LF Web sites

[Kirk Gittings]

What are peoples favourite LF Photographer websites. In particular individual photographers portfolio type websites?

[David A. Goldfarb]

I guess I don't really look at a lot of photographers' websites, but one website that shows a lot of work that I like, most of which is large format, and much alt-process is--


http://www.johnstevenson-gallery.com/foyer.html (http://www.johnstevenson-gallery.com/foyer.html)

There are some lovely still lifes in gum dichromate by Cy DeCosse up right now. I'll try to go down there and see the prints if I can next week.

[Gem Singer]

Hi Kirk,

Take a look at Scott Rosenberg's website: www.srosenberg.com He did a beautiful job of presenting his portfolio.

[Dean Cookson]

Rosenberg's use of java script to obscure the image and give the "don't download my stuff" message is one of the most annoying things I've ever seen on a website. It doesn't actually keep me from downloading any of his image files, since I just have to turn javascript off to get around it, but it does mean that I can't both use his photo selection menu and use my cursor to point out parts of his photographs to anyone looking at the site with me.

His site is a *terrible* example of how to present your portfolio online. IMO, of course.

[Bruce Watson]

I can't see the galleries in Rosenberg's website at all - I suppose it doesn't like Mozilla. Sigh...

One of my favorite photographer websites features Quang-Tuan Luong. Ya'll remember him don't ya?:


http://www.terragalleria.com/ (http://www.terragalleria.com/)

Good stuff, nicely presented.

[Witold Grabiec]

I mostly agree with Dean on Rosenberg's site. Yet I also agree with Eugene that he's done a nice job presenting his images.

However, it is possible to get around the protection [how-to removed by moderator at Scott's request]

[tim atherton]

are we talking favourite LF photographers or favourite websites?

i.e. favourite LF photographers who happen to have websites, or favourite websites that happen to show the work of LF photographers?

Ocassionally the two may be co-terminus but not always...

[tim atherton]

If the former


http://www.johndavies.uk.com/ (http://www.johndavies.uk.com/)


http://www.lynne-cohen.com/ (http://www.lynne-cohen.com/)


http://www.tatargallery.com/view_all_photos.asp?art_key=73&rec_no=1 (http://www.tatargallery.com/view_all_photos.asp?art_key=73&rec_no=1)
(obviously not his own website)


http://www.hirschlcontemporary.co.uk/artist_k/index.htm (http://www.hirschlcontemporary.co.uk/artist_k/index.htm)
(ditto)

and not sure if this work is LF


http://www.simonladefoged.com/ (http://www.simonladefoged.com/)


http://www.bialobrzeski.de/ (http://www.bialobrzeski.de/)


http://www.wesely.org/index-ie-e.html (http://www.wesely.org/index-ie-e.html)

(Potsdamerplatz long term exposure etc)

Personally I don't really mind Flash stuff - it's things that continually open up on new windows that bugs me...)

[Gem Singer]

Dean Cookson,

You used your entire post being critical of Scott Rosenberg's use of Java script, but did not offer a better example, nor mention the quality his images. Which large format photographic website, in your "humble" opinion, presents it's images in a way that you pleases you? I would like to see an example. How about a link your personal website that shows your images in the away that you approve.

[Frank Petronio]

I'm usually a pretty harsh judge of websites, but I kind of liked Rosenberg's site, and can see he put a lot of effort into it. But he made it really hard to navigate between images, forcing me to use the browser back button, which is pretty clumsy. Plus the message to move my cursor off the image reads as intimidating and slightly paranoid. Also, I don't care for having the two "extra" images on every browser window, when I really want to focus on the gallery image without such a busy background. The Java Script is annoying, but it works pretty much OK on Safari - some things I can't tell if they are intentional or mistakes, like the lack of bottom borders on some animated images when the cursor is hovering over something.

As for the images themselves, they are well done traditionalist images and I bet he sells well in the right markets.

Hire a designer who knows interfaces, not decoration, Scott! It's a pretty website but it is hard to use! Good luck and Happy New Year.

Goldfarb's suggestion is excellent (http://www.johnstevenson-gallery.com/foyer.html), not so much about the website (which is pretty lame) but the images are very fine. BTW, Goldfarb's photos are excellent too: http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/photo/ (http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/photo/)

Q.T.'s http://www.terragalleria.com/ (http://www.terragalleria.com/) is a masterpiece of organization and solid design practices, although it could use abit more personality and whimsy in a moderate dose. I'm a big fan, and I'd love to read and see more ABOUT Q.T. and his life. MORE PLEASE, you have a lot of fans!

Atherton has good taste.

And a few more oddballs. I mostly look at commercial - ad - PDN type stuff because, well, I gotta make a living and most of the LF nature stuff all looks like the same calendar to me after awhile ;-)


http://www.woodypackard.com/ (http://www.woodypackard.com/)


http://marktucker.com/ (http://marktucker.com/) (not LF but I like his stuff)


http://www.simon-larbalestier.co.uk/ (http://www.simon-larbalestier.co.uk/) (the guy who did the Pixies album covers is really a landscape photographer!!!)


http://www.leeemmert.com/ (http://www.leeemmert.com/) just a damn good commerical photographer

likewise: http://www.nubar.com/ (http://www.nubar.com/) and http://aruell.com/ (http://aruell.com/)

politically correct title's don't discourage me: http://photoarts.com/ftp/volquartz/death/gallery1.html (http://photoarts.com/ftp/volquartz/death/gallery1.html) I always liked these images

Oh, and my own: http://www.frankpetronio.com/ (http://www.frankpetronio.com/)

Happy New Year to you all

[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 (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.brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2002/11/19/all_about_navigation_and_the_user/)


http://www.pt3.org/grantee_center/web_tips_navigation.html (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.slower.net/)


http://www.quarlo.com/ (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

[Gem Singer]

Thanks Dean,

Those are great websites that show the photographer's work at it's best. I'm sure Scott appreciates that type of "constructive" criticism and will learn how he can improve his website from those examples.

[QT Luong]

Scott, regarding copyright protection on the internet, in my opinion the proper way to do it is to bill the infringers, and in cases of offensive response to take action against them in court. Implementing devices that degrade the experience of viewers is kind of counterproductive. Since every image that I put on the web is registered with the US copyright office, making it possible to potentially recover $150,000 in damages for willingful infringement, I don't think many website owners could afford to tell me to take a hike.

[QT Luong]

Frank, thanks for the feedback, what would you like to see about QT to give more personality to the terragalleria.com site ?

[Frank Petronio]

I don't really know how top describe it in detail, except that the site feels abit impersonal. It is only my opinion, but I think most people who buy art - above a certain price level at least - want to know about the artist and process. And while you cover that in your website, you have a very interesting background and many experiences, and I'd love to read more about your adventures in more of a blog style format.

One thing that might help is to put the running text in a fixed width column (400-500 pixels wide) with text spaced wider (150% leading, via CSS) which many people find easier and faster to read in tests. Having a little white space to relax the eyes is a good thing.

Also, I think you could improve on your logo - terragalliera is an excellent name - and opening pages, so that new viewers can get orientated quicker.

It's hard to tell you exactly what to do because you are already doing so many things well, it feels like nitpicking, but I would experiment - it feels like it is 90% perfect, not 98%...

[Kirk Gittings]

Thanks for all the feedback. This interests me because my son is about to redo my web site around an upcoming book. He is an IT professional with alot of experience and great ideas but not oriented to the "portfolio" needs of an artist like a photographer. I find that to my taste most web sites (including many suggested here) suffer from poor opening page design and come off as simple catalogues of images. I assume these photographers are trying to sell stock, as they show too many images for an effective portfolio. Many appear not to be able to edit their work very well as they mix great images with mediocre ones to show more volume. This weakens the impact of the best images. A portfoilio should be selective rather than inclusive. Fewer of quality is better than more for the sake of more. Only the very best work should be included in a portfolio website. When someone shows interest in ordering a print I email them thumbnails of related images in quantity but I don't want to clutter up the website with them. These are some of the sites of various design vocabularies that I find most to my liking:


http://www.nevadawier.com/ (http://www.nevadawier.com/)

I love the simple elegance of this site though the opening page could be a bit more dynamic:


http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/contents/index.html (http://www.johnpaulcaponigro.com/contents/index.html)

This is my favouirte of the ones suggested above:


http://photoarts.com/ftp/volquartz/death/gallery1.html (http://photoarts.com/ftp/volquartz/death/gallery1.html)


http://www.uelsmann.net/ (http://www.uelsmann.net/)


http://www.goodmanphoto.com/ (http://www.goodmanphoto.com/)


http://www.nickbrandt.com/ (http://www.nickbrandt.com/)

[Frank Petronio]

What drugs do you think Ulesmann was on when he created that mind-numbing Flash Intro?

[Kirk Gittings]

Well given that he is a product of the 60's, I'd guess a little orange sunshine.

[Darin Cozine]

On a side note, is there any way to click through photos without going forward, so that you only have to hit 'back' once in order to go back to the start/home page?

[Darin Cozine]

... cause that is something that has allways bugged me, you look at 20 photos and then you are like 20 web pages deep in the site.

[Joseph Kayne]

I offer my site for review. My recent project is in Gallery 7 of the Photo Galleries section of my web site at www.josephkaynephoto.com.

Thanks.

Joe.