Brand Spanking New Website

[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/...om&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.