Website critique

<p>I was wondering if anyone would be willing to give a website review of my site<br>

<a href="http://www.ajaperu.com">www.ajaperu.com</a></p>

<p>I am a big girl and willing to take all feedback, both positive and negative.</p>

<p>It would be very helpful if you gave folks some clue about where you are located. I'm not going to contact you just to find out you're not even on the same continent as I.</p>

<p>Calling wedding packages "investments" is posturing BS, call them what they are.</p>

<p>I wouldn't mix your weak product stuff with your stronger wedding material. If you want to do product, build a real portfolio and get a separate website. They aren't even the same market as wedding.</p>

<p><Chas></p>

 

<p>I agree that you need to cull your images just a little more. The "legs" shot in the intro slide show should go (chubby super-white knees on left not exactly flattering), along with the B&W of the groom sorta stuck on the right side of the landscape (crop this and it'll look a lot better - your web site is cropping the right side), and the first shot under "portraits/lifestyle" is missing a head. While no head can be great art, it is not usually something customers want to pay for. Know what I mean? Also not crazy about the two belly dancers (events) both in an arch because the first thing I see is her stomach gravitationally sagging. Yes it's honest, but maybe too honest. There are a lot of good images in your site too, though - don't get me wrong! Love the close up with the child, near the end of your child portfolio.</p>

<p>Do you have any other wedding photos? These all look like the same wedding. It would be good to have at least 3 different weddings if you have shot them, IMHO. Even if you shot them as a guest, maybe they could work. Love the snow/ring shot, by the way. The lack of variety is the case with all of the galleries except maybe portraits - might be nice to flesh out your portfolio a little, even if you spend a day or two unpaid, just setting up fake product shots, or volunteering at a charity event, whatever. If you can shoot some more to give your portfolio some diversity, that would help.</p>

<p>The mechanics of the site, with the submenus, are kind of annoying. They are not very intuitive and they are too close together because the font is really small. Too much mouseover is required to get to what I would want to read or view. You only have "the day" as the one submenu in weddings. Why not just get rid of the submenu and let people click on "weddings"? Can you do that? I would change "Information" to "Pricing/Copyright" and just go to one web page. Don't make me click through submenus to find what kind of pricing I want. Just list it all - I can read. Put the copyright info at the top or the bottom.</p>

<p>I agree with the word "investments". Yikes. I read that and think "I cannot afford her" without even going there. And that's just not true, looking at your price. So you're potentially losing customers there, posturing or not.</p>

<p>I'd change the "Personal" section to "Landscapes" or "The Land", and put the cute dogs under Lifestlye. Unless you've shot the Taj Majal or your "Travel" shots are otherwise clearly foreign, or have titles to indicate they are far away, don't call it Travel, IMHO. Whatever you call it, don't use "Personal". I am hesitant to click in there - it's personal, after all!</p>

<p>The window for Blog is really too small and instead should redirect me entirely to another tab or browser window. I can't even function in that tiny space - I'd be horizontally scrolling the whole time I was trying to read. It doesn't work. That's got to be re-tooled. People don't like to feel cramped.</p>

<p>Hope this helps - good for you for putting yourself out there.</p>

<p>Thank you both for your feed back, making some adjustments as we speak. I really appreciate the helpful advice and will be changing a lot of wording etc. Blog will open in a new tab, things will be condesed etc. Thank you, thank you!!<br>

The wedding photos ARE from the same wedding and I understand that this shows lack of business. I feel as though I am in a catch 22....it was my FIRST wedding on my own. I have shot 4 weddings prior but was hired by other photographers. I was not permitted to use my images for my portfolio, so this first wedding is all that I have. These photos have already helped me book my second wedding, which I am happy about.<br>

I am going to make some major changes BUT just so you know the photo of the groom was shot that way on purpose and is not cropped. I know, I know it may go against "rules" of photography, but it is my style.</p>

<p>My suggestion was not about "rules". Long live style - I'm okay with not following them. I actually like the shot quite a bit when it's fully shown. But your web site mechanics cut the right side so much that I couldn't see his legs at all until I did some more mousing. If I had not checked, I would only have seen half his body right against the frame edge, and then it looked awkward. My suggestion from cropping was because I thought it might make your picture viewer behave more kindly toward the image and show a bit more of him before it chopped him up. Does that make sense? </p>

<p>How soon is your second wedding? If it's coming right up, then just augment your site when you get the shots. I thought you might only have one. That'll change soon enough. And those images were good, so it'll have to do for now. Too bad you cannot use any of those others for your own portfolio. </p>

<p>I am sorry I miss-read what you meant by him being cut off. Sorry! I see what you mean now that I get it...I am gonna have to look into that!<br>

I was bummed that I couldn't used the images from previous wedding but I did know this going into it. I am located in Phx and it was really hard to find someone who would give me the chance to second shoot at all let alone one that would also let me keep my images. Oh well...as you stated it will have to do for now. My next wedding booked is in April. I am thinking of seeing if a friend of mine would like to do a trash the dress or even some mock wedding stuff if I can find a "groom".</p>

<p>Another woman I know got some dresses from Goodwill and Craigslist and as she put it, "shot the heck out of them" with a mannequin and some friends. That might also work. </p>

<p>Technical point: The white balance on <em>every one</em> of your color wedding shots is severely blue. I would look at this and then go to the next photographer's site. If the 'white lace' isn't white...</p><div>[ATTACH=full]528443[/ATTACH]</div>

<p>I really appreciate you saying something about the blue. Makes me have a concern though....its really blue on all of the wedding photos? I do see it on one of them really badly (her standing in the snow hold the bouquet) but on the rest of the photos I don't see it. Makes me wonder if my monitor is off. Ugh. I just had it calibrated. Thank you again for pointing this out.<br>

I noticed the photo that you posted is from the portfolio section is this one blue to you as well?</p>

<p>Yes--look at the whites of her eyes.</p>

<p>http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=41252</p>

<p>You may have your camera set to adjust white balance for tungsten lighting. That gives a blue cast.<br>

I like the site. It loads quickly and it's easy to figure out.<br>

- The galleries are good but some of your text content looks a bit out of place on the site. For example, your print pricing consists of images in a slideshow, which I don't seem to have any control over. If you did all your txt content like this (as images) and put them in the gallery script so I could move them back and forth, I think it would gel better with the rest of the site.<br>

Now, I know web designers and some of them will balk at the above idea. Their argument is that you should be able to use CSS, etc to style the text just the way you want it.<br>

Also, if you do it the way I suggest, you will have to update your text content via Photoshop or similar, but that isn't so hard, is it? I say break the rules.<br>

I just think it would actually look better than Having html/CSS text with a scrollbar on the middle of your page.</p>