Starting my photography busness...

Hi everyone,

So I have decided to become a full time photographer!! I'm so excited!! but

could you please help me a little bit with the new website..Sorry if this is in

the wrong place, this is just the forum that I read everyday, so it's the only

one I'm familiar with!

I have been reading this forum for quite some time now. Although this is my

first posting, I was wondering if some of you could check out my new website and

help me de-bug it a little. This is the first ever website I have created and

would love some feed back. Also, maybe you could look at some of my pictures and

let me know what you think. I hope I'm not asking to much.. Here is the link..

http://heatherrenestudios.com/

Sincerely your friend,

Heather Rene'

Didn't do a whole lot of looking... sizing is bad... backgrounds are too big. You spelled 'available' wrong on the weddings page.

Takes a while to load...

You have at least one other spelling mistake. Have a look to see if you can find it, which is a very good way of checking all your text.

Heather, your site didn't work on my Mac computer using Safari ... none of the images

could be viewed other than thumbnails.

 

Also, it seems you are a bit premature in announcing some of your services without any

actual work to review (weddings). Using "Studios" in your name also seems transparently

ambitious ... you have "studios" ?

 

I would urge you to review the writing on your site. The syntax is quite akward.

Needs a lot of work. Slow downloads, photos are nice but don't have me doing cartwheels. Perhaps get a new web designer. He/she isn't too creative. This is actually the first time since jointing photo.net I've ever expressed a dislike for the web designer.

The site was incredibly slow (over a broadband connection). The links to your services lead to nothing more than a slow-loading image (that has nothing to do with the service offered) and some text saying you offer that service. When I finally tracked down your photos in the portfolio section, it was a bunch of flowers and landscapes. I only found two images that were related to your services: one shot of a dog, and one badly-lit photo of a couple. Overall, your site offers no evidence that you have any experience actually providing the service you claim to offer.

Not only it was slow to load, it was not centered either (main web page) Once I looked at the slide show it seemed to pick up some speed. You have very few samples of people on your site! It seems like you are a nature photographer not a wedding photographer. Also your only asking 495.00 per wedding? If your just starting out and you don't think your skills could be worth more...maybe you should shoot as a second photographer or do some for free to gain a better portfolio. Bottom line: I did not see enough samples on your site. v/r Buffdr

I would concur with others about the speed issues - all the images are too large in KB size. As an example, on the first page, the small flower (http://heatherrenestudios.com/DSC_0626%20copy.jpg) is 858 KB in size...it should be something like 10KB, given its displayed pixel size. The reason why is that you didn't resize your image - if you "view image" it is a full sized 2464 x 2592 pixel file...not only are you giving away a free, full resolution image, you are slowing your site down in a major way! Resizing your images to the size they will be displayed is always recommended!

<p>You will need to resize the two main images on the homepage. The butterfly comes in at 505kB (way too big for a web page) and the flower is 858kB!! </p>

<p>In photoshop go (File > Save For Web)and mess around with the settings to get the minimum file size whilst maintaining an acceptable image quality. Same with the flower image. With these two images replaced with the smaller sized ones, the homepage should load considerably faster.</p>

<p>Go into the source code and one the twelfth line (between the title tags) replace Untitled Document with a more suitable name for this page. All your pages need this attended to. You will see this evident, especially when using a tabbed browser.</p>

<p>Safari: As Marc rightly pointed out, some pages will look different on different web browsers. The main ones to preview your work before putting 'out there' are: IE6, IE7, Firefox, Opera and Safari. These are the most popular browsers being used, so have a copy of each installed on you machine and view your site in each of them to ensure they all present your site acceptably. BTW: The pages load fine on Safari for Windows, though none of the images have been linked to larger images. There are only thumbnails on the site.</p>

<p>About Us: As a potential client, when I go to the About Us section, I'd have an expectation to see a photo of 'us', whoever us is. An explanatory paragraph or two, detailing your experiences as a wedding photographer are, IMO, crucial to developing the confidence in you that the clients will need. If you can't put anything here because you've never done any weddings, do what Buffdr advised, and second shoot a few times to build your portfolio. Get enough images to build a gallery/slideshow to instill said confidence.</p>

<p>Your Alternate text for an image in the School's page is (alt="dsgfdsgf"). Change this!! It looks unprofessional. Call it Glowbird or something descriptive. I didn't look at all of them but I presume this may occur a few times throughout the site.</p>

<p>Contact Details: Does your site host allow you e-mail addresses within your Domain? e.g. enquiries@heatherrenestudios.com ? This would be preferable to yahoo.com .</p>

<p>Hope this all helps</p>

You need to give people something to look at. The only thing I saw were a few flowers and a chimpmunk under "pets." I agree with the pricing comments. $495 for a wedding and only $125 for an album of heirloom quality? I can't tell if your work is worth the $1000 plus most people charge but that is really cheap and you are cheapening your name. Also, there is no need to describe your camera. I think you could have left it by saying you use Nikon cameras. All the megapixels in the world doesn't mean much if you can't use the camera. I can by a Stradivarius but that doesn't mean I will play the violin better. Your images should speak for themselves.

heather - site looks weird and very offset in firefox on mac osx.

 

don't talk so much. are you a writer or a photorgapher? a photographer. don't TELL me about your services. SHOW me some great pictures.

"We use DSLR Nikon digital cameras exceeding 10 megapixels which makes us capable of making prints up to 16 x 20 before ever loosing any quality. The camera is also capable of capturing 3 picture a second. Making it a nearly impossible to miss the right shot. It also has a wide lcd screen making it easier for us to interact with you and get the pictures that you want."

 

This is hilarious. Heather, take this out unless you want to cheapen your image.

 

The FPS on your camera has nothing to do with your skills as an operator - the wide LCD screen has NOTHING to do with client interaction.

 

I have a canon 20D - three of them, in fact. there are photographers who use pinhole cameras whose work is much better than mine. there are photographer with $8000 bodies, and they are never going to reach my level of work.

 

lesson?

 

equipment doesn't matter. trying to sell yourself to a client based on the level of your equipment is a very bad idea.

At $495.00 for a full day there will not be much of a business. Selective color which is all over the site can still be done tastefully but it is basically out of style. The site loads to the right and has a very dated look 1995 or so. You don't even have an email link. This business is hard enough I would really step back and get things more together, shooting, website design, better images for a higher rate package. You will be laughed at if you try to enter the market like this and it will really hurt your name to change, advance and gain respect in the future.

Dump the website and start over. You have managed to break almost every major rule of web design, and the coding of the website is pretty rough as well. If you don't know anything about web design and coding you shouldn't attempt it. Creating a website and wedding photography are very similar - people often think 'how hard is it?' and get in over their heads quickly. Like wedding photographs, a lot of people don't realize that their website is really quite bad.

heather, by the way, what was your decision making process in going full time? I'm asking b/c I worked a day job for 2.5 years before going full time, and I'm glad I did.

 

your work is decent, but it isn't eyepopping, and there are a LOT of people out there who do similar level work. this means that going full time might be difficult, b/c you are going to be competing with those people.

 

if you have a day job, I would encourage you to keep developing your portfolio, clean up your website and then go full time when you are so busy with photography that your day job gets in the way of your photography work :-) that's the sign it is time to make the switch.

Thanks alot everyone!! I am going to take most of your guys advice. For the website I will go start fixing it today. As for the fact that you don't see many pictures is because I haven't loaded them up yet..oops I geuss..They are all ready just have to make the slideshow. So that part will be easily fixed. Also I think that the price is fine, it is cheap for Eugene, Oregon and I don't want to charge alot just starting out! Oh and I am doing a couple free weddings here shortly.

 

As for the reasoning for going full time, my boyfriend said I needed to do what makes me happy. Well we both decided, after time, that this would be great since I love photography so much. So I don't need to work a job, just work on taking pictures!!;)

 

Any way thanks a ton for all the quick replies and excellent advice, I really appreciate this. Well I'm off to fix the website!!

 

 

Thanks again,

Sinserely your friend,

Heather Rene'

Heather nice to see that you still retain your enthusiasm in the face of critiques, and that you will take the advice. It is one thing being a low budget photographer and another doing photography for free. For many reasons one being you need to put a value on your work, even if you are just starting out, charge something but I would say stay away from "free."

Thanks Jamie Blue!! I like your advice the best!!