Our new baby is finally here!

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Archive 2009 · Our new baby is finally here!

The Grays
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p.1 #1 · Our new baby is finally here!

Jody and I have big news! No, not a real baby (I wish!)...

After weeks of designing (yes we designed the entire site ourselves) and days of proofing with other designers, past clients and so on, we have a new web site that just launched today!! We designed the whole thing on Showit Sites back end program.

Check it out @ www.GrayPhotograph.com

Have a great day everyone!!

-Zach & Jody

Edited on Jan 07, 2009 at 03:49 AM · View previous versions

Jan 05, 2009 at 10:37 PM

scott shoemake
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p.1 #2 · Our new baby is finally here!

Ridiculously awesome guys! I love it and the video is sweet! I think it looks ultra pro and represents your brand well. How do you do the video lapse between links? I saw that on Jasmine's and Couture Book's sites and was thinking about incorporating it into my SIS (pm is cool). Great job! Here's to a rockin' 09.

Jan 05, 2009 at 10:44 PM

Tomagado
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p.1 #3 · Our new baby is finally here!

I've got to hand it to you, as much as I usually don't like websites with music, transitions, and lots of elements, all I can say is that I want to book you, and I don't even have a bride yet.

I am amazed.

I love the video in between, you two come off as wonderful, energetic, exciting people. So, hats off to the both of you and everyone in the design team for this amazing website.

My only minor gripes are having to go back to the main page to exit full screen mode (which sort of felt like I was in lightroom with the layout, but still, I loved it). Also, the monkeys are cute, but otherwise seem really out of place. And then the main image image is beautiful, but it seems to lose that amazing pop and clarity when its file size is compressed for quick loading time perhaps?

Otherwise, really, I am amazed. This is how it should be done.

Cheers, and my best to you for 2009.

Thomas

Jan 05, 2009 at 10:50 PM

Todd Ramsey
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p.1 #4 · Our new baby is finally here!

What an accomplishment! Very nice site. Awesome work and a great viewing experience. Talk about cash flow and job security!!

Todd

Jan 05, 2009 at 10:54 PM

The Grays
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p.1 #5 · Our new baby is finally here!

Tomagado wrote:
I've got to hand it to you, as much as I usually don't like websites with music, transitions, and lots of elements, all I can say is that I want to book you, and I don't even have a bride yet.

I am amazed.

I love the video in between, you two come off as wonderful, energetic, exciting people. So, hats off to the both of you and everyone in the design team for this amazing website.

My only minor gripes are having to go back to the main page to exit full screen mode (which sort of felt like I was in lightroom with the layout, but still, I loved it). Also, the monkeys are cute, but otherwise seem really out of place. And then the main image image is beautiful, but it seems to lose that amazing pop and clarity when its file size is compressed for quick loading time perhaps?

Otherwise, really, I am amazed. This is how it should be done.

Cheers, and my best to you for 2009.

Thomas

Thanks so much! My wife and I had fun designing the site and it was truly a labor of love!!

You can exit full screen at any time by hitting the escape key (which it only mentions that on the intro screen of the site).

Thanks for the input and looking through it! We really appreciate you a ton!!

-Zach & Jody Gray

Jan 05, 2009 at 10:55 PM

Ken Vigil
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p.1 #6 · Our new baby is finally here!

hmmm...a few thoughts:

1) loved the pics... very nice and great style

2) The video breaks are cool, not totally sure what the net effect will be. They do brand you well but at the same time they do seem to slow down the experience a little too much. At least for me, I get very impatient with websites or people that take too long to explain something when I already got the gist of it from the first few seconds. To be honest, there may not be too many other people out there like that, but at least for me that drove me a little bit nuts.

3) Are you caching the shots in the galleries? I couldn't tell but the main issue there to me seemed that the galleries loaded from image to image a little slow (sometimes it's nice just to blast through a gallery to get the overall idea, the go back through for favoites). Again, at least for me I prefer websites to respond quickly when I click a button to go somewhere and the transitions seemed to be drawn out too much such that the experience was not as pleasant as it could be.

4) I hope i didn't sound too negative, the pics and the overall experience were quite nice, it just seemed a little on the slow side...

ken

Jan 05, 2009 at 10:57 PM

Saad Syed
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p.1 #7 · Our new baby is finally here!

Straight money ... I would have wished the videos to be higher quality, but bandwidth limitations suck =(

Still, very nicely done... bravo.

Jan 05, 2009 at 11:00 PM

Sam Hassas
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p.1 #8 · Our new baby is finally here!

Pretty fantabulaous. dig it all. Full screen pics is something I'd love to have. Congrats Grays. Looked to be quite the project.

Oooooh. I have an name idea for your different wedding package choices. "Shades of Gray". I get royalists if you use it.

`Sam

Jan 05, 2009 at 11:02 PM

The Grays
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p.1 #9 · Our new baby is finally here!

Ken Vigil wrote:
hmmm...a few thoughts:

1) loved the pics... very nice and great style

2) The video breaks are cool, not totally sure what the net effect will be. They do brand you well but at the same time they do seem to slow down the experience a little too much. At least for me, I get very impatient with websites or people that take too long to explain something when I already got the gist of it from the first few seconds. To be honest, there may not be too many other people out there like that, but at least for me that drove me a little bit nuts.

3) Are you caching the shots in the galleries? I couldn't tell but the main issue there to me seemed that the galleries loaded from image to image a little slow (sometimes it's nice just to blast through a gallery to get the overall idea, the go back through for favoites). Again, at least for me I prefer websites to respond quickly when I click a button to go somewhere and the transitions seemed to be drawn out too much such that the experience was not as pleasant as it could be.

4) I hope i didn't sound too negative, the pics and the overall experience were quite nice, it just seemed a little on the slow side...

ken

Thanks for the input!

I agree that most people are impatient when it comes to internet viewing. We can do a gallery browser that pre-loads images if we want (which forces images to a certain size and does not allow them to be full screen) but are really looking for clients that are very serious about photography and want to take a little extra time looking at the quality of our work and not just speeding through it all. The site will be picking up some more speed shortly as we change some files around this week, so that will help. The images in the gallery can be viewed on a 42 inch 1080p screen, so they are very big images!

Thanks again! We appreciate it a ton!!

-Zach

Jan 05, 2009 at 11:06 PM

The Grays
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p.1 #10 · Our new baby is finally here!

Saad Syed wrote:
Straight money ... I would have wished the videos to be higher quality, but bandwidth limitations suck =(

Still, very nicely done... bravo.

Thanks man! We are actually we are working on that at the moment and are going to increase the quality and decrease the size which will make it look better and load faster!

Thanks a ton!!

-Zach

Jan 05, 2009 at 11:36 PM

The Grays
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p.1 #11 · Our new baby is finally here!

Sam Hassas wrote:
Pretty fantabulaous. dig it all. Full screen pics is something I'd love to have. Congrats Grays. Looked to be quite the project.

Oooooh. I have an name idea for your different wedding package choices. "Shades of Gray". I get royalists if you use it.

`Sam

Thanks man! Full screen rocks it and we love it a ton!

The wedding package names that you suggested are about to make you some money cause that is GREAT! I can't believe that we didn't think of that!!

-Zach

Jan 05, 2009 at 11:38 PM

letenele
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p.1 #12 · Our new baby is finally here!

OMG you guys! That is a wicked awesome website! I love the FULL screen on that baby.

Jan 06, 2009 at 01:32 AM

DB
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p.1 #13 · Our new baby is finally here!

I'd say I love it, except it won't load on my computer. What has loaded so far looks great. Our internet connection (a cable internet connection at that) is pretty slow. Another friend has a showit site and I gave up on hers. That's my big nit about showit sites -- very slow loading. I realize you want brides who have faster connections and are willing to sit while the site loads, but as a bride I skipped over many sites for that reason. I didn't have a huge budget, but I was willing to spend half my wedding budget on a photographer -- which is no small feat. In the end, everyone was booked so we went with the cheapest person we could find and intend to get portraits down the line.

All that to say I look forward to looking at the site when I'm back in my office. It looks like it's going to be an awesome site!

Jan 06, 2009 at 02:12 AM

Sahid Limon
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p.1 #14 · Our new baby is finally here!

Dude... wicked site. Very creative and well done. The video is a great touch. The concept and design is very cool. If you designed the whole thing yourself, then you should take up web design on the side. You also did a great job showing the connection between you and your wife, which was nice I thought. Now to nitpick on a few minor things. It did load a bit slow for me, but I'm uploading a bunch of images for a client at the same time... so I'm sure it's because of that. People with slower connections may notice a lag though. The only thing that bothered me a little bit was that there were no thumbnails. You don't really need thumbnails, but if I want to scroll back to image 3 from 15, then I have to go back through them all. Other than that, Awesome job.

Jan 06, 2009 at 02:32 AM

revhappy
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p.1 #15 · Our new baby is finally here!

This is the only wedding portfolio site that I've spent more than 10 minutes on. Kudo's to you guys.

Jan 06, 2009 at 05:11 AM

tmiller
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p.1 #16 · Our new baby is finally here!

The Grays wrote:
Jody and I have big news! No, not a real baby (I wish!)...

After weeks of designing (yes we designed the entire site ourselves) and days of proofing with other designers, past clients and so on, we have a new web site that just launched today!!

Check it out @ www.GrayPhotograph.com

Have a great day everyone!!

-Zach & Jody

Zach, Jody... amazing. =o) Thank you SO much for letting me help critique your baby last week. I see the work and tips paid off. All of the continued success that is due to you both is well deserved. I'll drop you an email or pm when my site is ready to be critiqued. Thank you very much for the new frienship! =o)

-Tim

Jan 06, 2009 at 06:11 AM

mathew333
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p.1 #17 · Our new baby is finally here!

Looks great. Its a bit slow though might scare off some folks that are not patient

Jan 06, 2009 at 08:59 AM

BKphotography
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p.1 #18 · Our new baby is finally here!

Well done.
Looks the part.
I usually skip the intro, but yours too good not to watch (twice).
Hope you guys all the success you clearly derserve.

Cheers
BK

Jan 06, 2009 at 01:12 PM

clarence3
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p.1 #19 · Our new baby is finally here!

Nice site. I usually don't like background music, but since you're from Nashville it seems like you've done a smart synergy thing and tapped into local artists looking for exposure. I liked "Leigh Nash - My Idea Of Heaven"

Jan 06, 2009 at 03:06 PM

DB
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p.1 #20 · Our new baby is finally here!

Sweet. It loaded perfectly at work - no slowness here. Which is odd because a lot of sites load slowly here. I especially love the section about your both! Love it.

Jan 06, 2009 at 03:17 PM

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