majority of visitors to my site, so that's the one i ultimately went with.

anyhow, i appreciate all the feedback. you guys have certainly given me a lot to think about. it looks like i've got some work to do on the site... i hope you will check back in a couple of weeks and email me with some more of your criticisms.

scott

[Frank Petronio]

I could take a screenshot if I really wanted to steal your online images... there is no perfect solution, but considering that the damages of such a theft are minimal, it may be more constructive not to alienate the good people who might be your clients...

Other people use tiny images, or use a transparent layer so the downloader get a transparent gif, or other tricks. I rather just post an image large enough that you don't have to squint and not worry so much.

Navigation that is at the top center of the image tests to be the most efficient - the viewer doesn't have to move the cursor each time, and can click through easier. Also better for smaller screens, etc.

[Frank Petronio]

It is also a good idea to give the viewer an indication of how many images are in each gallery and where they are in relation to it.

In regards to your site, consider what people want to do most often - usually it is viewing your pictures, with the other menu items being secondary to that goal. I'd make your B&W and Color galleries easier to access from the menu bar, and relegate some of the lesser items to be within your "About Me" categories.

Discussions on navigation:


http://www.brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2002/11/19/all_about_navigation_and_the_user/


http://www.pt3.org/grantee_center/web_tips_navigation.html

You can also see examples of good gallery navigation on MOST of the commerical photo blogs, and (ahem) porn sites. After all, it is their business.

I like the following although they don't always do exactly what I expect. Notice they use large, unprotected photos that are excellent quality:


http://www.slower.net/


http://www.quarlo.com/

I understand your desire to create something fresh and different. But the website's navigation is not the place to experiment - think of it as a book - if you want to appeal to Western civilization, you build it to have pages that turn from the right to the left, and start at the upper left. Same thing goes for websites - navigation is a tool - put the creativity into the content instead.

[Witold Grabiec]

Scott,
I'd like to voice my support for simpler navigation and against the "_over" approach to your presentation. I too am turned off a bit by the constant pop_up "move your cursor ...", yet you've got some great images to show and it would be a shame, if a potential viewer would CLICK OUT for good before seeing the whole portfolio, because he ran out of patiance. I also believe, that lower resolution images give me adequate protection while allowing a direct view for any one who chooses to see them. Yet, I am not in the commercial arena so this approach may be less applicable to some.

I realise you've put substantial amount of thought and time into your site and it does not come easy for me to say anything critical (I've gone through this once myself while learning the design process at my www.elusivefoto.com, and am doing it again as new ideas surfaced and time on hand became available). When I visit a site, I prefer navigation set up that would take me from any page to any other. That's my ideal solution. However, I no longer think that the Gallery (or Portfolio) part of the site needs to have that much on each page. While I still prefer to take a bus from any stop to any destination, I'm looking at some changes that will hopefully improve the feel and look of the Gallery section.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Just FYI, Scott, the "move your cursor" popup is easily defeated in Netscape 7.1 without having to do any sort of screen capture. If the cursor is placed over the image before it is fully loaded, then it is possible to right click and save the image. You only get the popup if the cursor is moved onto the image after it loads.

The page is certainly attractive otherwise, though, and the images are great.

[Dean Cookson]

Eugene,

My understanding of the question was about web sites, not about the images themselves, which is why I didn't comment on his photography. That aside, you're right about me not offering examples of pages that I think do work, so here goes:

QT's site at: http://www.terragalleria.com/ does an excellent job. The images are organized well and I especially like the fact that he gives the viewer the option of displaying a particular group a page at a time or all at once.

J Keith Schreiber at: http://jkschreiber.home.mindspring.com/galleries.html also does a nice job. Simple layout and presentation and easy navigation.

I also like Kerik's site at: http://www.kerik.com/ The large versions of the images are big enough to get a good impression of the image but not so large that he needs to worry about someone downloading one cutting into his sales.

Dean