Home Forums Photography Showcase Feedback needed for my new wedding and portrait photography website

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 25 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #24743
    studiokristo
    Participant

    Hi Guys,

    After hard work I finally managed to redesign my website to look more professionally and need your opinion. Positive or negative is always welcome. Please tell me your thoughts about the look & feel, design, the functionality, the logo, etc. Since I haven’t had the opportunity to test it out on different browsers and operating systems (android, windows phones, etv.), so please let me also know if you have any issues.

    My photography website: http://www.studiokristo.com

    Best Wishes,

    Kristo Di Giorio

    Photographer in Santorini, Greece.

    #24745
    Bill
    Participant

    Okay to be 100% honest, it needs more work.

    Not sure if your site is link bait or what, but I clicked to see your portfolio and saw a generic line of text telling me I can get Zithromax for a discounted price, so I did not even bother to go any further or even look at the images.

    If this is a “real” site of yours, you need different hosting or something.  If I were a client, I would not hire you after seeing that.  It’s not offensive but it tells me that you are not serious about your craft.

    #24746
    studiokristo
    Participant

    Hi Bill, thanks for getting back to me. I think my website was hacked. Could you please tell me which browser and operating system are you using? Could you also send me the link of my site where you found the issue? Thanks, Kristo.

    #24748
    cameraclicker
    Participant

    I didn’t see any add.  I’m using Firefox and this link:  http://www.studiokristo.com/.

    I checked your About page and saw this:

    I have studied photography at the University of Athens. It really doesn’t matter if I have graduated with great honors, since I have been studying photography my whole life. When I was 20, I won the first price award at a national level contest of photography with the subject: THE DRUGS AND HOW THEY AFFECT OUR LIVES.

    I suppose it depends on your clientele, but I would say I get a very negative message from the entire paragraph!  To me, it matters that you took formal classes, and washed out.  Also, “THE DRUGS AND HOW THEY AFFECT OUR LIVES.” may very well be about flu vaccine and penicillin or insulin, but the title conjures up images of illicit drugs.  So it all seems very negative.

    In your blog, at “Lovers return to the scene of first sight – Let the honeymoon begin” , I can’t get my eye off the front of that red vehicle, and it doesn’t help that it’s arranged to seem like they are about to crest some great hill.

    Also, in your blog, at “An attractive woman in an abandoned railway graveyard – Childhood revisited”, the first problem is it looks like the model is praying for a quick death when the train runs her over, and the second is that I’m confused that a train in Greece has a Canadian National logo on the front!

    The Oct. 27, 2014 entry of the two in bikinis, has a cropping problem.

    At http://www.studiokristo.com/weddings-in-athens-greece/athens-greece-wedding-%CF%86%CF%89%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%B3%CF%81%CE%AC%CF%86%CE%BF%CF%82-%CE%B3%CE%AC%CE%BC%CE%BF%CF%85-%CE%B1%CE%B8%CE%AE%CE%BD%CE%B1/ , scrolling down to the two below the couple on the bench, they are a colour and B&W photo of some woman’s breast!  With a bouquet in the corner.  Tell us why you think that was a worthy photo to include.  Why are you showing us both colour and B&W images of the same shots?

    I clicked on Celebrities, and the grey left panel said:  “Award-winning photography in the studio and on location for over 15 years. “!  I’m surprised your top package is 750 Euros, and I’m surprised and saddened the image quality is more in line with your prices than stated experience.

     

    #24749
    picstop
    Participant

    If you think your website has been hacked, contact your webmaster/provider. If you are in charge of your own site, then it’s time to clean it up. If you’d like feedback on how it looks, you’d do better to go to http://browsershots.org/ where they can provide you with visual feedback on how it renders over many different O/Ss and browser combinations.
    If you’re here for feedback however on the content, then let us know. It would appear that you’ve likely got all the feedback from CC you’ll need. I myself don’t follow links often and definitely don’t like to peruse any that others have found questionable. In any case, clean it up if needed (before google blacklists you if they haven’t already) and try browsershots for compatibility feedback.

    #24755
    Don
    Participant

    I think it’s funny he has a separate section for Asians.

    #24757
    Bill
    Participant

    Okay, I checked it again, and not seeing the drug ad.

    Sorry if I sounded a little overbearing from that last post, but sometimes people ask for opinions and are just trying to get links for whatever reason.

    Okay I see the images now.  I use a Mac and Google Chrome as my browser.  The funny thing is that I also use the chrome extension AdBlockPro, so there may have been a redirect script hidden somewhere within your web page or someone changed your text on your page.  The page where the ad generated from was the link from your “Outdoor Portraits” thumbnail.

    Now, when I click on every thumbnail except “Weddings in Santorini”, “Asian” and “weddings in Patra” I see the an all white page with a single line of text that reads:  “Professional Photography Services in Greece. We are a licensed photography company. You are always welcome to visit our Studio and meet our creative team. E-mail: info@studiokristo.com” Not sure if you just don’t have content to fill in for those pages or maybe there is a link issue or what, it may be frustrating for some visitors who want to see those images.

    The links are:
    Portraits
    Pre Wedding
    Honeymoon Photography
    Family Photography
    Pre Wedding
    Christening Baptisms
    Orthodox Weddings
    Weddings in Folegandros
    Weddings In Athens

    For your Home page, you need to fix those links, many of the images that are being displayed on your Home page take you to that plain white page with that single line of text when someone clicks on the image.  Not good.  It will only make people angry and force them to leave your site.  Your site is your retention tool, the longer a user stays on it, the more likely they are to become a client.

     

    As for your photos, I see many that are typical decent wedding photography material, some are questionable and few have some technical issues like cropping or selective color and such.  I saw the image that CC stated in the previous post, The Asian couple on the red quad, though the photo is not bad, just the crop steers the audience in a direction that is counter productive to the image.

    Overall, you’re definitely not a faux but you do tend to include some images that should not be put together on a portfolio like the ones that CC mentioned earlier about being the same image in different processes.

    The image of the woman on the tracks, confused me.  I can see that she is cut and pasted onto the tracks, or so it appears that way, but the title and allure of the image is strange, well for me it is.

    Your web site has a unique flow to it, that may be good and bad at the same time.  Some pages tend to seem very “Busy” and looks like you or whoever designed it was trying to fill the “white space”, sometimes less is more.  Best thing is to have someone evaluate your site to better optimize it.

    And do you have a mobile version of your site?  I did not find one and it took my Galaxy Note 4 almost a full minute to load on wifi, longer on my mobile broadband with full bars.  Something to consider since many of us tend to mobile compute nowadays.

    Hope that helps

    #24762
    cameraclicker
    Participant

    Well, …   With Firefox I did not experience any of what Bill described.  When I launched Chrome, Mcafee popped up and said secure search was off and I should click OK, then restart Chrome.  After that, I see what Bill described.  Your main window opens as a white page with text at the bottom.  If I right click in the middle of the space, I can View Image, which opens a new window/tab with your photo filling it!

    So, the way you have configured Word Press, it plays nice with Firefox, but not with Chrome.

    #24765
    IHF
    Participant

    Why do you have so many photographs that you didn’t create all over your Facebook business page?  Why would you use other photographer’s work to advertise/market your photography?

     

    https://www.facebook.com/studiokristo/timeline

     

    Then here on your packages page

    Packages and Pricing

    You are using a photograph that isn’t yours to advertise an add on service.  Then when I click to get more info

    I see you have images that have been edited and a watermark added that you found on the internet somewhere.

     

    One of your last shared albums on your social media was this

    http://www.studiokristo.com/weddings-in-santorini/wedding-at-petit-palace/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    I’m not impressed.  So many technical problems.  They look sloppy and careless, and the skin tones are amazingly bad.  You definitely took more time and care with other couples in your port.

    If this was your last wedding…ewwwwwww

    Your portfolio as a whole is very inconsistent.  Your clients seem to be playing the lotto as far as quality goes.  I don’t think you are inept, but….with the copyright infringement found, and so many bellow average shots among the mix… eh… I know most people I know would steer clear, and think something is fishy.  It gives me the feeling that if I dug more I’d find even MORE photos that don’t belong to you, and all you’d be left with is eh, and ho hum blah shots.

     

     

    You need to clean up.  Remove all the images that you didn’t create.  Not only is it against the law to do what you have been doing, it’s unethical as hell, and misrepresents your photographic services.  I have zero tolerance for this.  It’s just so wrong on so many levels.

    Then you should cull your port a bit.  I don’t know if the lower quality photos were photos taken in the past before you started to improve, or if they truly are a reflection of what you currently create.  If the eh shots are what best represents your work, I guess no cull is necessary.  If not… well.. You should strongly consider removing them.

     

    As things stand right now you are a fauxtographer.  Anyone that uses other photographer’s work to promote themselves doesn’t value what they do very highly, and in turn they don’t really care for their clients either.  The inconsistency in what I believe to be your real work, just helps confirm my feelings

    Thumbs down for me

    #24769
    IHF
    Participant

    oh and just a little aside in case you decide not to address your copyright infringement.  Choose to think I’m just an ass on the internet, and continue on as you have been conducting business:

    I have taken screen shots, sourced all the original photographers and/or origins for the images I found that weren’t yours AND I’m an avid follower and participater of this blog

    http://stopstealingphotos.com

    You’ve been warned.  Clean up and fly right

    #24772
    Don
    Participant

    Bless  you, I Hate Fauxtography. Bless you.

    #24774
    IHF
    Participant

    Not sure if your site is link bait or what, but I clicked to see your portfolio and saw a generic line of text telling me I can get Zithromax for a discounted price, so I did not even bother to go any further or even look at the images.

    If this is a “real” site of yours, you need different hosting or something.  If I were a client, I would not hire you after seeing that.  It’s not offensive but it tells me that you are not serious about your craft.”

    Yeah, one time going through some galleries there were advertisments for porn.  Also if you search his email, it’s linked to quite a few spammy sites. And interestingly a handful of “feedback needed for my new wedding photography website” posts in different photography forums.  (Maybe some sort of click farming going on?)

     

     

    Krisco,

    thank you so much for taking the time to take down SOME of the images you stole from others from SOME of your online pages.  If you could please remove ALL images that do not belong to you from ALL your socail media and sites, it would be more than appreciated.  If you really need me to, I can point out all the images that aren’t yours, and contact the original artists so they can send you an invoice, or you can keep your pages nice a quiet, and remove them yourself.  Hint: if you weren’t there and didn’t click the shutter, it is NOT your image and should be removed

    #24775
    IHF
    Participant

    And thank you Don, thank you 😉

    #24776
    picstop
    Participant

    I hate Fauxtography….I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you are just a gem.

    #24777
    studiokristo
    Participant

    Hi Guys, thanks for your answers. I really appreciate your feedback. I am in the process of removing all photos that do not belong to me. To be honest, I had hired a freelancer to create my website and run my facebook campaign and he added photos that are not mine. Being very busy I ignored it, but I understand that this is not an excuse. I have already removed them and I will remove the rest in the next hours. Regarding porn, my website was also hacked and I found it out through the feedback around the web! I hope that now works fine!

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 25 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.