My new web site

[Stoo Batchelor]

Oh well!

It's now or never.

I have been working on this site for a few months now. I can't say that it has been fun as I prefer to be in the darkroom. After many late nights, or should I say early mornings, I feel that I am nearly there.

http://www.silverandlight.co.uk

I have tried to make it user friendly but we are all different. Whats that saying? Some of the people, Some of the time!

As always your thoughts, hates and views will be much appreciated.

If you can please bear in mind that I have had monitor problems , now repaired, but every image in my computer needs re-adjusting/editing but I will not be doing this untill My new kit arrives.

All The Best

Stoo

P.S Be aware! I have used the 'F' word (fine)

 

[MattKing]

Very nice looking site Stoo. The photographs are great, and they display well on my work monitor.

One comment about layout though.

I tend to have a very rectangular view on my browser - i.e. there is a lot of stuff at the top and bottom of the screen, and a relatively shallow window available to view the websites themselves. That is basically a function I guess of having the browser in one Window, and the rest of the stuff (work stuff actually) minimized, but available.

Work does get in the way of life, doesn't it.

This means that if a website has important information, links or buttons near the top or bottom of the window, than I have to scroll up and down a lot to be able to access things.

I didn't even realize you had a menu at the bottom of the screen until I had looked through the first two galleries. In almost all cases, I also had to move the window down to see the images, and then up to click on the button for the next image.

Menus and navigation buttons to the side of the images might work better, at least for people mixing work and photography.

Matt

 

[Stoo Batchelor]

Matt

Do you know, the thought hadn't even crossed my mind and the point is well taken.

If you don't see the design change, it is because I will be working on a new site while hopfully regulary updating this one. I will take your comments in to consideration for the new site.

Thank you

Stoo

 

[blaze-on]

I tend to have a very rectangular view on my browser - i.e. there is a lot of stuff at the top and bottom of the screen, and a relatively shallow window available to view the websites themselves.

Work does get in the way of life, doesn't it.

This means that if a website has important information, links or buttons near the top or bottom of the window, than I have to scroll up and down a lot to be able to access things.

Matt

No problem in this respect on my browser. All looks good.....
except (damn those "excepts") once in the gallery you have to go back to home to access other gallery or bio or equip, etc. or keep hitting "back" button...
This menu:
home I about me I the equipment I landscape I within the landscape I other I bits & bobs I links I contact-buy
should or could be at gallery bottom/top of page as well.
The simpler you make things to navigate, the longer someone may stay IMHO.

Good job, good work

 

[Stoo Batchelor]

No problem in this respect on my browser. All looks good.....
except (damn those "excepts") once in the gallery you have to go back to home to access other gallery or bio or equip, etc. or keep hitting "back" button...
This menu:
home I about me I the equipment I landscape I within the landscape I other I bits & bobs I links I contact-buy
should or could be at gallery bottom/top of page as well.
The simpler you make things to navigate, the longer someone may stay IMHO.

Good job, good work

IMHO YHO matters

So thank you. Damn, more work to do!

Regards

Stoo

 

[Kevin Caulfield]

The images are superb, truly. Since you asked for "hates", it's not quite as strong as hate but the spelling errors in your introduction are annoying. But it's not the words which are important but the pictures, and they are great.

 

[Stoo Batchelor]

The images are superb, truly. Since you asked for "hates", it's not quite as strong as hate but the spelling errors in your introduction are annoying. But it's not the words which are important but the pictures, and they are great.

Kevin

Thanks for your kind words

I don't know if it is tiredness, but I have just done a quick speedy spell check. Though I admit that english was never a strong subject of mine, I didn't find any wrongly spelt words.

Time for bed maybe. I'll have a look with fresh eyes tomorrow.

Thanks for looking

Regards

Stoo

 

[Kevin Caulfield]

Stoo, you're welcome. I'll send you a PM.

Best regards,
Kevin

 

[Drew B.]

Very nice site....only one problem I came across, the text under equipment: you have two "the"s next to each other. (ie, the the) Get some sleep first...then go back.

 

[eric]

I like it. Very nice.
When I clicked on "equipment", some of the lines were ton top of each other so I couldn't read about 10-15% of that page.

 

[MattKing]

No problem in this respect on my browser. All looks good.....

It is not so much my browser, as how I set up my "desktop" (as in computer screen), in order to permit me to do the 5 things at once that my day requires (all on a 17'' CRT screen).

If I maximise the browser window (push F11) the website is great, but I can't easily switch back and forth and see the 3 other programs and 2 other tabs that I normally need (or want) to keep handy.

I expect that my desktop organization is not that unusual, so you might want to make your website "cluttered desktop" friendly.

Matt

 

[ijsbeer]

Hi Stoo,

I wil do my best to give you some feedback on your very nice website. In the first place I like the layout very much. nice and handy navigation and a wel thought out position of everything. but, I can't read many of the texts because they are mixed up. It seems that there are other layers of text in the exact same position. when you fix that it is a superb site with very nice pictures. i've added it to my favorites

greets
ijsbeer

 

[RAP]

Fine images! But I would cut the dissolve time by 95%. It is way too slow for my tastes,maybe even take it out all together. I think your images are contemplative enough.

 

[david b]

Hey Stoo,
nice site. but when I go into the landscape gallery, the E in landscapE goes to the next line. it kinda looks like this..

Landscap
e

 

[Dave Miller]

Wonderful site Stoo, puts mine to shame.

Two minor points to ponder.

It’s slightly annoying to have to go through an intermediate page to get to the menu items, why not allow direct entry.

The red banner on the inner pages is distracting.

 

[roy]

I agree with Dave's penultimate sentence otherwise it is good and I look forward to seeing more images once it is finished.

 

[Stoo Batchelor]

Everyone

Thanks for taking the time to look at my site.

First, thanks to Kevin for the spell check. Hopefully the errors are sorted now.

Drew

the the is now 'the' and thank You

David b

I may have loaded the wrong landcape page. I have resized the page and republished. I hope the problem is now sorted. You may have to refresh your browser before it comes right on future visits.

RAP

Thank You for your compliments. I take on board your comments about the disolve time. Maybe it does need shortening. It is alot of work as I will have to change and republish every page as I did not have dreamweaver when I built the site. If it 'p's too many people off I will go for it. Thank You.

Dave Miller

Again, thanks for the compliments. With regards to the intermediate page to get to, say, landscape. Two reasons why I put the extra page there. My friends looked at the site and did not know that they could click on an image for more information about the photograph and suggested insructions to do so on every page. At first I put a line instructing visitors to do so on the home page (it still remains) but I felt that it wasn't enough. I thought that If I put insructions on every page the site will start to look cluttered and ugly. So I decided on the extra page so it would be clear to visitors when they enter each gallery that the images are left clickable.. Also it explains in more detail what is meant by 'within the landscape' etc

The other reason is that it makes it easy for me to publish a new image. Just get up that page and change the link address The new image will always be at the beginning of the gallery so visitors will be seeing my new work first.

Thanks again Dave

Roy

Thanks for your compliments. Hopefully I can get back in the darkroom now. Have just had a trip to Scotland so lots of new work to come. I have published one today in 'latest Image' found on the home page.

Eric and Ijsbeer

Thank You both for taking the time to look and your comments. I'm afraid yours is a little bit more complicated to fix.

When building the site, I soon realised that I had a problem, everytime I published, the words jumbled up just like you describe. I would add a thumbnail of my monitor to show you what it looked like but I don't know how!

I had a professional sort my computer out. It was a browser/display configuration problem. The thing is, I do not know at what end, mine or yours is causing the problem so I will not be able to sort it.

At a guess, I would say that you are both not using microsoft internet explorer browsers. If I look at my site through a mozilla firefox browser the site does not read properly, at least on my computer anyway.

My appologies to you both.

Once again, thank you all for looking and taking the time to comment.

Kind Regards

Stoo

 

[david b]

everything looks good now.

 

[Bob F.]

Beautiful images Stoo.

I like the general style of the site too - only a couple of niggles already mentioned by others...

The text looks fine to me in Firefox on my PC (XP Pro) - no overlapping. A few spelling errors (and just to confuse things, you've spelt "fibre" as "fiber" )... but that's easily fixed by running your text through a spell chequer...

Ahhh... Just tried it in I.E. Slow fade-out/fade-in transitions between screens (only IE understands that - Firefox transitions instantly). Takes two to three seconds to switch between pages. Sorry, but that one is actually genuinely irritating...

Again, great images on there. A few tweaks to the site (or not: most of it is a question of style, and I like the overall look a lot) and you are done. Good job.

Cheers, Bob.