Really Good Flash Sites

[Frank Petronio]

OK, I'm Mr. Minimal... but if you're going to do Flash, try to beat this guy:

http://www.matthewmahon.com/

[Gordon Moat]

I don't often like the use of Flash in photographers websites, though I found that I did like the site of Andrea Knox. She won the PDN Self Promo award for her site a few years ago.

I think if you are a big name, then you can get away with anything, like a complicated Flash based site. However, the lesser of us who want an on-line portfolio of our images might be better served by a simple HTML based site that allows bookmarking image samples or sections.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio

[Steve Kefford]

l... but if you're going to do Flash, try to beat this guy:

http://www.matthewmahon.com/

Sorry, but this is just typical Flash. Gimmicky without any benefit. I have seen somne ok photo sites using Flash, but this ain't one of them.

Steve

[Scott Knowles]

I agree with Gordon, while great for one-time Website, Websites flash is too time intensive for on-going Website. Who wants to have to rebuild the flash every time you add sections, portfolios, text, links, etc? If you have a designer, then cool, it's their time and work not yours.

As for this Website, I don't see the coolness, it's a big bunch of small flashes (40-90KB) that take forever to quit loading, which seems to defeat the purpose of using flash. And once there, you have to keep clicking in/out to see anything. Cool, and interesting, but good? Relative to your perspective.

Personally I like Gemma Fleming's Website. she's a first year photography student and had some friends build her Website.

And it's why it's called opinions.

[Walter Calahan]

Oh the dog picture with its tongue slightly out breaks my heart. That dog looks just like my dog Skylar who ran into the woods after a deer never to return two years ago.

My boy Skylar was a good, good dog.

Other than that, the design gets in the way of viewing the photos. One this my former graphics teacher always said, "The best graphic design is invisible to the message." Tthe design out should never get in the way of the message.

[Frank Petronio]

You have to find the pictures with the little head icons... then the photographer and his assistant pop out and do a video commentary... which is funny as hell.

I agree with all the tech reasons above and most of the photos are just good, not great, but the commentary is just the best. Give it 30 sec, it's great.

But yeah, if I didn't tell you how would you know to click the head? I read that I needed to do that too. Duh...

[CraigK]

I have two confessions to make:

1. I hate Flash. Show me a site that takes more than a few seconds to load and I'm gone....(I have the attention span of a gnat).

2. I use Flash on my own websites. Actually I use a combination of HTML and Flash. The sites themselves are set up in HTML for (I hope) quick, simple navigation but the galleries of my images are Simpleviewer Flash galleries generated by iPhoto export.

Here's one of my sites

and here's another

[Photomax]

Nice work Craig!

But you kind of contradict yourself on the Flash though. Having the galleries open up another browser page to display a Flash loader takes time. It took three pages before I got to your work. The links to the images are not that obvious as well: the thumbnail rather than the heading.

This might be "nit-picky" but a good straight forward design with CSS would make exploring your fine images easier.

Max

[adrian tyler]

nice one frank.

[CraigK]

Thanks for the nit-picks Photomax....valuable feedback, that. I will change the titles of the galleries so that they are links just like the thumbnails too. I never thought of that before.

As for opening a new page, with the version of the site template I am using, I'm afraid there is no other way.The site was built using a server based template program called SiteXpress. It comes with the hosting package I have and is simple enough that even I can use it to create sites fairly quickly. It is far from perfect, but it allows me to control the site and update the contents quickly, from any computer I may be at during the day. You can go directly to a gallery from the home page though by clicking on it in the dropdown menu. At least that saves one step.

I've tried to wade through web authoring programs before to build a site but invariably I bog down with crossed eyes and a desparate need to swallow a couple of Tylenol 3's.