Seminar: Websites for photographers: the do's and don'ts

What is your website for?

• For people to get in contact with you (contact details)
• Promote your work
• An online portfolio for everyone and anyone to access
• Collaboration
• A platform to sell your work on (online shop)
• Networking
• Professionalism
• Exposure
• Gain commissions
• Experimentation (how you present your work)
• Gain feedback
• Consolidation (What do I need. Beginning to end. Consolidate it down)

What is the most important aspect of your site?

The average person spends 11-20 seconds looking at a website before they become bored. You need something gripping on your website to encourage them to stay and take a further look. 

• Place best images on home page/first page
• Small, compressed files (so that they don't take long to load)/quality and size of images
• Separate categories, i.e. portraits, personal, etc.
• Easy to navigate
• Clear show of name/brand name
• Clear contact details
• Responsive design (accessible on all media devices, iPhone, iPad, computer, etc.)
• Layout
• A show of recent work
• Sequencing skills
• Text (is the text relevant?)
• Simplicity
• Social media links
• C.V. (Not necessarily your CV but details of any achievements or important roles. If you are a competition winner or have a masters degree. Something important that they might need to know when browsing through your work
• Tear sheets/published work

What labels do you use?

Labels are what you have on your home page for your viewers to find what they're looking for across your website. They need to be clear and of the appropriate language for everyone to know exactly what it is. When labelling what type of photography is displayed on your website you need to have keywords. For example portraits, documentary, personal, etc. But do not use keywords for a folder that only holds a few images, they can wait until you have more to show for. 

Ross asked for someone to show their website for everyone to see the do's and don'ts. I offered to show mine. I have recently paid for a website and re-vamped it. I wanted to get some feedback so that I can go away and make any changes as I hadn't got any opinions on it yet.

Students said that they liked the layout and minimalistic style. It was clean and straight to the point. Within my portfolio I have projects that I have made through university and outside of university. I had stated this within my text on my website which Ross said to just call them personal projects, rather than claim that I only done them because I was subjected to due to my course brief. Also the title "Ibiza 2017" didn't need 2017. My contacts page looked amateurish with the boxes for someone to fill in Instead I should just leave them my professional email, hyperlinked for them to click and get in touch. Also it would be good to include my mobile number because it is a much quicker way for someone to get in touch. Especially in situations where they are needing a photographer quick they won't want to wait around for an email. I have always been very private with my contact details, especially mobile numbers so I am not so sure whether I will add it in. Perhaps I could get myself a work phone if I continue with photography after university but for now I will leave my email there. There is good use of appropriate language. The client showcase doesn't need to be a separate folder. It could sit in with my personal projects because they are not commissioned work, only what I have completed for friends and family. However if I did want to keep them separate I need to rename it as Personal Commissions. 

What do you consider when designing your site?

• Colour theme
• Fonts/Text
• Best images
• Transitions/Technical elements
• Audience - who are you trying to attract?
• Accessibility/Responsive on all media platforms
• Appropriate language
• Remember that less is more!
• What market are you in?
• Future proofing
• How do they expect to see your work?

Towards the end of the session Ross brought up a variety of photographers websites which he knew had do's and don'ts for us to discuss. Below I have made note of these so that I can remember for future purposes. I think it's important to see where things can easily be placed into a website without thought of professionalism. Sometimes you want to add your own style/personality to your website, which is ok as long as it looks professional and reasonable/fits in with your practice. 

1. Gary Perlmutter - http://www.garyperlmutter.com/ 

• Too many labels
• Name font is difficult to read
• Too busy
• Speaking in wrong tense in his About Us. It is just one person

2. Bianca Tuckwell - http://www.biancatuckwell.com/

• Simple and clean, good!
• No say of name
• Font colour (other than commercial and projects) difficult to read
• Keep to one side, don't separate the text and image
• Labels are unclear. What does she mean by space?
• Should keep the categories separate or it may confuse viewers (only when you have a lot more images to show)

2. David Severn - https://www.davidsevern.com/

• Clean and simple, good!
• Easy to navigate
• Unclear labels. What does he mean by scrapbook?

We discussed about what people think is more professional... scrolling from left to right or up and down. Ross says that it is down to personal opinion. Whichever way you think is the best way to display your work. Personally I prefer scrolling up and down, especially when viewing websites on a mobile device. I also wanted to know what the deal is with images that have no white space around them. Within Bianca's website here images scrolled from right to left but there was no space in between the images. I have this on my home page but not throughout my portfolio. Ross said that again it is down to personal opinion. Many people like it and many do not. I believe you need space between images to give the viewer time to enjoy the image. Sometimes I think it could be difficult to tell whether the images is one, two or whether they come as a pair or not. 

3. Kitra Cahana - https://kitracahana.com/home/

• Too many labels
• Side bar. This is down to personal preferrence
• Clean and simple
• Good variety of images on home page. When doing this, consider linking the images to the individual projects so that it is easier for the viewer to find the rest of the images from that project if they wish to see more. They won't have time or patience to be looking through all of the work to find it. 
• Inconsistency. One image stood out as it was smaller compared to the others. Didn't look professional

4. Ben Toms - http://bentoms.co.uk/

• Good use of thumbnails, easy access to find the rest of the work
• Clean
• Too many images
• Labels tend to disappear with the images when you scroll down
• Good show of moving image elements

5. Lucas Foglia - http://lucasfoglia.com/

• Clean and simple
• Thumbnails
• Clear labels

How many images should you put onto your website within separate categories? Preferably as many as you think is the right amount that fits with your project. It also depends on the diversity of the images. If they are all very much the same then only choose to show the best of that selection. If you want to keep all of your images online for people to access then consider making an archive. That way they won't interfere with your website but show that you have more to offer if people are interested. Websites should always feature new work as regular as possible. However if you are unable to show new work then just by switching around the images and layout can show viewers who may have visited your site before (by tricking them) that you have new work or can see that you are aware of this. 

Some last few things to consider with our websites...

Be clear and consistent

Be honest

Avoid watermarks and logos

Be yourself

Cut out extras

Simple is often best

Who is your site for, you or potential clients?

Todays seminar was certainly most helpful and has given me some things to consider as I return back to my website to make some adjustments. Also when I eventually get down to asking someone to help me improve it the things I need to look out for and make sure they do/don't!