New Site

[Esoteric]

Hey guys, can you take a look at my new site and let me know what you think? Be honest. Looking for feedback so I can improve it.

I know the pictures need captions, but I am not even sure I like that gallery at all.

Mike

[dmot]

I know nothing about lighting but when I look at your site I think black, blue, and purple. It completely dominates everything and maybe that is exactly what you are going for. In the church gallery you have one picture that is titled "fbc Sunnyvale" that has more light and warmer colors. If I was looking for lighting help I would be looking for someone who had the ability to cover a broader spectrum of looks.

Please understand I am not making any comment on your skill or ability. It is just that to me, your website speaks to one distinct look. It gives the impression that you would be out of your element if someone was looking for a different look.

(I was just watching one of the network morning shows that was doing an interview outside, in bright sunlight. They panned back at the conclusion and you could see a wide variety of lights, diffusers and reflectors even in that situation. Like I said above, I know nothing about lighting and what they were doing may be complete overkill. But it seems that doing that kind of lighting may require an incredible amount of skill to get right. It may not seem that a picture like that shows off good lighting but it does to me.)

[Esoteric]

Very interesting thought. I am changing my mainpage pictures today and I will certainly keep that in mind!

Mike

[prochlea]

It might be cool to have a series of pictures of one particular job that shows off the various looks that you can do with one system. Something that shows off a cool D-Now type of event, as well as a traditional looking Sunday morning feel...

[andrewc2]

Under the Services menu perhaps adding some way to see how many slides are in that section for example Church Services has 3 information slides, perhaps having a way to see what slide that info box is displaying, so the user knows right when its reached the end of the information across all three slides?

When I was looking through i just kept clicking the right arrow to see if it ever ended, and only after seeing the same picture again did I know that it looped.

[Esoteric]

Oh, good point Andrew. Never thought of that.

Mike

[SamG269]

Not sure how to put this...

Is there an option so that your background will fit the window size as well?

If not I would try a way to have the menu on the left side "stick" to the left side of the window. That way you can get a better view of the background.

[TechPastor]

As a lighting guy I love the color saturation on your pictures...but most people aren't LD's. I agree you need examples of more natural lighting designs too.

As a web guy (I know weird combo) - your site is definitely Esoteric but I think it's a little too dark and sparse for your clients. Since your main client base is churches I would recommend a very clean and brightly designed website. Another thing that may help is to have a picture gallery for each client with a caption of what the client wanted and how your achieved it. Including a note of recommendation from each client would go a long way too.

[Esoteric]

I thought it was pretty clean. I am going to have to pay someone to rewrite the code so more than just the same 4 pictures pop up again and again. Yeah, I don't have many pictures of "natural" designs. I tend not to take them because I think they look boring and (honestly) anyone can do that. But I will certainly keep that in mind.

Yeah, with the photo gallery that I am using (the only one I can get to work) to make those different folders really isn't possible. Plus the list of galleries would get out of hand and run over the articles (which looks very messy), so what if I did articles on each one and had each picture link to the article about how it was done, etc?

Sam, it fits on all my monitors (from my dual 25" desktop to my netbook). I am not sure what you are seeing.

Mike

[SamG269]

Eh. Dont worry about it. I dont know what Im trying to say either. haha.

What abour your blog? TechPastor mentioned different churches with recomendations. You could make a "blog" that is actually dedicated to a before and after of your projects with those recommendations that TechPastor mentioned.

I know my sister does that. She has her main page (photography fyi) with different galleries, but when she doesn't have the time to go through and add pics she makes a quick blog of her latest job with pics from that job.