I'm a newbie to APUG and certainly can't be of help regarding fine art prints, which I am only about to learn, but I do have some (8 years) experience in web-design and marketing stuff. So here's my 2 cents:
- The general idea of the site is excellent, imho. Traditional photographs -- nothing else. I'm looking forward to see more excellent work on that site. Most photographers don't have the money or the skill to set up a site like that to sell their prints.
- From a web-design point-of-view, I would not recommend gradient, but solid colors for the site. Especially gradients used as backdrop for text (where at the moment is the red "under construction" warning) are tricky.
- My major suggestion would be to increase the size of the images in the gallery. I think they are too small to convince prospective buyers. They are around 460 pixels now, you should go for 800 in my opinion. I know this is an issue of copyright, image-theft etc. However, I think more business will be created if you provided higher resolution previews of the prints people might want to buy. Many of you guys are large format photographers, you know what impact a "large" photograph has. From a web-design and marketing point-of-view, this is easy to explain: The same print, 50cm x 60cm, appeals to more (general audience) people than a small 10 x 18 cm print. Same with pictures on the web. They want to see what they are going to buy, at least get an idea of it. A larger picture on the screen is simply more impressive, shows more detail, and buyers want to be impressed. Personally, I wouldn't be too concerned regarding image theft. I noticed your renaming the JPGs to .php files etc. However, if it's a private site "stealing" the image, it might be a fan of your pictures, driving more attention to it. That can be dealt with a few e-mails and be to everyone's benefit. In case of commercial sites, you can sue them, should it ever come to that.
Anyway, just wanted to provide some input in case it hasn't been mentioned or discussed previously (and I didn't miss the button for a larger picture preview).
I truly hope this new site will drive some attention to the photographers and also make some good money to pay everybody involved.