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new website - what do you think?

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
for a while my site was just pointing to my zenfolio account, but i decided i wanted a front end, and still take advantage of zenfolio's storage and bandwidth.

i posted the job on scriptlance, and here's the finished product:

http://www.tinnitus-photography.com/

the 'reviews' page still has some bugs to be worked out, but i think everything else is working ok. i've been populating the 'past shows' info but still have a ways to go (2007 onward).

comments/critiques welcome!
 

cannondalejunky

ease dropper
Jun 19, 2005
2,924
2
Arkansas
cool site love the photos...my only suggestion is maybe instead of having the take a look part all the way at the end, have the band name be the link or put it near the name
 

BadDNA

hophead
Mar 31, 2006
4,257
231
Living the dream.
Needs more cowbell!



Seriously though, looks great. Simple layout, easy nav, just enough work to show your talent and leave the viewer begging for more. Well done.
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
cool site love the photos...my only suggestion is maybe instead of having the take a look part all the way at the end, have the band name be the link or put it near the name
yeah, i thought of that as well. i think that's a worthwhile change.

thanks for the comments, all.


google-analytics is pretty neat...i can see that someone from Oklahoma checked out the site. :D
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
That photo browser does some weird things when switching to a different sized photo. It's a nitpick, yes, but it's kinda ugly when it squashes or stretches one photo before displaying another (changes the image size before the next image gets in there).

In the "about" page in Firefox, at my work resolution (1280x1024) the image of your living room actually blocks off part of your navigation bar.

I have no trouble reading it myself but I know a lot of people really hate having a dark background with only slightly lighter text on it. Not much contrast.

Looks cool, though - clean, simple. I like the show archive a lot (but you compound the font color issue with smaller fonts).

...annnd with that, I'm back on hiatus. :monkeydance:
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
yeah, i wish the main photo could be scaled, based on the visitor's screen resolution. is there a way to do that?

also, BV, i do agree w/ yr comment re: the transition between the slide show. i think it tends to be a function of the user's connection speed. cycle through the slides a second time and see if you notice that the weird resizing from portrait to landscape is gone.
 

Skookum

bikey's is cool
Jul 26, 2002
10,184
0
in a bear cave
Looks good, easy to navigate. i stumble through alot of photo pages and some have alot of fluff and fancy shmancy intros. Pointless, you want to showcase your goods (photos), not the site.

The only thing i would suggest adding would be some subtle audio since that's your theme.
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
ok, the main page image is fixed.

i would prefer to keep the portfolio image size @ 800, and if someone's viewing on a smaller 4:3 screen so be it.

personally, i hate sites w/ music.
 

AngryMetalsmith

Business is good, thanks for asking
Jun 4, 2006
21,081
9,791
I have no idea where I am
The image on the about page probably just needs to be sized.

Your e-mail address needs to be encoded so that the viewer can see it but not spiders crawling the net looking for e-mail add. for spam. I would give you a link to the site I used but it's down.

When I was building my site I downloaded every web browser that I could so that I could test the site in different browsers.

Being that the nature of your site is image based, the simple layout and neutral background do well for displaying your photography.

Check your PM.
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
update:

my portfolio page, with images resized to ~800px on the wide end, was causing havoc w/ smaller resolution monitors (~1024 and under). one way to get around was to look at using the free 'lightbox' script, which basically floats the image over the page. i had a friend whip up a quick test page, and i'm curious as to what people think:

original (click on the 'portfolio' button):
http://www.tinnitus-photography.com/index

new (click on the 'portfolio' button):
http://tinnitus-photography.com/index_erci.php


thoughts are welcome!
 

binary visions

The voice of reason
Jun 13, 2002
22,092
1,132
NC
Much better. I'd rather have a floating item that I can close than see page elements overrun other page elements.
 

BadDNA

hophead
Mar 31, 2006
4,257
231
Living the dream.
I am digging the floating images a bit more than the original. I'm running a pretty high resolution and I had to scroll some of the portrait format in-place images but without seeing one or two of them in the floating I'm going to guess it would be better.
 

IH8Rice

I'm Mr. Negative! I Fail!
Aug 2, 2008
24,524
494
Im over here now
dont know if its because my office stinks, but when i click the second link and go into your portfolio, a bearded man is the only thing i see.
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
dont know if its because my office stinks, but when i click the second link and go into your portfolio, a bearded man is the only thing i see.
you have to click on the image to get to the next one, but there are only two there now...my webguy accidentally overwrote the php file i'd edited...i'll re-FTP when i get home.

I love the Chan Marshall cat power pic. How were they live?
they were good...Chan's been excoriated (and rightly so) for past performances involving insecurities, long awkward pauses, and meltdowns. i've seen two shows since she's sobered up, and they were very good.
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
couple Qs:
- do you want to attract non-invited visitors?
- is "meta keywords" still used by crawlers?
- do you have a site map?
- (upcoming events page) do you find the charcoal font on black bg hard to read as i do?
 

NorseManiac

Monkey
Mar 15, 2006
492
0
The North Shore, MA
this line

"tinnitus photography...the next best thing to being there, or at least helping to compensate for a faulty memory"

The type, design wise does nothing for the aesthetics of the page. the rest of the site I like and your photos are the nuts.
 

narlus

Eastcoast Softcore
Staff member
Nov 7, 2001
24,658
63
behind the viewfinder
this line

"tinnitus photography...the next best thing to being there, or at least helping to compensate for a faulty memory"

The type, design wise does nothing for the aesthetics of the page. the rest of the site I like and your photos are the nuts.
yeah, i tend to agree w/ you...should i change the size and/or font of that text? maybe a gif banner instead?
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
to the best of my knowledge, meta crawlers by and large don't parse the keywords meta tag, and is probably getting your hopes up for increased traffic.

as far as a site map goes, if your site stays simple (most every link can be found from home page), then probably not. if you plan on adding dynamic content, or want pages 3 links down & more to get picked up, then you might consider it.

i believe searchenginewatch.com can provide more useful guidance.