New Architectural Photographers' Site

[neil poulsen]

I thought people might be interested to know about the following site. It's intended for architectural photographers in North America.

www.architecturalphotographers.org

I have no connection, info, or opinion regarding this site. It's just getting started. Sign up is free. Just thought that I would let people know.

If you try the site, let us know what you think.

[Bruce Watson]

Always interested in website design. Not to be overly critical of a new venture, especially one for photographers, but... constantly moving flash headers are a serious turn-off. Who needs that kind of distraction when you are trying to learn something? It's bad enough it caused me to abandon the site after a couple of pages.

Consider telling the web designers to remember the purpose of the website. If they give you a quizzical look, tell them that it's not about burning bandwidth and showing off their skills - it's about getting information to the end user of the site. That'll confuse 'em ;-)

[Andre Noble]

I saw Flash only on first page. The black background makes it easy on the eyes to read the text. It seems like it has potential to be a good resource for info on architectural photography.

[Thomas Bliss]

Hogarth,

wrote: " tell them that it's not about burning bandwidth and showing off their skills - it's about getting information to the end user of the site. That'll confuse 'em ;-)"

What an odd statement? But consider us told! & Confused.

We welcome all suggestions. The site is built for photographers. We have no flashing banners in the forums anyplace? Perhaps on the portal we have 1 banner that I think will change up a few times. Look forward to hearing from you, or better yet maybe "participating" at the site.

Thomas Bliss Founder NAAPA http://www.architecturalphotographers.org

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

I checked the site and I agree with Hogarth, although I did not see any flashing banners, I found the site too cluttered and unattractive. The blue/gray background screams for me to leave the site.

I checked the forums and there is waaayyy too much stuff in this page. I had to go hunting for the topics, which they should be the first thing at the top of the page. Then they are not organized in any way, it seems all the topics are bundled together, if this site becomes successful having thousands of topics with different kinds of main issues together is going to be a recipe for disaster. For example if I am looking for lenses for architectural photography and I have to wade through 1000 messages to find the relevant ones I will probably leave the site.

Now, that logo on top has got to go....it is absolutely horrible. Hogarth hit the nail on the head, the site feels like it was given to a web designer with absolutely no experience in photography and what photographers like. IOW this site is trying too hard to be different, when it does not need to be.

Suggestions:

Change the background, the present one makes things too hard to read and it is distracting, there is a reason why books are printed in light pages, you know?

The forums, which are the most important and a critical part of any web site should be uncluttered and "clean". After all this is where most of your members will spend most of their time communicating. They should have categories so members can easily find the subject matter that interest them, and if it is absolutely necessary to have ads in this page, make them unobtrusive. Remove all the other stuff which is unnecessary, the articles links etc. There should be an "announcements" category where the web master or administrator can post messages for the membership, to have a half page long announcement before the topics is obtrusive.

Although I am not an architectural photographer I visit many photography related sites and this one is one I would not want to frequent in its present presentation.

[Paul Metcalf]

I'm not a web expert or developer, but I do photograph things, including architecture. Of the images included in the pages (not the forum), only one seems to qualify as architecture (the one of the road). Unless a macro shot of a leaf or a sand dune qualifies as "organic" architecture. I would have expected to see lots of pictures of architecture on an architecture web site.

[neil poulsen]

At the time that I began this thread, I had no connection to, and little knowledge of, the NAAPA site. But, I like the idea enough of having a site devoted to architectural photography that I offered to moderate. It looks like I'll be a moderator at the NAAPA site as well as at Tuan's site.