My site and blog.

[abrucephoto]

Hello
This is the second website i've designed: ABrucePhotography.co.uk
My last site was much more complicated (CSS slideshows, some text about me and each of my projects etc)... However I got tired of not having decent control over what viewers were taking away from my site, so i've now really simplified it down so it's just got a downloadable PDF portfolio (aimed more at quickly trying to get clients interested), and for those who want to find out a bit more about me (geared more for friends and family) a link to my blog...

Basically, I didn't want a site that talked down to you, i wanted an original design, i understand that most people don't want to sift through pages of photos and I don't flatter myself by thinking that people are going to try and steal my images..
I was really inspired by this site: http://www.islacunningham.com/Greetings.html

How successful do you think this is working for me?
Any feedback is appreciated..

Cheers

[Fen]

Go to the site... just a photo with no instructions.

Click on the photo... some text

Click on the text... goes back to the photo

PDF portfolio... for people to download your photos, to me a bad idea. If I go to a photography site I want to see the photos displayed

Overall... I won't be going back.

Sorry.

[MarkCook]

Ok, having not seen your previous website it's hard to compare. However ast the risk of appearing too negative

- the initial home page 'box' does not fit vertically on my laptop screen !
- it looks more like a sheet of paper than a website
- the PDF idea is a novel one, however, it may take quite a while to download for some users and you have not mentioned how large the PDf is so clicking on it you get a blank screen for some time !
- If you are planning on taking this approach it would make sense to make the PDF much more like a brochure than what appears to be images stuck on a sheet of paper again.

That said, the idea could be made to work really well if you make the website more colourful, perhaps have some 'throw away' images on there you don't mind being downloaded ? Perhaps after you jazz up the PDF split it into individual pages and link each one as this way the download size would be smaller ???

Finally, if you're worried about people downloading your images then why not either watermark them, reduce the resolution and even Jpeg compression levels so that the images are not really any use and go with a more traditional approach as after all, it is still possible to grab the images from the PDF document with the right application !


Mark

[pachinkofan]

Yeah I'd rather see the photos on screen, [didn't download it, not at my pc, so don't want to add unnecessary stuff to another's hard drive] so I can decide whether to spend a long time there, bookmark it for when the photographer adds more [how will we know if we need to download without some reference] or whether to just head off to another random photography site on stumble etc.

G>

[beardsofquebec]

I actually like the simplicity of your site. I can understand why you have installed a PDF but I don't think there is any need to do so. However, your photographs are extremely good, several I thought were excellent.

[abrucephoto]

Thankyou beardsofquebec

oh dear Fen... my bad.. my bad..