New website – need your opinion

[TJEPW]

Hi guys!

I decided to go fullscreen on my website gallery, and because different format screen will crop the images in different ways, I have little control over the cropping, which is why I made most images 16:9 or 16:10 in aspect. I do have the choice to put black bars on either side of the image, but I don’t really care for them much …

http://www.subsignal.com

What do you think? I think I prefer the larger images, instead of a precise crop.

Cheers! Thomas

[cameraclicker]

Navigation is click and swipe, arrow keys, or click on the tiny dots.  Going directly back to a specific image is hard.  With no text, search engine optimization is difficult or impossible.   Without knowing the URL, how would someone locate your page via Google?

As a gallery of portraits to direct people to, it works very well.  The photos look good when filling a 24 inch 16:9 screen.

[Don]

Not a fan of the layout, but the photography is very well done.

[IHF]

I couldn’t get it to display correctly on my iPad or phone.  No way to navigate with either device, and the one image that does load is distorted.  I know!  I know!  We don’t want people to view our work on phones and tablets, but they do.  It’s just the way it is.  Our websites have to play nice.

I got it to work fine on my computer… but, I’m not a fan of the navigation/layout.

You have some wonderful photographs though, and I throughly enjoyed looking

[picstop]

The gallery (it’s not a website) looks good on my 24″ 16×10 monitor. Your problem is with navigation. The swiping is fine but you are forcing me to swipe a lot to see the photos in the middle of the gallery. Or, I could click a button and get a random photo which later, I have to work at it to get back to. I know this layout is cleaner than using thumbs, but think of that photo that’s a gem of a gem that’s hidden in the middle of the pack that someone might not see because they swiped ten times and left or hit button after button (too tiny) and never hit that particular one. Everything has to be quickly and easily accessible. It’s about what looks good, true, but it’s more about what makes your photos quickly and easily seen by a customer. The photos are quite nice but think about how much it would pain you that someone is looking through the gallery quickly and won’t see that one (or more) that really sing.
I’m guessing that you’ll be using this “website” merely as a gallery and contact, pointed to by social media and the like. Because, as CC says, google will never find you. I don’t know if you want the world to find your site, but as a person who writes and maintains his own website, I can tell you that yes, google will likely never find you let along rank you on a page anyone will ever see. I don’t know if there is more to your website (I only see the gallery and mailto). I don’t know if you even care about google or customers finding your site directly without you sending them there.
In any case, image wise, it’s a nice gallery of some nice images for those of us with monitors (or tablets) big enough to appreciate it.

[TJEPW]

Many thanks for your comments, everyone! I should probably have mentioned that it’s just a hobby of mine, I don’t make money off my photos, so Google ranking is not my primary concern. And now that a terrible band has copied the name Subsignal, they will probably get out on top anyway … either way, I’ll ask the coder to make some SEO on the site, once I make a decision to keep it, and finish it.

I should also have mentioned that I do plan to make an info page and MAYBE also a thumbs overview. Although I must say, that I’m not crazy about the thumbspage idea, because too many people will just look at the thumbs, and not bother clicking any. The way it is now, it forces people to see the images I want them to see, and since it automatically loads the images from one end to the other, it’s very quick to swipe, rather than click and wait, click and wait. A bit stringent, but still …

I’m not sure why anyone would return to a certain photo? Maybe a small thumb could appear when mouse-over on the dots?

The site works really well on my ipad and phone … not sure why it didn’t work on yours? The only snag is that you have to load the site while the phone is horisontal, as the images gets cropped when loading.

I was thinking of having an info box that could open up from the side of the screen, with a little text about the shot.I will try to get the old site online as a reference, as I was quite happy with that for many years.

Thanks again!

[Author]

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