New Version of my "A Photo Folio" HTML 5 Website

[Frank Petronio]

I'll throw myself to the lions here and solicit comments on the latest version of my website, http://frankpetronio.com. It's set-up by the A Photo Folio service using their new Design X option, which sends a HTML 5, color-managed version to modern browsers and Flash to everything else. It's designed for fast connections and has extra-large 2048-pixel (250 to 500 kb) images for those with Retina displays or large monitors. I've seen it on iPads and iPhones and it works well.

Don't even try it if you have a slow connection or an old browser. Seriously, it's aimed at photo editors and ad agency art buyers - most of the commercial photographers they are looking at have comparable high-bandwidth Flash websites, so the size of the images is a plus, not a negative in this case.

I'm thick skinned and won't take constructive criticism personally, so fire away... at the very least, it's a good way to find typos ;-p Thanks

[Jiri Vasina]

Frank, works very well...

Your images are... hmm... just your in style (I like to look at them, though I would not think of imitating them...) and the presentation is excellent...

Jiri

[ShawnHoke]

Frank, it looks fantastic on my iPad. The images fill my screen perfectly. Gorgeous work as well.

[Mike Anderson]

I'm getting the HTML5 version and it seems much better than the Flash version as I remember it. I thought going the Flash route was a major mistake, so glad to see this HTML5 version.

I can usually find something wrong with a website pretty quickly but no major problems here. There area few nits: the vertical scrolling, when needed (Empire of Silver grid view) is nonstandard - my scroll wheel is suddenly sluggish; clicking off to the side of a grid view brings up an image (unexpected). Minor things.

On an (old) iPad the scroll is a little clunky but there's probably nothing that can be done about that and it's not too bad. I don't have a phone size device to test on.

There's one problem with new photo #2 (Frances), I think you were a little heavy with saturation slider on her eyes. It's a little gimmicky.

Not perfect, but definitely technically (and photographically) impressive and ready to ship, IMO.

[paulr]

That's definitely among the best gallery implementations I've seen. How customizeable is it?

Some minor tweaks I'd like to see:

-navigation text below the image in a lighter shade so it doesn't compete with the image.
-something less obtrusive than the bright red arrows and thumbnail icons for when you hover over the image. I found that effect very distracting.
-some padding between your logo and the image so they don't crash into each other at smaller window sizes.

I've started using juicebox, which is similar. No flash, just html5, and customizeable enough so I've been able to remove virtually all the features.

[Frank Petronio]

Thanks, those are all useful comments to me. I kind of agree about the blue-eyed/false color image, it is out of step for me and even though she does indeed have striking blue eyes, it reads faked even though it wasn't ;-p And yes the nav icons and bottom bar are easily adjusted. The padding with the logo is kind of an issue since enlarging it throws things off on the larger screens... it's an issue I should solve with a smaller logo I guess.

See http://aphotofolio.com. The implementation works pretty well although ironically, the control panels are Flash-based. I can control many aspects but not all, and they are unwilling to customize at any price. It's about $1000 to go with APF, plus $17/month hosting, which is definitely on the expensive side but a fraction of developing the same capabilities from scratch. I tried LiveBooks, DripBook, ViewBook, etc. and came back to APF as being the most responsive, best looking, etc.

Truth is that after dropping a grand I want to use it for a couple of years before bolting to something better, but first I'd like to see what other people do with regards to high-rez displays, tablets, HTML 5, etc. and see what emerges as the best off-the-shelf solution. I definitely do not want to ever "roll my own" from scratch again because I know the developer hours will always be a large multiple of the initial estimate!

Unfortunately I doubt you can keep the same website for more than 2-3 years without it loosing its marketing appeal and also falling behind whatever technology is prevailing. I'm not saying you can't or that people don't, but in terms of pushing for commercial work you want to keep up with it if for no other reasons than that your competitors are.

[Peter De Smidt]

Frank, your site works very well, even on my moderately slow dsl connection. The gallery implementation is excellent, and I enjoyed seeing some of your images that were new to me.

[Mike Anderson]

I kind of agree about the blue-eyed/false color image, it is out of step for me and even though she does indeed have striking blue eyes, it reads faked even though it wasn't

I suspected it wasn't fake and was making a little joke there. Incredible eyes.

I agree with Paul in that I don't like the red cursor indicators obscuring the image. The ideal solution (IMO) is basic left and right buttons that don't change position as you cycle through images. Also, space-bar for next image is nice. I see arrow keys work nicely.

[C. D. Keth]

That's a nice clean presentation. Much better than average. I like the size of the images and that you can navigate through a gallery with keyboard arrows.

[Mike Anderson]

Hey you made Frances black and white. I was just joking, it doesn't look fake! Put back the color version!

[Frank Petronio]

I'm sensitive!

Seriously it did seem out of place. If I do more like that then once I have a few I might make a series or something but a lone oddball tends to confuse people.

[RichardSperry]

I do the vast majority of my web browsing on iPhone. I know I am not your target audience. My criticism is not of your site, per se.

I really really hate not being able to resize images with mobile "optimized" sites. When I run across them, and can't scale the pages or images I get this little message from the webmaster, "...here you go you little child, we made the site all nice and dumbed down for you. We know that you have no idea what you're doing, so we locked everything up so you can't hurt yourself."

When I click on 'People' it selects 'ANTM'. I notice that its a heading now for what's underneath, by trial and error. 'Contact' is grey as the heading titles, but opens up directly.

Title on flying pages reads, "Frak Petronio".

[rdenney]

"Competent" is spelled "compentent" on the 20x24 Polaroid page.

Response time was quite good on a marginal Verizon LTE connection, using a fresh version of Chrome on a color-managed display.

It makes the web-album gallery I just put together for my web page look stupid. But I bet I paid a hell of a lot less, and I'm not trying to sell stuff.

Rick "wondering if this is the sort of photography that art directors buy these days" Denney

[dpn]

I'm sure that I'm in the minority of folks using this combo, but the site doesn't display any images in Chrome on my retina iPad. It looks great on Safari on the iPad.

[IanG]

It's very slow (here in Turkey) and despite using the very latest browsers it's displaying Flash. It may be quite different when I view from the UK.

Ian

[Frank Petronio]

Thank you all. Blessed are the proofreaders... when I was a print designer I was notorious for typos and I hired them (or bribed them) for every little job.

I don't expect many people to hire me for my kind of photography, and I certainly am not trying to be all things to all people. But I do expect a few will hire me for decent projects if I keep on doing this for years and years, provided I present the work well and make a reasonable effort to circulate it around. I know that's not a whiz-bang marketing plan but after being a marketing person for many years, I've come to realize that organically-found clients that "discover" you are much more valuable than the short-lived ones you kludgeon into hiring you. And I'm lucky enough to have the resources to patiently dog along for years... I wouldn't recommend this approach to a kid who has to make rent.

Hmm I'll ask APF about what happens to service cross-continent... I've heard Western Europe was seeing things OK. And Chrome on Retina iPad... that's a new one but I'm off to download it to see for myself!

[RichardSperry]

Ditto.

Frak! No workie on iPhone Chrome.

[Mark Barendt]

Very nice Frank. I viewed it on an iPad.

Two suggestions.

First, it took me too long to find the navigation, it needs to be more obvious to first timers, not talking size: maybe just letters or small icons for each category.

Second, your contact info should be selectable so that your potential customers can copy and paste or add to their contacts without memorization.

[mathieu Bauwens]

Work fine for me, only slowed with the "into the west" pictures.

Great pictures as usual.

Mathieu

[rdenney]

I tested it with my iPhone, and on 3G it's slow to load. Once loaded, though, the pictures scroll side to side smoothly. The text does not scroll smoothly, though.

Rick "noting that Verizon's backhaul is notoriously slow in the parts" Denney

[David Carson]

I'm looking at it on my Macbook Pro. I really like how each image is bookmarkable. Great images, Frank.

[Frank Petronio]

Thanks!

[Ari]

In your Rock of Ages section, the caption for the 2nd or 3rd photo reads "Taking the crane ot work"
Good, efficient site, love the big images; good job editing these down enough to make it an enjoyable visit.
I like the red cursor.

[Frank Petronio]

Typos haunt me, thanks!

And editing is the hardest part.

[Leigh]

Hi Frank,

It looks quite nice. I like the minimalist approach.

The text is quite small, both in the sidebar and below the image.
I'm using Firefox on a MacBook Pro with no font restrictions or presets.

One navigation inconsistency that cropped up a couple of times...
I was paging through a gallery using the red left/right arrows.
When I went to the sidebar and clicked on a different gallery, the action taken was just like the arrows, i.e. going to the next or previous image in the same gallery rather than changing galleries. This happened more than once, but i could not reproduce the problem at will. It seemed random.

And one very tiny nit...
I tyink your rendering of notch codes should be consistent, either all images or none.
Rhis is just a personal preference thing. Nothing 'wrong' with the way they are now.

Very nice.

- Leigh