New travel/photo website

I finally got around to doing what I've wanted to do for a while, i.e. to set up a website to document photos of various travel opportunities. Retirement is good for something! The website is at www.neurotraveler.com and it is definitely still a work in progress. Any comments, critiques and comments would be much appreciated.

I finally got around to doing what I've wanted to do for a while, i.e. to set up a website to document photos of various travel opportunities. Retirement is good for something! The website is at www.neurotraveler.com and it is definitely still a work in progress. Any comments, critiques and comments would be much appreciated.

Wonderful photos - interesting and very high quality. Can I ask what camera and lenses you used to photograph your island winter home and other locations?

Thanks Jerry. As for my camera and lenses, I go against the grain here. About 5 years ago I decided to trade weight for image quality and replaced my DSLR with a Panasonic Lumix 200 'bridge' camera with a long zoom. Ultimately I found the sensor on the FZ200 a bit too small and upgraded to the FZ1000 when it became available. This is the camera I presently use, for the last 3 years or so. I discuss this issue briefly on my website, it you look at the 'About' link. As I say there, life is full of compromises.

You have wonderful photos and your home page looks great. IMHO the amount of (immediate/integrated) text is likely to turn visitors off. My take on each text is that it's you who wants to photos/shoots explain rather than what visitors may be interested in. I suggest you 'layer' your text so that visitors can choose the level of detail that they're interested in.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Mike

Very nice presentation. The text is interesting as are the photos and might make for a nice companion book for travelers.

Mike and Alan, thanks for taking the time to look at the website and for your comments.

 

Mike, I also struggled with the text/photo ratio and would agree there's probably too much text for most viewers. OTOH, my idea is to set the presentation apart from the many thousands of other websites that basically just show pictures. I think that in many cases the story behind the pictures is just as, or more, interesting. I looked into 'layering' the text but I don't think the Squarespace format I've chosen easily permits it. Can you give me an example of a website that layers the text as you suggest? Thanks!

@tcyin, sorry I missed your question on nov 27th. I keep forgetting that I have to explicitly 'watch' a thread to get an alert on PN. I often use a different forum where the alerts are automatic for any threads I've responded to.

 

I agree that your personal accounts (with pictures) of the trips you took are what sets your website apart from the 'photo-sites'. And what makes it so valuable. I've just taken another look at your site and I still feel that - for me - it's a "long scroll" from start to finish of the trip accounts (at least for Patagonia and Shanghai).

 

I only now realize that each of your trip accounts is a Squarespace blog post. So there's nothing you can do to divide the text up into multiple layers (or levels). The large, in-line photos contribute to the 'long scroll. I'm not saying you should do this but where you have multiple large in-line photos one after the other, you could consider using gallery blocks instead. For me, "clicking" on thumbnails in a gallery to see one full image at a time would be less hard work than scrolling down through multiple screens, each showing one image.

 

Your photos are wonderful! Squarespace looks good too.

I like it -- the combination of text and photos work for me. The presentation is appropriate for the amount of content.

 

However, I'm guessing that you are planning more trips in the future, so at some point you may have more more content than what is presentable in the current format -- just my opinion.

 

-Keith

Love your site. I am on a similar path although not quite as extensive (yet).

Keith and Chris, Thanks for taking the time to look at the website and for your kind comments. I'd be interested to see your own websites when available.