Website Finished!

Well, almost anyway.
Finally forced myself to ignore the printing and focus on this. I should have had it done 2 years ago, but hate doing the mouse click thing!
C&C welcome. www.davetravisphoto.com
DT

Really nice work, Dave.

Looks fine Dave. Clear, easy to read and to navigate. Of all the sections only the mailing list doesn't work. What will this be? In each portfolio there is only one photo to see. Is this correct?

You must be one of the few offering Ilfochrome classes. It's a pity that the U.S. is so large and most students won't be able to jump in a car and get to you in say 3-4 hours. I'd enrol myself if I wasn't about 6000 miles away.

Best of luck

pentaxuser

Thanks Peter and PU.
PU, just do a mouse roll-over on the image below the title of each portfolio. I'll add more straightforward links soon.
Right on about the IC classes!
DT

You do very beautiful work.

Dave, I must go against the grain and tell you that although your images are really beautiful, your website looks like Mary Poppins on crack. Your website is the exact opposite of most that I see. Usually the website is awesome and the photography sucks. Get rid of the busy backgrounds and buttons. Simplify everything as much as possible. Make the images larger. You are a photographer (and a good one) nothing should take away from that. I hope you take this criticism to heart because I wouldn't be giving it to you if your photography wasn't as good as it is.

Patrick

I've got to agree with Patrick. I looked at your site yesterday before anyone else had posted and thought the pictures were excellent, beyond anything I feel I could produce. However, the website colour scheme is doing them no justice whatsoever. Lose the coloured buttons and settle on one colour. The "etched" arrow keys for navigation look a bit cheesy. Get rid of the leaf(?) patterned background and choose a muted colour, dark grey is a safe bet although whatever suits your taste. As you are selling your prints the effect is of knocking out say Hasselblads in a Walmart "reduced to clear section".
This is just my opinion, and the suggestions are made with respect. before re-desigining my site I spent a lot of time looking at what my contemporaries did, figured out what I liked and didn't like and went from there. It is easy to fall into producing a generic website by doing that, but like wise individualism shoud be hinted at, not shoved down the throat.

All the best, Lol

I like it. It may not look like lots of other photographic websites (including mine) but so what?

When I read the comments about busy backgrounds and bright colours I was expecting a technicolour extravaganza. I agree with the comment about making the individual images bigger though.

One very minor point - the 'Art Shows' button needs to be centered within its cell space and if it was my site, I would reduce the table borders width to 0 to lose the visible borders in some cases - especially around these link buttons.


Steve.

Frankly Patrick, if you HAVE to watch Mary Poppins I can't think of a better way to do it!

Actually I do agree, the backgrounds on the site, while clearly carrying the theme of your work does tend to distract from it. Your work though David is stunning. Your 'about me' section reminds us that we should ALL do Ilfochrome, (whether we work in colour or not) to ensure that the materials remain available for people of your talent.

Bob

Thanks to all for the sugestions and compliments!
Patrick & LOL, I understand your thoughts and appreciate them very much. The design is a hybrid of two very good nature photogs whose sites I admired, but wanted to "do my own thing." The guy who did my caracature is a pro graphic artists, maybe I'll bend his noodle a bit.
BTW, each image is in two sizes, click on the small one and toggle back and forth to the big one.
DT

Hi Dave, website design has caused me more angst than anything else. I've come through higher education IT studies, so I know the "theory". What can also confuse matters is if you, say, go on a webmaster forum and take advice there it's usually at odds with advice on a photography forum. At the end of the day it's all down to choice, yours. if the design cannot be proven to have an impact on picture sales, assuming that's the raison d'etre of the site, then who is to argue!

All the best, Lol

Dave,

Like you photos.
You site design is another story. It doesn't say professional to me and I think it will hold you back in terms of connecting with buyers and making sales.

It looks like your target audience are mostly people at art fairs. Granted, most of your sales will be at the event and a sale after the fact would be a distant second. I think people coming to your site are those who saw you at a fair and wanted to see your work again before making a purchase.

With that in mind you may want to think about designing your site to reflect the experience these potential buyers had at the event. You made a connection in person so you will want to reinforce that positive connection on your site.

Judging by my experiences attentind these things as a visitor, it's lots of images when I walk into the booth and then if I want to see more I shuffle through the bins. There is also always the ability to turn around and say "I want this".

Bottom line: Keep your site simple, make your photos the hero, make it super easy to purchase, and have very shallow navigation.

Dave, please take this as constructive criticisim only. If I wanted to be a chef Ramsey I wouldn't have taken the time to write all this stuff

Good luck,

Alan.

Thanks Alan.
All you're points are well taken.
Your correct, most on-line sales are follow-ups from the shows. My graphic artist bud has offered to help me "clean it up." I'm still loading images...
DT

Good job Dave. Thanks for keeping the cult of the chrome alive.

Wayne

I am glad the site is up and running and I hope you are happy with it. I only wish I could have achieved the same consistency of print quality and colour rendition when I tried the process. The Fuji paper process I resorted to is now no longer available.

Thanks Wayne & Roy.
Roy are you talking about the Fujichrome 35 paper that is developed in the Kodak Ektachrome style chems? I tried that and the Kodak Radiance papers before going to IC.
You should try IC again, it's gotten easier to handle on the contrast side, once you work out your exposure guides.
A bit pricey though!
DT