Critique my first website?

JAlps

JAlps

Member
Hey guys,

I finally grew up a bit and put together a portfolio website, I was hoping I could maybe grab some feedback on the site layout (it's only square space though) as well as some of my shots. Hoping to get more up there soon, I just don't have access to all of my photos right now!

Just generally trying to find out what I can improve on right now as a photographer! Cheers.

www.joshalpertphoto.com
 
I will give you an A-

Everything looks really good and has a good flow. This is some seriously good work for a first try. I can clearly tell that this is where your passion lies, its just missing a few things.

Something that is pretty big for photographers is to watermark the images so they won't get stolen. In the about section, I would suggest including the direction/future that you see for yourself (why should people come back to this web page in the future). The project section is a good way to separate your photo gallery, but the project only feels like a photo gallery. You need to add more to make the page feel like a project, include a bit of text. It just feels like a photo gallery right now.

If your purpose is just to have a web page as a form of "resume" this would work as is for the most part. The larger purpose of this website is a bit unclear.
 
Awesome site man! Like said above, watermarking images is a must if you don't want people to steal them for themselves. Also, the first three images as soon as you open up the page are cool but your name in the top left is really only visible on one of them. Again, that is the benefit to having a small logo watermark to make sure that people know its you without taking away from the overall image. Also, having the slideshow format is cool for the pics but it may be cool to have a sort of gallery option as well so its easier to navigate to a specific photo if needed. And one more thing, having a description below the photo about who is in it or where it is would be cool; especially for the nature and skiing ones.
http://www.thefitgarage.com/

The website above is far from perfect as well but if you scroll down on the homepage you'll see what I mean by gallery, having that with the photos in each tab would be cool just for ease of access and that wow factor as people scroll through all of them and see everything you've done displayed. As well, at the very bottom of the home page, this guy has links to his Facebook and Instagram. Idk what you have for either of those but it's nice to have some social media platforms or important links in multiple areas.
 
Hey guys,

I've added a few things to the site, and will keep working on revising the design. At the moment I'm playing around with the idea of reorganizing the project galleries to weave more of a story in, as well as maybe adding a blog.... but not sure if I have much worthwhile to say haha.

Other than that everything is now watermarked, captioned, and some social media info has been linked up. Thanks so much for the help/extra sets of eyes!

Cheers
 
My main critique at first glance (I had to design a website for work, shameless plug, check it out if you wanthttps://salsa-antarctica.org/) is to change the text and top navigation. It is an aesthetic preference but if you want your name and brand to stand out and look professional, I'd either change the text to some kind of solid, or change the navigation bar/title/etc. to an easier to read blank/white or black background. The focus should be on your work, which btw looks dope. In my case having a little trouble reading the title and navigation bar over the photos made it slightly more challenging to read the text. Its a matter of milliseconds of mental processing but my thought is that you want the text to register immediately so that the user's attention can seamlessly go from "bamn! thats your brand" to appreciating the art. I have no real training in this but just my thoughts.
 
I think that your layout is great and easy to navigate, and I liked how you put your photos from the same sets next to each other in the "full gallery" section. One thing that might help with the flow of your photos is to give all of them the same edit, or same tone so that everything looks connected. It's kinda difficult to explain, but it's a real aesthetic pleaser and I've learned that the easiest way to do that is to use the same preset for every photo and then adjust them from there. A few of my friends have made their websites and instagrams very catchy by doing this, and I have attempted to but it's still in the works. Check out these sites and notice how almost every photo has the same tone and how good they flowhttp://masonstrehl.com/ http://connorgrasso.com/ https://www.johncwingfield.com/

just a few examples, keep up the great work mane
 
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