# Missus' new venture!



## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

Missus has just had her website built! www.lensoflondon.co.uk

Thoughts please?


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## karl_liverpool (Sep 25, 2008)

thats a very classy looking site dean. and great images too.


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## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

Cheers! All her own work too!


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## who45 (Feb 8, 2008)

looks too many family pics, child, pets, partner etc - or is it me imagining that, some good studio pics would look alot better imo as they lack impact to me to sell ones self as a photographer - hope that doesnt offend


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## bretti_kivi (Apr 22, 2008)

Grammar.....



> Toddler's, Teenager's, Mother's, Father's, Family's, Friends and professional portraits of your pets


should be



> toddler, teenager, Mother, Father, family, friends and professional portraits of your pets


the portrait does not belong to a person called Toddler, now does it? (OK, strictly speaking in a copyright sense it does, but not in a grammatical one!).

Baby is not a proper noun and should therefore not be capitalized, same goes for Toddler.

I don't care for the writing style, either, but that's also just me. Yes, I do write professionally. It feels like it was written in about three minutes and repeats itself; Portrait is also arguably not a proper noun either. Try maybe linking those words to an offer page, too. Yes, there's "I WANT TO DO THIS!" behind it but you need to offer more.

I would put no photos as part of my portfoilo where the focus is not 100% (the butterfly is a great example of this!) - and you do have the model release forms for all of those featured, don't you? And the extended child-protection photography form?

Bret


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## CJA Valeting (Dec 7, 2006)

If that was my site I'd go for a more traditional photo gallery with clickable thumbnails, as scrolling through all the images becomes annoying over time.

IMO


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## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

Oops! Wish I never asked now! 

Can'o'Worms!


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## Gruffs (Dec 10, 2007)

Trust me mate. 

It's the time of year. We are all a bit grumpy. Yes there are issues and they can be sorted.

Good luck to your wife in her new venture. I hope she is very successful.


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## Ads (Sep 23, 2006)

Nice looking site!!

Would she do some corporate photos?, Im only in Beckenham


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## Ducky (Mar 19, 2007)

I thought it looked nice but then I'm no expert!  Wish her the best of luck with it! :thumb:


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## bretti_kivi (Apr 22, 2008)

deanchilds said:


> Oops! Wish I never asked now!
> 
> Can'o'Worms!


Some of it is legal which if you don't have can get you into very hot water very quickly. People have the right to their own faces and get shirty if you use their photo without permission. It's a question, nothing more. The children's protection forms are a UK speciality (I have no idea what this is about, I just know it exists and it makes a *lot* of sense to be able to answer the concerned parent's question, no?
As far as the grammar is concerned: if you want to provide a professional impression, you must be able to express yourself correctly, concisely and coherently. End of.

Bret


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## Auto Finesse (Jan 10, 2007)

I think thats a banging site, great layout, and im quite keen on the way you scrool through the images, granted there is the odd typo to sort but thats not to hard to do.


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## NickP (Nov 20, 2005)

Looks a nice clean site, although I think the locations at the bottom may be a bit over done - 

i.e. -It says 'Lens of London covers all areas of London, Kent & Surrey' - which should be enough, but it then lists out every single locality in the above areas....


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## robz (Apr 18, 2006)

I think thats a very nice site, some great images and well designed and laid out...but...and there's always a but....

Compress the images slightly for a faster load time during peak access periods.


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## Miglior (Feb 12, 2006)

deanchilds said:


> Oops! Wish I never asked now!
> 
> Can'o'Worms!


One Negative comments or criticism is far more usefull than 10 "looks good" comments.

You learn from mistakes mate. Don't be disheartened, it will develop and get better and better


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## A210 AMG (Nov 8, 2008)

Better to have people offer advice than not?

Myself I find the images changing all the time a bit annoying.


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## VixMix (May 8, 2008)

deanchilds said:


> Oops! Wish I never asked now!
> 
> Can'o'Worms!


No, of course you should ask! It's by getting other people's hypercriticism that allows you to build the website in the best way possible. Some of the comments will be personal taste and others will be things like grammar, spelling and typos. Personal taste, well, one man's bread and all that so as long as you and plenty others like it - you can't please everyone. The other stuff - consider this a cheap way of getting the website proof read!! :thumb:
There are some valuable pieces of information on here - you are getting the opportunity to learn from other people's experience.

I would comment that in the paragraph below - the work photography is overused and makes the sentence a bit clunky.



> I am based in the South East London and cover the whole of London, Kent and Surrey and can travel further on request. I always wanted a career in Photography and I decided to study Photography in my own time, I am working full time at the moment and fit my photography around my current job in administration which is currently funding my career photography.


Otherwise the website is looking good so far - It is neat, clean and doesn't have any annoying slider bars. I am viewing in Safari on a MacBook so all good from this end 

Take the advice given on the chin and use it to do what you asked for - to improve the website further.

All the very best with the business.


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## dubnut71 (Jul 25, 2006)

james b said:


> I think thats a banging site, great layout, and im quite keen on the way you scrool through the images, granted there is the odd typo to sort but thats not to hard to do.


I'm with James, its a cracking site, love the images too. I have seen quite a few 'tog sites, have one myself and reckon thats pretty well put together.

I wish her all the success she deserves mate.


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## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

I will take the comments on board dont worry about that. This is the first draft and no doubt will change loads in the next few months. 

Glad you like the design, was hoping to get my own site looking something like this.


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## amiller (Jan 1, 2009)

Is it down Dean?


Keep getting:

Forbidden

"You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request."

I'm at home so no filters or anything (trust me )


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## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

Yes, not sure why!


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## Franco50 (Feb 5, 2008)

amiller said:


> Is it down Dean?
> 
> Keep getting:
> 
> ...


yes, I'm getting that error as well.


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## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

All sorted, was a hosting issue.


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## Auto Detox (Dec 22, 2007)

Great site mate, really like the scrolly image gallery. I do agree with some of the above the "areas" are a bit of over kill (for me) wish her the best of luck with it !

Baz


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## kevedup (Jul 23, 2010)

Just had a look at her website looks very professional. I am also interested in photography & I see your wife studied in her own time, What sort of studying did she do, was it online, books, evening classes or something else?
Kev


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## amiller (Jan 1, 2009)

Absolutely love it mate.

Like has been said, the list of all the diferent locations is a bit excessive, but maybe for a good reason!

Prices look very fair too.

Only crititism I would say is the logo. ( ). It doesnt appear very sharp if you know what I mean. the edges of the curves are stepped not really smooth. maybe just my connection or something though?


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## buckas (Jun 13, 2008)

bretti_kivi said:


> I would put no photos as part of my portfoilo where the focus is not 100% (the butterfly is a great example of this!)


Agree, lot of duffers on there imo

I'm not one to blow smoke up peoples ar5es and am blunt as a post so take this as you want to:

*site*
~ Site takes bloody ages to load, due to every photo of every section loading at the same time - find side scrolling annoying personally

*shots*
~ Portrait/baby shots - lot's of mis-focused/soft shots with dodgy lighting

~ Like a few of the gig shots, actually quite decent

~ A photo of from a moving car on the motorway isn't a "landscape" photo, neither is a photo of a bush & a boat

~ Equipment used doesn't appear to be upto standard

Overall I don't get a professional image from seeing the portfolio, so I wouldn't pay the professional prices. If you're taking shots for the odd bit'n'bob here and there then fair enough, you'd not expect the best but if you start charging pro prices then you need to back it up with pro product which imho is a long way off so far.

drew


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## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

A bit harsh....


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## Deano (Jul 7, 2006)

maybe mate but Drew knows his photography so I'd welcome his "review" and fine tune from there?


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## Katana (Mar 31, 2007)

You shouldn't have posted if you didn't want criticism, most photographers crave it, i only shoot as a hobby and i welcome criticism but never get any, saying "oh that's nice" doesn't really help.

Drew is on the mark, the site while nice doesn't seem professional. There's a few good shots, most just seem like snapshots taken with a good camera. Seems more like a hobbyist wanting some cash on the side rather than a dedicated pro.
Build a small studio, a hanging sheet for a backdrop, couple of cheap slave flashes with umbrellas on stands, or book some studio time, hire a model or borrow some friends babies (baby photographers normally have a selection of clothes that photograph well), do some professional looking shots, then get some external feedback and put the well received ones up there to showcase the work.
Don't need a lot of photos, just a few excellent examples to show what you can do, what your style is (if you have one) and what a customer can reasonably expect if they hire you.
Experimental shots, and experimenting are fine, but most people just want a properly exposed "nice" photo, something to hang in the living room in a frame. The experimenting should be done on personal time and not incorporated in pro work till it's good enough. That's more for portraits though, landscape, nature and event have a bit more leeway for playing around but you still need "nice" shots to fall back on.

Also check out the local competition who are doing well, what they charge, how the operate, what they shoot with, style of the photos etc. assuming you want this to be a proper business some day.

The site, under services it only lists portrait and event photography, so dump the nature and "landscape" sections in the portfolio section, though you could keep the dog/cat ones and rename it pet photography and offer that service; it's mentioned on the front page but not listed as a service.
Get rid of the huge list of covered areas at the bottom of every page as well, put it on a separate page and reduce it to counties rather than towns/boroughs. " I am based in the South East London and cover the whole of London, Kent and Surrey and can travel further on request." don't need any more than that.
The front page in general could use a proof read and clearing up. Dump the scrolling photo gallery, while snazzy and cool it's slow, irritating and it's not how you normally view a photograph, much easier to judge a photo when it's not slammed against others.

Can't think of any more at the moment, take it or leave it.


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## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

Spent a bit of time yesterday sorting out the home page and was wondering if you pro's could let me know what you think of it now? 

With regards to the gallery page there is a stop and start "button" to speed up or slow down the pictures or even stop them from scrolling. 

With regards to the pictures that lack quality, I can only say that my missus has been slowly building up her photography skills within the last year and guess within time she will get better. 

The camera she has is a Sony A300 I think and she has about 4 different lenses the latest one being a macro lens which I got her for christmas. 

I will continue to take on the ideas you have suggested and please dont think I was being rude with not replying to your comments.


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## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

kevedup said:


> Just had a look at her website looks very professional. I am also interested in photography & I see your wife studied in her own time, What sort of studying did she do, was it online, books, evening classes or something else?
> Kev


She has taken a few courses and the rest on it has been done in her own time with friends babies and pets etc. To study at college takes a long time so she has decided to to it bit by bit.


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## deanchilds (Dec 11, 2007)

buckas said:


> Agree, lot of duffers on there imo
> 
> I'm not one to blow smoke up peoples ar5es and am blunt as a post so take this as you want to:
> 
> ...


Hi Drew,

If we load the site it dont seem to take too long to load, has anyone else had this problem?

Out of the pictures on there can you be a bit more specific about which ones you would take off the site?

Cheers


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## Katana (Mar 31, 2007)

Front page text is much clearer now, still need to scrap that massive area list though. On the front page image slide-show i'd dump that image of the guy in the baseball hat, has obvious digital noise on it and looks a bit out of place.

I appreciate that your wife(?) is getting better, takes time and feedback to progress. The fact she has taken courses and seeks to improve set her out from some "photographers" i've seen online peddling services, some of them are truly horrific and incompetent. Fancy a look and a laugh check out this forum thread on somethingawful Post terrible photos from other photographers

Anyway, glad you removed that one selective B&W one with the blue eyed baby drooling, no offense but it was seriously creepy. You have to be careful with B&W or desaturating photos of babies, i've seen some that make them look well... dead, just what you want, a picture a dead looking baby.
I don't know what drew would remove but here's my list.
Baby side scroll; 
2) looks like a in your face flash colour shot that didn't work and converted to black and white to "save" it.
3/4/5) not bad but a little underexposed and too similar, the baby looks half asleep in them as well. sleepy babies can be cute, but not from that angle.
6) not a bad shot but the selective B&W and bemused look on his face is a bit weird.
The rest are ok, just looks like she needs to work on lighting. Also some variety would be good as it's all 1 or 2 children, but so long as you update this with new work later on, no problem.

The event ones are the best, just delete 3 or 4, pick colour or B&W, both together suggests you couldn't decide.

Portraits.
2) don't know if that's you but the person looks rather reluctant to be in the photo, a bit off putting.
3) nice shot but not really a portrait, snapshot with a nice camera.
4/5/11) pick one, colour or B&W
7/8/12) pick one, too similar
9) light is good but dull shot
13) Looks like blown highlights in colour so converted to B&W to save it, odd location, bad choice of clothes, pose and angle, not very flattering.

Nature.
If your wife is going to focus more on pets then delete all the ones aren't pets, i.e. the butterflies, swan, deer, squirrel.

Landscape.
If you want to keep the landscape ones and the other nature ones i'd rename this section something like "My Personal Work/Experimental", in other words photos that she has taken and likes but doesn't offer services for. Keeps it separate but you can still display other work.

Overall i'd say as your wife improves and acquires a larger body of work, make sure to keep this section up to date with new shots and delete old ones that aren't up to snuff anymore. People don't need to see the old stuff, just what you are capable of now.

Tried to be constructive with that, drew probably has better suggestions than me.


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