First, let me say Thanks to this site for the "tone" and, pun intended, focus around here. If you look at my history you may notice a "long time lurker" who has decided that "lurk" mode should be "no more".

I saw, in the description of the forum, that it specifies site critique, but I felt it prudent to converse with Mr. Morrissey prior to asking for this critique, and he has very kindly given me the OK. That being said, if other members or moderators feel this is inappropriate, please let me know either publicly or privately, I want to be sure that my behavior matches or exceeds what is expected here.

So, all that blather out of the way, what I am looking for in this case is not so much specific image critique, but you can bet your boots you will see those requests from time to time, but just general organization, navigation, ease of use. And "friendliness" of the site. One thing that I always look for is would you come back to look at the site again?

My Professional Site, hopefully my "best", is The Focused Eye. For those familiar, this is a domain branded Zenfolio Pro site, so I am living within the constraints of their templates.

You will notice two distinct types of images, Nature and Sports. The Sports images are temporarily housed here, they will be moving to a Snohomish County Vikings specific site next year. I am looking mainly for critique on the Nature portions, but they are all really much the same.

Some things that I plan to add:
1. Tab at the top with a PDF of instructions for navigation and search
2. Tab at the top with a PDF of instructions for image ordering, sizing tips and cropping

One thing that I plan to NEVER add :
Zenfolio has now made adding music to slideshows available. I will not do this as I personally find it distracting, and figuring out music that doesn't offend someone is really tough. So, if you want to suggest adding music, feel free, who knows you might convince me, but it will be tough

Thanks a lot for reading this, and a huge Thank You for any and all that will take a look and give me your opinion.

Since your asking for a critique on the site structure, and not every pictue on the site, I agree that it is an acceptable request.

I think the rules are ment for people who say look at the pictures on my site and give me a critique. Some of the critiques here can get quite in depth and as such you can see why we would limit such a request.

I will try to get to this later this evening. Not a web builder but have no problem telling you as a viewer what works and dosnt for me.

Welcome, and grats on getting out of lurker mode.

Roman

Looked over your site. The things that stand out to me are the same things I need to battle in creating a site for myself.

#1 I wish there could be a window in the thumbnail that isnt square, but would mould itself to the aspect ratio of the picture. I love that Pbase does that for me. If I get a private site built I would need it to do the same for me. Presentation is everything and that just bugs me as a photographer. Its also more than I know in HTML, so proably why I have stuck with Pbase for these years.

#2. Your information page is typed with some seriously small font and is difficult to read, and I have pretty sharp vision.

All in all it looks like standard fare for a website. Positives are:

#1 No glitzy overbearing hard to load java gobilty gook. A good site should let the pictures speak for themselves without a lot of gimmicks getting in the way.

#2 Colors are simple and also do not detract from the photography.

#3 Simple to navigate and you have all the basics and logical links to follow.

The no punches honest truth is it is a fairly easy site to navigate. It isn't ground breaking in design, nor does it need to be. If your goal is to present your work, this does it just fine.

If your trying to market your work, professionals need to look like they can afford a fairly classy site. This would need a bit of sprucing up to participate in that arena.

LOL...this from a person still marketing most of his work from his Pbase site...lol.

Just opinions....and trying to do what any good friend would do is be honest and try to be helpful.

Roman

Hi Bill, I agree with Roman on pretty much all points, except the limited-to-squares thumbnails are not that much of an irritation for me. I could see it might be if someone was looking through a gallery specifically for a vertical image and couldn't tell the aspect from the thumbnails.

And the text in "About" is very small, and I have my screen set at really high resolution.

I'm not fond of your Focused Eye logo. The busy (color and bevel) font, totally overwhelms any intensity that should come from the owl's eyes. Don't have any specific ideas for a change, but thought I'd throw out my first reaction to it.

Diana

Welcome to de-lurking mode. You have some great images on the site. I'd give the images a high mark. Not so much the web site. The main critique I have of it is the home page, it doesn't tell your viewer what the purpose of the site is. I am assuming that you want to sell prints. If that assumption is correct, then the first thing the viewer sees should make it clear that the prints are for sale. I know that may be obvious to you (and me, since you have a pro account), but...I'm just sayin'.