Your website sucks..from A Photo Editor
Written on October 30, 2007
Great post by A Photo Editor on a photographer they were pushing with an apparently horrible site (or intro) that killed their chance.
My own quick thoughts…
1. Your site will most often, nowadays, be the first way anyone sees your work. If you don’t have a site, you’re in trouble. Get one, and put some thought into it, even if your agency has a great site.
2. Livebooks. It seems to be popular. Popular to the extent that if I visit a website and see the familiar name scroll across the top and familiar double thumbnails start loading down the right hand side a feeling of dread comes over me…I don’t know what Livebooks cost, from what I have heard it’s not the cheapest. Give your web designer buddy the cash instead and have him design a real site for you.
3. I hate, hate, hate sites that organise the work thusly - Portfolio 1, Portfolio 2, Portfolio 3…and so forth. That alone will give me pause in clicking on any of the links. If you’re a portrait photographer, give your stories names. If you’re in fashion, tell me what magazine. Just, make it more interesting and give a person a reason to click! When I don’t know the difference between portfolios 1 through 6 I am more liable to click off your site then click anything at all.
4. Fancy intros that take a minute to load. Bad idea.
5. Navigation that takes a minute to load. Ditto.
6. I always like information about the photographer. Have a biography of some sort. Tell us about yourself. But don’t tell us too much, like how you used to surf or grew up in 8 different countries and especially not something like “I grew up with a camera in my hand”. Then you’ll just seem like an asshole.
7. Personally, I am not a fan of pop-up windows. What makes you so special that something has to pop-up in addition to me visiting your website? And if a window does pop-up, please do NOT make it smaller than the actual browser window. We are supposed to be looking at photos after all.
8. Put up a client list if you can. Magazines, ad agencies, brands, you name it. The more the better. It’s good to know that you have been paid to do what you do.
9. Contact information. Sounds obvious. You’d be surprised.
10. Email address…this applies to many things. When I get resumes at work it always amuses me that someone uses something like sexyandsassy68@gmail.com as their email address. Really? That’s fine for Myspace or if you’re 19 and applying for an internship (and even then…) but if you have a registered URL as a photographer try to use that as your email. It’s a lot more memorable than jsmith98@earthlink.net. And try to register a URL that is either your name or similar.
One of my favourite personal websites of all time has always been Raymond Meier’s site. He used to have a simple HTML site with dropdown menus that lead to his work. So easy to use. He’s upgraded to something a bit flashier (no pun intended) but the organisation of his work is amazingly accessible. Latest work on the front page, a short but interesting bio, an amazing search engine where you can even look via art director and a great layout and clean design.
good post and an interesting addition to APE’s… i just relaunched my site (ver.3 now). It’s getting steadily less shitty…
what i found kind of amusing about APE’s post where the following comments - the usual nodding and backslapping… so i followed the links to their websites where available and found several of the above listed problems…
now i’m not saying my site is anywhere near perfect… but heck…
I agree with your thoughts.
here’s mine - simple design and navigation, I think.
easy to update etc.
but - be happy to get some input.
yours
A. Siano
OMG… almost fell out of my chair!
I preach this day in and day out and still get shouted over by photographers who want Flash crap with splash pages, animated intros and on and on. Next week I will have to sit through a presentation on marketing that will cap in ‘get this cool flash website cause it will help you with all the truly great art directors.” Might be good advice for established in big markets, but to most in small to medium it is nearly unfathomable. Actually I can’t even say it is good information period
I love Raymond Meirs site, (wish it wasn’t totally flash) along with Jermey Cowart:
http://www.jeremycowart.com/
Simple, easy navigation. No Flash pages. ( I have no problem with Flash included, but total Flash sites are totally a bad idea unless you are so friggin established that you don’t need any pull marketing )
Really like you posts. Wish more people would actually listen to people, you know, in the business instead of Graphic Designers who many times are more interested in making something ‘cool’ than making something that helps the photographer get more attention.
http://www.jeremycowart.com/ = very cool
That organization is perfect for someone with his depth of work, I’m not sure it would be as impressive for everyone though.
There is one point that I’d like to add about Live Books: differentiation.
Yes - we all now it’s “all about the work” but having a proprietary site is important in my mind. I always thought of Live Books as being a fair stop gap for young photographers building a business but never an aspiration of what to ascend to.
[…] Your website sucks..from A Photo Editor | Avisualsociety Your site will most often, nowadays, be the first way anyone sees your work. If you don’t have a site, you’re in trouble. Get one, and put some thought into it, even if your agency has a great site. (tags: photography) […]
Livebooks is the antichrist.
[…] 图片编辑的发言引起了另一位纽约摄影人的感慨，他洋洋洒洒列了10条摄影人网站须知： 1， 摄影师的网站目前已经成为他人检阅你照片的第一途径，如果你的网站不够好，那你就麻烦大了。 2， Livebooks公司给摄影师创建的网站模型越来越成为大家普遍接受的样态。不管怎样，一定要让你的网页设计人员给你搞一个真正精彩的网站给你。 3， 我烦透了那些把自己的照片分成作品集1、作品集2、作品集3.。。。这样格式的摄影师，这让人对其中的内容毫无兴趣。如果你是一个肖像摄影师，你就用作品的名字命名，总之让它们显得有趣一些，给我们一个点击它的理由。 4， 要花一分钟才能下载下来的眼花缭乱的介绍，太糟糕了。 5， 要花一分钟才能下载的导航栏，算了吧 6， 我希望从网站上获取摄影师的个人信息，应该有一个简历，告诉我们你的概况。但是千万别洋洋洒洒废话太多，那些诸如我喜欢冲浪、在8个国家长大之类的细节就别放上去了，而“我伴随着相机成长”这样的话就实在让人讨厌了。 7， 从我个人角度来说，我不喜欢那种弹出网页的浏览形式。如果不是弹出式的，那就注意不要让你的网页比一般正常页面要小，因为我们都是来看照片的，太小了怎么看清楚。 8， 把你曾经为之供稿的客户列出来，越多越好。 9， 联系方式。这似乎很理所当然，但是照样有人忽略 10， 你的邮件地址，呵呵，我在给摄影师发邮件的时候总是感到好笑，因为有人竟然用sexyandsssy68@gmail这样的地址，这种地址在你使用mspace交友，或者年级在19岁以下申请助理职位的时候还比较灵光。如果你作为一个职业摄影师，就应该注册一个更加好记的，接近你自己姓名的邮件联络地址。 11， 我比较喜欢的一个摄影师个人网站是Raymond Meier的，简单易用，他的作品集纳得很好，最近的作品在首页，还有一个很好用的照片检索。 […]
[…] The balance of the article can be found here, and the blog is here […]
I’m with livebooks now. I originally wasn’t going to go with them because of the fact that their sites would be too similar. I’ve been with them for a while now, so this is even before they really took off. I still have the same concern.
However, the ease of adding new images, re-arranging the entire site at my whim, the speed of the site, and the little extras like pdf downloads that are automatically generated based on what is new in your library, etc) make it worth it IMHO. I don’t want to rely on a designer to do things that I can do myself with livebooks.
Although, I still cringe every time I open up a photographers website and see that they’ve switched to livebooks.
Jeff
Good posting. I agree with all of your points. However, as an ex-graphic designer, I have to bluntly admit that Live Books, and it’s service, is pure crap. No self-respecting photographer should go with them. While it does work fairly quickly, it can make even decent work look stale. And how about points for originality? It’s just as bad as the portfolio book houses. Then again, whatever, right?
I have to admit tremendously with this post. Your website is an extension of you and if it looks crappy, people will associate that with you. You can also look at it from the point of view of products that have ncie packaging . They could be the worst tasting cookies in the world, but peopel would buy them based on how their packaging looks. Apples and oranges