Brand Spanking New Website

[johnmsanderson]

Hi All,

I want to introduce my new website:

www.john-sanderson.com

Please take a look and let me know what you think!

[Bernard_L]

Nice. Impressive. In my eyes, similar to, but different from, Mitch Epstein's American Power.

[Andrew O'Neill]

Oh it's not a website about spanking... ;) Nice and simple. Images are nice too. Really like Steel Mill and Houses

[Joe O'Hara]

I like it! You certainly have been doing the work.

[Thom Bennett]

First...stunning work! Second...nice website. Keep up the good work!

[aaronnate]

Well designed. Nice photos too.

[6x6TLL]

Both the website and photographs look great!

[alexvaras]

Very nice and clean website, the photos are shown in a very elegant way and you can enjoy them (very nice and good photos) without being distracted by other menu, option, whatever.
Congrats!

[Jim Becia]

John, I'm waiting for a book! Enjoy the work immensely.

[invisibleflash]

Very slow loading for me. Tried it on 2 laptops, same thing. Too much BS. I like direct sites. Zine format. Everything up front. I like fast sites, no shortage of work to look at. I wont fool around with low hard to use sites. I also do not like the slide show sites. Of course, this is all personal opinion.

From the little I saw, you do nice work. I like trains too, the old steam trains. But never really shoot em.

[michael_los_angeles_photo]

Very striking images. Really impressive. One tiny thing, and maybe it’s just me (also I am on an iPad) — the arrow to the right of the first image in a series I at first mistook as the way to advance through the series, not move to the next body of work. Obviously figured it out very quickly, and there is likely nothing to be done about it...and it becomes clear as soon as you try it anyway. Just a small observation, probably irrelevant but just in case... Anyway, beautiful stuff.

[Roger Thoms]

John, I'm waiting for a book! Enjoy the work immensely.

Book would be nice, I'd be in for one. I've always admired your work and who doesn’t like trains. :)

Roger

[austin granger]

It looks terrific John. It took me a minute to understand the navigation, specifically how to backtrack within a project, but I figured it out. As far as the work goes, man, there are so many treasures in there! I came across quite a few pictures that I hadn't seen before that totally knocked me out: Farmhouse Near Medina, Behind Broad Street, Oscar Newton Elevator, Ocotillo... It's all good stuff, congratulations.

[Alan Klein]

John Nice pictures. However, the operation of the pages are confusing and turns me off. You ought to have a specific arrow to advance and go back one picture at a time rather than just clicking on the screen somewheres. The arrow on the right is confusing. Of, I see you have arrows now for each picture. However, those arrows disappear when you go to full screen but the group arrow to the right remains. It''s confusing. Be consistant.

When I clicked on Updates, it went to a bunch of pages that have no meaning for me. What are they? They seem to be Press and Publications. So why are they titled Updates?

What does CV stand for? SHould you spell it out. Abbreviations might not be understood by some like me.

Faster up load required. (I'm using Windows 10 on my desktop with Chrome Internet)

What is Issue title mean? It takes you a page that appears to have videos. What is the point of the videos? What part did you play? Confusing.

The index with the three lines changes from the home page to when you click on video pages. I suppose those are the magazine's, but it's all confusing. How do you get back to your home page from there?

The Thrift store sells stuff that might insult people like F.Y. bookmark and what is the Submission icon for? In fact, why are you selling clothes and other crap at all? What are you selling with the web site? Photographer, prints, getting hired out, clothes, etc? It's confusing to a buyer what you're selling.

What is the purpose of the Search Button at the top right? Oh wait, I see. That's because I'm on the Slate website. More confusion.

The intro with your initials is not necessary. Just wastes the viewer's time. Open to a simple page that identifies who you are and what you do IMMEDIATELY. The viewer has to guess what he's looking at. It's a turn off.

Simplify. Simplify. SImplify. BE clear. Be Clear Be clear.

[Duolab123]

Great

[Alan Klein]

John, I don;t want to seem like I'm piling on, but I noticed something else. Your bio is interesting but way too long. No one is going to read it. Also, no one cares you were raised in Hell's Kitchen or any of that other stuff except your friends here on the web. But they're not your customers. I was born in The Bronx but no one ever cared or hired me because of it. Also, you bio does not say what you do. What are you selling? What kind of clients are you looking for?


I just noticed there's a search icon on your pages too. Why? What would I search for?

Why does Railroads on the Project menu open up to thumbnails while the other three projects opens up to a single page. You should be consistent.

Why are there two ways to search on the Update page?

[johnmsanderson]

Very slow loading for me. Tried it on 2 laptops, same thing. Too much BS. I like direct sites. Zine format. Everything up front. I like fast sites, no shortage of work to look at. I wont fool around with low hard to use sites. I also do not like the slide show sites. Of course, this is all personal opinion.

From the little I saw, you do nice work. I like trains too, the old steam trains. But never really shoot em.

What is your connection? I have not heard of it loading slow for anyone else.

[johnmsanderson]

It looks terrific John. It took me a minute to understand the navigation, specifically how to backtrack within a project, but I figured it out. As far as the work goes, man, there are so many treasures in there! I came across quite a few pictures that I hadn't seen before that totally knocked me out: Farmhouse Near Medina, Behind Broad Street, Oscar Newton Elevator, Ocotillo... It's all good stuff, congratulations.

Thank you for the feedback, Austin.

[johnmsanderson]

John, I'm waiting for a book! Enjoy the work immensely.

Thank you Jim, a book will be real soon!! In the mean time I am working on a folio of 25 prints from Carbon County, Wyoming with Zatara Press.

[johnmsanderson]

Very striking images. Really impressive. One tiny thing, and maybe it’s just me (also I am on an iPad) — the arrow to the right of the first image in a series I at first mistook as the way to advance through the series, not move to the next body of work. Obviously figured it out very quickly, and there is likely nothing to be done about it...and it becomes clear as soon as you try it anyway. Just a small observation, probably irrelevant but just in case... Anyway, beautiful stuff.

Thanks Michael. I've heard that before about the next project arrow, but there's not much we can do. We tried to include as many navigation options for folks with different experience browsing.

[johnmsanderson]

John, I don;t want to seem like I'm piling on, but I noticed something else. Your bio is interesting but way too long. No one is going to read it. Also, no one cares you were raised in Hell's Kitchen or any of that other stuff except your friends here on the web. But they're not your customers. I was born in The Bronx but no one ever cared or hired me because of it. Also, you bio does not say what you do. What are you selling? What kind of clients are you looking for?


I just noticed there's a search icon on your pages too. Why? What would I search for?

Why does Railroads on the Project menu open up to thumbnails while the other three projects opens up to a single page. You should be consistent.

Why are there two ways to search on the Update page?

Thanks for the feedback. The bio is there for anyone who would be interested in knowing more.

The search icon is there to find images, articles, etc. Like when I wanted to find an article on my site to show someone in person I can just SEARCH for it.

The Locomotives is in a grid because it's a type study. Stylistic choice.

Thanks for the feedback!!

[germansaram]

It's a very nice page. The images are great! But I have to agree with some other opinions that you could simplify the site a bit. For me, I'm a bit confused that the navigation layers over the content as you scroll down the sites. It could look clearer if there was some space blocked for it. Overall it's an impressive site, congratulations! :)

[Two23]

I had no problem with speed. The way the photos opened didn't seem consistent but I figured it out. I've looked it over several times now for the past week to get a better feel. Normally I prefer very simple, almost minimalist images but these really work. The "clutter" does all tie together. I like looking at the photos of others because they make me think about trying something new. When I first started shooting 4x5 in the 1990s I only shot E6 trannies. I then quit shooting 4x5 from 2005-2009 altogether but then returned only shooting b&w. Seeing your photos made me realize I've been missing out on a lot of possibilities as some scenes only really work in color. As I recall you shoot C41, mostly Kodak 8x10. Anyway, it's a very enjoyable collection of images. The "about me" section is actually well written.


Kent in SD

[johnmsanderson]

I had no problem with speed. The way the photos opened didn't seem consistent but I figured it out. I've looked it over several times now for the past week to get a better feel. Normally I prefer very simple, almost minimalist images but these really work. The "clutter" does all tie together. I like looking at the photos of others because they make me think about trying something new. When I first started shooting 4x5 in the 1990s I only shot E6 trannies. I then quit shooting 4x5 from 2005-2009 altogether but then returned only shooting b&w. Seeing your photos made me realize I've been missing out on a lot of possibilities as some scenes only really work in color. As I recall you shoot C41, mostly Kodak 8x10. Anyway, it's a very enjoyable collection of images. The "about me" section is actually well written.


Kent in SD


Hey Kent. Of course I owe some for getting me into LF. You sent me some of your 4x5 trannies way back when, must have been around 2000? I was blown away and knew then & there large format was for me.

Glad you like the site...

Kudos!

[johnmsanderson]

It's a very nice page. The images are great! But I have to agree with some other opinions that you could simplify the site a bit. For me, I'm a bit confused that the navigation layers over the content as you scroll down the sites. It could look clearer if there was some space blocked for it. Overall it's an impressive site, congratulations! :)

Thank you for taking a look. I will consider the navigation options.

[ottluuk]

I like the images and will definitely spend more time looking at those.

Some nitpicking, in hope that it is useful for streamlining stuff:
Navigation is not totally intuitive to me, but not bad. The landing page slide show had me a bit confused - didn't realize straight away that this was project selection, not a series. When that became clear, I wanted a way to get back to that landing page from a series but couldn't find it.

Some elements of the site do take time to load. For example, I was halfway past a series when I started seeing the image captions. A project URL like "https://www.john-sanderson.com/project/railroad-landscapes" seems to take a longer time when you start from there as opposed to navigating from the home page. I'm on a decent fiber connection so that shouldn't be the problem.
You can use online tools to analyze your site's performance and find bottlenecks. For example Google PageSpeed Insights results for your site: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.john-sanderson.com&tab=desktop

The JavaScript consoles on Firefox, Chrome and Safari all report errors and warnings so maybe there's still work to do on the tech side. Personally, I'd want to make sure that there are simple text-based fallbacks for important things (where/if possible) so that when a critical piece of JavaScript fails for some reason, the user could still get to the main content.

[rorye]

I don't know much about websites but the photographs really speak to me.