# Jmax Photography v2.0



## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

ive just updated the look of my site, its not completely finished but gives the general feel

www.jmaxphotography.com

all comments welcome


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## beardboy (Feb 12, 2006)

Like that.

Nice and clean.

Noticed that 1 link doesn't work though.

In Gallery -> Nightlife -> The image on the right of 'Jordan + Ryan - Box Night Club' doesn't click.


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

My thoughts:

Don't like splash pages, you should just go straight to the homepage without having to cick enter.

The white text is WAY too big it makes the website look too big and chunky.

Lastly the polaroid thing has been done to death!

Hope this helps.


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

@ beardboy - thanks sir and the link has been fixed


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

@ rmorgan84 - ah well the site would never be to everyones taste, if more people dont like it then ill change it but your the first person so far not to like it


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## SURFERROSA (Feb 7, 2007)

I really like the look of the site John. I like the contrasting colours you've chosen. Very nice indeed.

Homepage typo - should read 'galleries' plural.
Homepage format I'd re-think. Yeh, ditch the polaroid photo border and replace with nice 'flipped vertical', diminishing reflections of the chosen photos at reduced opacity.

I really like it mate and hope my suggestions help. Only my opinion though, and when it comes to making your own site it's your own feelings that matter at the end of the day.:thumb:


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

SURFERROSA said:


> I really like the look of the site John. I like the contrasting colours you've chosen. Very nice indeed.
> 
> Homepage typo - should read 'galleries' plural.
> Homepage format I'd re-think. Yeh, ditch the polaroid photo border and replace with nice 'flipped vertical', diminishing reflections of the chosen photos at reduced opacity.
> ...


cheers sir lol now your the second person to say you dont like the polaroid frames i might change it, will have to see what other ideas i come up with

cheers

John


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Jmax said:


> @ rmorgan84 - ah well the site would never be to everyones taste, if more people dont like it then ill change it but your the first person so far not to like it


Not that i don't like the site, just the three things i mentioned!


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

lol ok no probs


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## .Martin (May 2, 2007)

I'm another one that doesn't like the polaroids/splash page - sorry! I think superrossa's idea is great though!


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## ClarkeG (Jun 17, 2006)

I don't like the large font you have used, reduce it's size it will look better 

Clarke


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## 190Evoluzione (Jun 27, 2007)

I'd keep the News section strictly about recent or upcoming shoots.
Notices about revisions to your site aren't important to anyone who doesn't already notice changes since the last time they visited.

As for your pictures, in all honesty the watermarks ruin them.
You can load them with metadata, and put a well-worded Copyright Notice on your website, but you'll never totally prevent casual misuse of your low-res JPEGs.
Ruining them for your intended audience certainly isn't the answer.
If you don't believe me, visit a few top agency sites - no watermarking in use, and this is top-level international work.

www.billcharles.com
www.lgalondon.com
www.katybarker.com
www.patriciamcmahon.com
www.wschupfer.com

HTH, looks like you're enjoying yourself so crack on and shoot some more!


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

See you should have listened to me in the first place!

But seriously, it's your site and ultimately you have to be happy with it...


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## lanciamug (May 18, 2008)

190Evoluzione, the patriciamcmahon pics ARE watermarked! Classy though.


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## Jakedoodles (Jan 16, 2006)

The pictures on your front page are average, but the ones on the main gallery page are great! I'd switch them, as the front page gives an idea of how good a photographer you are. 

I'd also re-word the front page text as it doesn't read well. There's also a couple of grammatical errors in there. 

Re watermarking - I never used to watermark my pics, and I did have a local guy steal some and was selling them for £120 each! Thankfully I always put a hot pixel in a particular place on mine, and was able to prove they were not his. 

Absolutely agree about the polaroids. It just doesn't look like a professional photographers website to me. Bare in mind in this game, as you know, image is absolutely the key and you need to make sure the front page of your website reflects the quality of your design skills (let's face it, pro photography is a hell of a lot more than just pointing and shooting!) 

You have a good foundation though, and as said, the orange and black goes well. I would seriously consider dropping the text size of the whole site, menu et al. I'm on a high res screen and it's massive for me. For folk on 800x600 (there are still a lot) your front page is going to take three scrolls down to get to the bottom. 

Just my 2p.

Edit - just noticed your gallery isn't working properly. When you click through next, next, it doesn't show all the pictures as per the gallery thumbnails. There's also a massive gap between the photo and the next button, which makes it difficult to notice as it's on another page, downwards.


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## 190Evoluzione (Jun 27, 2007)

lanciamug said:


> 190Evoluzione, the patriciamcmahon pics ARE watermarked! Classy though.


P'raps I'm missing something but I just looked at the site again and the images have no visible watermark, and no copyright-related Metadata...


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## 190Evoluzione (Jun 27, 2007)

Wonderdetail said:


> For folk on 800x600 (there are still a lot) your front page is going to take three scrolls down to get to the bottom.


These people are hopefully not your clients.
Resizing your website because some stubborn picture editor still lives their life on an old 12" PowerBook is madness. 
The majority of worthwhile clients will have Screen res in excess of 1280x800, and likely buy a new computer / display every year.


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## Jakedoodles (Jan 16, 2006)

190Evoluzione said:


> These people are hopefully not your clients.
> Resizing your website because some stubborn picture editor still lives their life on an old 12" PowerBook is madness.
> The majority of worthwhile clients will have Screen res in excess of 1280x800, and likely buy a new computer / display every year.


Worthwhile? So you're saying that anybody that has 800x600 screen res is not worthy of employing a photographer? That's complete madness! What about iphone users, webbook users, people at work who's screens are set to 800x600 and they can't change it, non PC devices such as consoles. What about partially sighted people, are they not allowed to employ a photographer because they can't see? I used to be a photographer, and I'd honestly say the VAST majority of my client were not in any way tech savvy. If they were, and had the latest gear, then they probably wouldn't have employed me to take nice photos of their kids. They would have done it themselves.


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

I think 1024x768 is a happy medium, there are sooooooo few people on 800x600.


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## 190Evoluzione (Jun 27, 2007)

Wonderdetail said:


> Worthwhile? So you're saying that anybody that has 800x600 screen res is not worthy of employing a photographer?


You were remarking that his site doesn't look 'professional', so since we're talking pro:
At a certain level, it is expected that those in the pro imaging industry will be using up-to-date equipment. My clients expect it of me, I expect it of them.
I used the word 'hopefully' in my previous post, as there are still a few people who insist on running old kit like 800x600 displays and whinging about photographers actually wanting their images to look bigger than a beermat on a brand new Mac.
As for the 'partially-sighted', come on - I'm talking Picture Editors and Art Buyers. Lose your sight and you'll probably lose your job.

I get the feeling we're talking about different sectors of the photo industry, but fwiw my advice comes from a magazine editorial & small commercial standpoint.


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

lol i can see where your all coming from but i have to agree 800x600 is just soooo out of date now even the lowest spec'ed computers run 1024x768 now so thats what i based the site on, i use 1280x1024 myself and i know alot of people that use this resolution, it has been at least 4-5 years since i heard of anyone using 800x600


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

190Evoluzione said:


> P'raps I'm missing something but I just looked at the site again and the images have no visible watermark, and no copyright-related Metadata...


and there is a visable water mark, the name is across the photos diagonaly


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## Neil_M (Apr 5, 2007)

Jmax,

Im a webdesigner myself, the site looks very well, not sure if its your first site, but it took me a while to get any looking vaguely good!

However I do think the res is too high on it. 800x600 was the standard for many years, though you could happily use 1024x768. You may find its constraints pulls your design in a little, not that it should be a hindrance to you at all.

Photography is great too.

All I will say keep at it, as you obviously have a talent there.

If you need an opinion, just shout anytime.


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## Jakedoodles (Jan 16, 2006)

Jmax said:


> lol i can see where your all coming from but i have to agree 800x600 is just soooo out of date now even the lowest spec'ed computers run 1024x768 now so thats what i based the site on, i use 1280x1024 myself and i know alot of people that use this resolution, it has been at least 4-5 years since i heard of anyone using 800x600


I used to work in the NHS (the biggest employer in the UK) and a massive amount of the displays were set at 800x600 as the users said their text was too small when it was put to 1024!


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## chris l (Mar 5, 2007)

nice work i like it


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

Neil_M said:


> Jmax,
> 
> Im a webdesigner myself, the site looks very well, not sure if its your first site, but it took me a while to get any looking vaguely good!
> 
> ...


many thanks, i did actually design it using 1024x768 so i dunno if its coming up bigger or not, but many thanks for your feed back and yea if i update it again i will be asking for feed back

oh and its my 2nd attempt at a site v1.0 was my first attempt


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## Neil_M (Apr 5, 2007)

good man keep it up like I say. Certainly for a portfolio, you will likely fin you keep tweaking it anyway.


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

small update to the site again


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

looks better mate, i don't like this photo though, no real point of interest and a little underexposed:










hope this helps in a constructive manner.


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## Buzzsaw (Nov 4, 2007)

The Architectural shots are superb


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

cheers guys

@ rmorgan84 - yea all feedback is good both positive and negative, and dont worry the pic will be replaced once i find one im happy to put in its place


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## -ROM- (Feb 23, 2007)

Jmax said:


> cheers guys
> 
> @ rmorgan84 - yea all feedback is good both positive and negative, and dont worry the pic will be replaced once i find one im happy to put in its place


if it were just another photo in the gallery i wouldn't say so much, however since it's the only one on the page it draws attention to itself so whatever you choose to put there needs to be a really good example fo your work:thumb:

Also this is just something that is of personal preference to me, but you state that you use a canon eos digital SLR. It is my opinion (and i'm not alone) that it is not the done thing for a photographer to talk about what equipment he uses, he lets his work speak for itself. After all you wouldn't go on a carpenters website and him say i use a dewalt 18v drill but sometimes use a hand drill where it's better suited!

If you must say something about equipment keep it simple, something along the lines of "i am proficient with both digital and film mediums"


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## Jmax (Dec 4, 2005)

LOL very good point and taken on board ;-)


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