Cool photographer web sites

[randalldouglas]

What are some of the best photographer web sites you've found.

 

I don't want to know about the best photographers per se (although

good photography is usually necessary to have a great web site).

 

Please share some really good photographer site Web designs. I'd

like to get some ideas about what makes a great personal web gallery.

[derek_stanton2]

www.sachabiyan.com

[lacy_dillard]

<a href="http://www.amyshutt.com/">amy shutt</a><br><br>

 

I've been watching her for a few years, and I think her latest web design is really great. It's a bit overrated right now, but I do love the streamlined flash look. I'm generally not a fan of pop-up windows. I also like galleries organized by year .. it lets you look more easily at the progress of the artist, i think. If a website contains commercial and more private work, I like them to be separate.

[lacy_dillard]

Derek: That's a beautiful site, but I couldn't get past the the main menu without impulsively closing it down (my speakers are set up for audio recording and very complicated to turn off). For those of you considering sound integrated into your galleries, PLEASE give anyone browsing the site the option of turning it off. What sounds wonderful to you may really grate someone else's nerves.

[finepics]

Check this one out www.photo2000.co.uk

Quite an amazing photographer, she started at an office desk, got fed up, did a photography course and bingo! A lesson to us all I think!

[john_macpherson]

This is very very good:

 

http://www.abeling.nl/

 

and so is this (really good):

 

http://www.hijweege.com/

[john_burkus]

There are so many, many sites that are great! Where to start?

 

Photography Temple is a great reference site at:

 

http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/index.html

 

Fred Miranda Galleries some of the best in the business at:

 

http://www.fredmiranda.com/hosting/

 

Francis Toussaint's galley at:

 

http://www.pbase.com/francist/root&page=1

 

Masters of Fine Art at:

 

http://www.artphotogallery.org/masters-of-fine-art-photography/masters_of_photography_02.html

 

Henri Cartier-Bresson at:

 

http://www.peterfetterman.com/artists/cb/cb_sm.html

 

Brining Photography at:

 

http://www.brining-photography.co.uk/gallery.php

 

Henri Bing at:

 

http://www.henrybing.com/gallery/default.aspx

 

Michael Busselle at:

 

http://www.michaelbusselle-fineartprints.com/gallery.php

 

Fine art photography at:

 

http://www.artphotogallery.org/masters-of-fine-art-photography/masters_of_photography_02.html

 

The top daily photoblogs at:

 

http://www.photoblogs.org/

 

are well worth a visit as well

 

John

 

http://eclecticimage.blog-city.com/

[arkady n.]

<a href="http://www.fridphotography.com/">http://www.fridphotography.com/</a><br><a href="http://www.gdelin.com/">http://www.gdelin.com/</a>

[patrick_p]

You can find tons of links here:

http://www.magnumphotos.com/c/Home_MAG.aspx

 

Here are some other good ones-

 

http://www.charliewaite.com/

 

http://www.mihaiwilson.com/marcella/

 

http://www.geocities.com/baja/1838/index.html

 

and of course...

http://www20.brinkster.com/patrickp/index.asp?strCat=Myanmar

[coconutdaydream]

www.dmitrivonklein.com

its more of a weblog, but you can go to the straight photo's section. its amazing stuff

[StanleyBeck]

I think mine is fairly coo, but then, I'm usually impressed with my own work. ;-)

 

http://www.neworleansphotographs.com

 

Anyway, you did say you were only looking for ideas.

[gregg_johnson]

Here's mine for an example. &nbap; It doesn't have Flash, it wasn't created with Front Page or Dreamweaver, it's just plain ol HTML and I use it to display my ideas. <a href= "http://www.studioheadshots.net" target= "new"> www.studioheadshots.net</a>

[gregg_johnson]

Sorry about the bad code showing through!

[fourfa]

ughh all the flash and music and slow fades of some of the ones above is giving me a headache.

<p>

here's one that I love - utterly simple, elegant, totally self explanatory. <a href="http://photos.dobi.nu/">http://photos.dobi.nu/</a>

[randalldouglas]

Hi. Thanks.

 

You've given me some nice examples. (Especially the ones where you've linked to other people's sites.) So, far I had found only a couple gallery sites that I thought were well-designed, and I think I've added a couple more to my list.

 

I think the design is good if the number of tricks or gimmicks is limited to one or two things that truely enhance the user experience.

 

I really loved the scrolling panarama effect I saw on one site -- probably my favorite use of flash, although the level of flash gimmicks (a different UI for each gallery category) on that site overall was a bit of an overload.

 

Flash geeks, I suppose, are kind of like Eddie Van Halen. They can make a decent song if they force themselves to play within a structure, but they really just want to crank up the volume and play "Eruption."

[derek_stanton2]

Randy -

 

1. Panoramic scrolling is not (necessarily) a Flash technique. Easy to do in HTML. Probably,

using Frames.

 

2. Eddie Van Halen was the closest thing to a guitar god. Until Dave left/was dismissed.

Apparently, Dave was the conscience of Eddie's guitar. Without him, he's still got the

pyrotechnics, but they're wasted. Songs Post-Dave have no character, no edge, no

humour.

 

3. Find a way to work out your speaker set-up. The Sacha Biyan site is one of the best i've

EVER seen, and i've seen a lot (relative to both design AND photography).

[hemen_oza]

One I love particularly is Gary Voth's ..

http://www.vothphoto.com/contents.htm

 

Simple, not bandwidth/technology intesive, but yet very elegant and please to look at.

 

The contents of this site are very encouraging as well.

[randalldouglas]

>>"Panoramic scrolling is not (necessarily) a Flash technique. Easy to do in HTML. Probably, using Frames."

 

As a webmaster, I know you can do this with DHTML, programatically w/Java or other scripts, or with flash. In this case the example I was looking at is flash (you can tell by right-clicking on a flash .swf movie, which brings up a context-specific menu).

 

>>"Find a way to work out your speaker set-up. The Sacha Biyan site is one of the best i've EVER seen, and i've seen a lot (relative to both design AND photography)."

 

-- Agreed. It's quality. It looks great, flows well, and the music matches. Thanks for posting.

 

Side note -- Obviously, the Dave VH was better. I don't have a favorite guitar God, but some other ones I enjoy include: Steve Vai (also w/dave), Ronnie Earl, Benjamin Verdery, and Bukka White. I enjoy playing eruption on the guitar myself, but I never bothered to learn the first part correctly with the bluesy hammer-ons.

 

Feel free to add more sites. Either way, this has been a most rewarding thread for me.

[randalldouglas]

Incindentally Derek (hope this is too far off topic for this site), do you happen to have any knowledge about how the fade up transition between frames is done on the http://www.sachabiyan.com/flash.htm site?

[patrick_p]

Randy,

 

I'm in the middle of a redesign. Can you post what you think is good design. I'd be curious to see what you have found.

 

BTW- Doesn't matter how I have me speakers, I can't stand music on websites, but that's just me.

 

Cheers,

Patrick

[randalldouglas]

The reason why I was asking for people to tell me about the best site overall (not the best photographer) is that looking at some of the well-hyped photographers didn't yield that many interesting or well designed sites.

 

You'd think with their resources top photographer sites would be far superior. But I guess most of their attention must be on their work -- not on the web site. Although, I found a few decent ones among those getting a lot of the press.

 

For example, I kind of like how Greg Gorman's is organized and encapsulated:

 

http://www.gormanphotography.com/gorman.html

 

Looking at some of the less-hyped, but growing, photographers yielded a higher ratio of interesting designs....

 

I don't like the intro or the fonts, but I like the simplicity in organization of this one:

 

http://www.craigmtanner.com/

 

If you want to retain a modular look, you might look at this design template (for hire) for ideas:

 

http://www.templatehelp.com/aff/preview.php?aff=q3pro&skin=17&locale=en&currency=0&pr=yes&src=yes&nt=yes&help=yes&sample=yes&faq=yes&nmg=yes&auth=yes&down=yes&chm=&hide_flash=0&search=&PHPSESSID=aca2fc58c8c9940ee79286afb10077ed&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.q3pro.com%2Fmain%2Fwebdesign-templates.html&i=3814

 

I don't have my full list of links handy on this computer. I know there's some ones for which I can't remember the url (like a lot of the wedding and fashion ones I saw). But that gives you a sample.

 

For some reason, most of the samples I like are flash. But I don't think many of them have to be. It's the layout and navigation I'm interested in.

 

I also think music usually comes across as very cheesy and detracts more than it adds in general. That's too bad, because I love music (perhaps more than photography).

 

I do like how the sound works in the one example discussed above, however. This is a rare case. Maybe, it creates a touch of mellodrama, but the music does match the images really well. Most users (especially business users) will never hear it, though, so I won't spend to much time on the sound while designing a photography gallery for myself.

[randalldouglas]

Seems like maintenance is an issue when adding images to your flash pres. I also found this free template:

 

http://www.plasmado.com/

 

Their are some web hosting prerequisites in order to use it. The read me file says what they are.

 

**rant follows**

 

Unfortunately, my new host implies that I get all this software in their top level summary pages, but I found out later by drilling down 5 pages deep that I don't actually have any kind of program support whatsoever (despite this being implied as something that comes with all basic packages) unless I upgrade. So, I won't be able to consider doing anything with php or mysql untill I switch hosts (or upgrade, which I'm not likely to do at this point). **sucks** Guess I shouldn't expect anything uncheesy for 5.95/month....