Gallery critique please

[tipsinartok]

I'm putting together my website (http://momentcaptured.ca/gallery.php) and would love some critique/advice on the gallery. The actual site is a major work in progress, and I know that parts are slow, some links are acting funny, some of the blurbs are very filler, etc. I especially don't like how the "About Me" sounds right now and will likely scratch what's there and rewrite it from scratch, but right now I just wanted something so I could see how everything looks put together. My prices are completely arbitrary too; again, just placeholders. But if you do have any general advice on the website that I may have overlooked or whatnot, I'd appreciate that too.

I'd really like some critique on the pictures in the gallery though. I know I'm nowhere near the caliber of most of the people who post here, but we recently moved and I don't have a huge pool of friends to practice on. I feel like there's only so much I can learn taking pictures of my own daughter and a friend's son over and over again. I can't afford to take a real class until I have a few sessions under my belt. So my target audience is definitely not people seeking fine art prints of their children to blow up to poster size and hang on the wall. For a target audience of parents or pregnant women just wanting some nice pictures that are a step up from snapshots, does my gallery look okay? Are there any pictures I should remove altogether or do some further editing on? Are there any pictures in particular that really stand out as being good? Should I even bother with the nature/pets categories? (I would eventually like to branch out into pets too.)

I thought of posting the pictures in the critique categories rather than asking here, but unless I started a new thread for each category it would be a long list of pictures. I'm not sure what's easiest for people here. :dunno

[denisegoldberg]

I'm putting together my website (http://momentcaptured.ca/gallery.php) and would love some critique/advice on the gallery. ...But if you do have any general advice on the website that I may have overlooked or whatnot, I'd appreciate that too.
It's not possible to provide feedback on your site if you don't provide a URL to access it.

--- Denise

[Hikin' Mike]

It's not possible to provide feedback on your site if you don't provide a URL to access it.

--- Denise

The link is on her first sentence.


I think there are too many photos to critique....at least IMO.

[tipsinartok]

Thanks! Yes the link is in my first sentence, but I guess I could have made it more prominent. http://momentcaptured.ca/

However, I've actually ended up posting the pictures in the critique forums as I agree with you, there are too many pictures on the site to critique them like this.

Thanks!

[denisegoldberg]

Oops, missed that!

I just took a quick look at the site, and I find the jumpiness of the display to be quite distracting.

Clicking on any navbar entry flashes an empty white box before the content is shown. This shouldn't happen.

When I first enter a gallery, all photos are shown for a second in a vertical line down the page. Then the display reverts to a thumbs on the left large photo on the right view. This should not happen; the gallery should open in the desired format.

As you move from photo to photo within a gallery, I expect to see a change in the large image, but I don't expect to see a flash on the thumbs. I understand that you want to highlight the thumb for the photo that is showing, but the flash from dim to bright thumb pulls my eyes away from the main image.

--- Denise

[tipsinartok]

Thank you Denise. What browser do you use? The jumpiness problems I do know about. I designed/wrote the site, but my husband is a software designer and has told me once I have it mostly the way I want he'll go through and optimize it for me for speed, so hopefully he'll be able to fix that. I think I might know why it's doing it but haven't had a chance yet to test my theory.

And the gallery doesn't do what you described with the pictures in a vertical line. That might be a browser issue I have to work on. There's a few of those cropping up already.

For the thumbnails, do you mean when using the next/previous to go through the pictures you don't like the brightness moving from one thumbnail to another? I wonder if making the dim ones less dim would fix that so it's not quite such a contrast.

Thank you again, I really appreciate the feedback. :thumb