I'm setting up a portfolio of my work, and would like a critique of the content, flow, whatever you care to provide. It might need to be split into two portfolios, etc. I'd really appreciate any critiques, images you think should be removed, etc.
Alot of beautiful photography Tom! I am not a big fan of flash websites. They often seem slow and clunky to me. It would be ideal if an idex page could be created to navigate to a set of photos of interest.... ie. wedding photography, wildlife, landscapes, people, etc. Your specialty should have plenty of examples. Perhaps a wedding and people portfolio and a separate wildlife/landscape portfolio?
Plenty of fine work and variety but far too much to critique.
It's easy to navigate along the bottom and loads quickly on Firefox. Slide show plays well.
I think you need to subdivide the portfolio into categories to jump to, as JHut is suggesting. Not familiar with your options in Flickr. Given the fine work, you might want to move to a more sophisticated host. I use smugmug. If you check it out and need a referral code to save a few bucks, let me know. Others like zenfolio. Both will give you options for organizing, presenting, slide shows, purchase, sharing with others.
Do you want a true portfolio, gallery or a catalogue? Although the definitions aren't cast in concrete, a portfolio has historically been a small collection of carefully selected images to characterize the work of a photographer at his or her best. Strength through brevity is the hallmark of a good portfolio. People bore easily. If you present them with a small very strong portfolio it will leave a better impression than a large one that dilutes the impression. Edit out the weak images and those that are similar but not quite as good. Be concise. If you've an area of special interest, you can present a few more, but they need to the very strong and different. John's suggestions about how to present any specialization interest is on the mark.
One important characteristic of the original hard copy portfolio is the viewer can leaf through it at his or her own pace. I suspect forcing a viewer to examine your portfolio at an arbitrary pace set by computer software is potentially a serious limitation if your portfolio's purpose is similar to the purpose of the traditional portfolio.
Thanks for the criticism, one and all. I've set up a zenfolio site, at http://tommose.zenfolio.com/. On this site there are three different galleries, for pictures of people, manmade things, and nature. I'd appreciate a re-evaluation and further guidance on the site, flow, etc. What you've given already has already been invaluable, and I thank you for it.
I think this is much better, functionally, although it did take me a minute to realize that I could bypass the slide show and open the individual galleries. They weren't visible until I scrolled down. We've seen several of these images here on FM (I still love the bus station!!), but I would say that some critical pruning is still in order if you want to put your best foot forward. It sort of depends on what the purpose of the zenfolio site really is. Hope this is helpful.
simdoc1 wrote:
I think this is much better, functionally, although it did take me a minute to realize that I could bypass the slide show and open the individual galleries. They weren't visible until I scrolled down. We've seen several of these images here on FM (I still love the bus station!!), but I would say that some critical pruning is still in order if you want to put your best foot forward. It sort of depends on what the purpose of the zenfolio site really is. Hope this is helpful.
Jeff
Thanks Jeff. That's the real thing with this. I'm not a pro on the scale of others (I've sold some prints of the rose and the bus station is all) and need to figure out how to get myself there. I don't know which images are the best, and which to prune. In trying to build three galleries, I added a few more, which was probably a mistake.
