My New Website

Very good presentation of your interesting work, especially the series about Cuba (which is my favorite).
 
Hi Nick,

Firstly, you've got some cracking photos there - it's bookmarked for more perusal. But it's the site itself you asked for comments on...

Minor niggle first - it flashed up a message in yellow to tell me I must have Flash and Javascript installed to view the photos. But I already have them, and for a moment I wondered "What's gone wrong with my Flash and Javascript?". So is there any possibility it could be changed to check first, and then only warn people that they need Flash and Javascript if they don't already have them? (I'm using an Intel iMac with OSX 10.5.3)

Knowing it is a Flash site made me a little nervous, because I've seen an awful lot of arty-farty Flash sites that put all their effort into appearance and little into functionality and navigation. But I needn't have worried - yours is very well organised. It's easy to navigate, has "back" links in all the right places, and its colours, style and layout are suitably understated and allow the photos to steal the show.

The galleries are nicely arranged and categorised too - it's nice to see galleries naturally organised rather than forced into standard categories (Street, Travel, Nature, etc). Also, there are not too many photos in each - you've clearly concentrated on only including your very best. (As an aside, I've seen a good few sites that use that "thumbnail strip" approach - which is very effective if used well - but they spoil it by having too many images in it and no "jump right" facility, so you have to view them all to get at the ones near the end).

And it works fast enough too (many Flash sites are painfully slow) - I have a slow connection here in Thailand, but the images rendered with pretty good speed.

So all in all, yes, a very nicely done site - I'll be going back there.

Best regards,
 
Thanks to all for the comments.

On general design, I've looked at enough websites that I knew what I didn't want - obscure navigation, too-clever design, small pics, slow loading...

The website was designed by myself in collaboration with a friend who take care of the technical details (LINK). The site uses a combination of Wordpress software for the standard content pages, while Flash is used for the galleries (that's as technical a description as you're going to get from me).

Nice to hear about the access speed from Thailand - I believe the server is based in Switzerland.

Alan, the site was implemented by a Mac user, so I'll ask him to check that.
 
Update on Alan's comment:

Mark (the developer) writes:

"I'd forgotten that the message was yellow,
that's from another project! I've made it much more subtle and
re-worded it too:

"If this message is not replaced within a few moments, please note
that you need to have Javascript and Flash enabled to view the images
on this page."

This message will only appear briefly while the Flash loads, and
should now only be visible to users who do not have Javascript
enabled."
 
VERY nicely constructed site. I love your use of DOF in the portraits! I've added your site to my short list of sites to visit for inspiration. :) Thanks.
 
As for the site, it didn't drive me nuts like some do and wasn't a PITA to navigate. Good work.

The content, excellent. There's a lot of life in your photos, even those without people. In my book, that's the whole point. I enjoyed your site very much!
 
I very much enjoyed the galleries from Cuba. As you probably know, we (Statesiders) can't visit there and we don't see much besides what the Powers That Be want us to see.

Now, on the site. ... I really don't care for flash. I prefer static images, but it's your site so do what you want. Static images work first-time, every-time with all browsers, without any f*rting around. Your flash is not bad, however, you don't have too much needless whizbang in there. It seems like many web designers make up for lack of content by substituting whizbang.

That's my not so humble opinion, anyway. :)
 
Nick, I definitely like your photos, they are dynamic and interesting.

About the website, I have a couple of inputs, little things, take them for their worth :)

1. "Picture Galleries" (on the menu) is confusing to me, Galleries would be enough, no need to be redundant.

2. Select another font for the menu, the New Courier (what it looks like) is uniformly drab, it's too simple for your dynamic photos.

3. Your picture in the Contact page, how should I say it ... at least put on a shirt or something ;) but I like your portrait in the About page.

That's all, good potential, I don't know if this is for fun or for professional portfolio (if it is, may want to pay extra attention to my no.3 above :D )
 
"If this message is not replaced within a few moments, please note
that you need to have Javascript and Flash enabled to view the images
on this page."

This message will only appear briefly while the Flash loads, and
should now only be visible to users who do not have Javascript
enabled
Click to expand...
Yep, that sounds good.
 
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