Overall this site good – here’s a few comments.
Bad News First:
The pictures are a little small, especially the verticals. Some have pretty wicked pixelation as well. The one that sticks out in my mind had a car on fire in it. It was a sweet shot, but the pixelation made it good like a screen grab from a sega genesis game.
One thing that drives me nuts is when people repeat photos in different sections of their sites (with one exception that I’ll get to later). Your portraits and your documentary work showed up in your photo stories. I hate that. It might just be me, but it seems like I’m getting robbed or a surprise is being spoiled. It also seems kind of cheap, like you were just trying to fill space. But you have a ton of great images, so this isn’t the case. Trust that people will see what they need to see.
Speaking of photo essays, the text at the beginning was really hard to read. Some might think the font was a little clique, but that wasn’t my problem. I think it was a size/pixel problem rooted in the issues mentioned above.
You have a CRAP LOAD of pictures in each section. I don’t know if this going to a portfolio or just a digital scrapbook of your life, but if you’re using this for marketing, you’ve got to cut a couple of the larger sections down, at least a little. Eliminating the double plays from your photo essays would be a good start. You just get lost in all the content. Everything starts running together, and you end up remember none of it. Overload.
Good News Last:
You have some awesome photos, in fact, none of your photos stuck out to me as crazy bad. There was nothing in there that I hated.
Naming your portrait(y) section “eye contact” rocks, I don’t know if you stole the idea, but I don’t care, I totally dig it. Again, get that photo essay stuff out of that section.
Your intro was crazy in-depth, but didn’t stall out on my computer. It might be the time I’m viewing it, or that you have a good web host, or that your coding was that clean… whatever works. I like it, but I didn’t really get to see it again. I didn’t really attempt to because of the convenient tabs at the bottom of the stage, but I wouldn’t have minded that main plate being my navigation through the whole site.
Remember how I said, I hate seeing repeat photos. Yeah well, the whole world map thing was sweet. That’s where you get to repeat photos. Repeat all the stuff you want there. But I was really glad that I got to see some new photos in that section, too. If it was just repeated work, I wouldn’t like it.
Just because it’s my self-proclaimed speciality, I’ll speak about your photo essays for a second. Your dog catcher was great, but I would have edited it a little tighter. I like how you put the camera and the film you used on the bottom of the title plates, nice touch for the gearheads among us. The photo essay on your grandfather’s funeral was touching. I don’t care if someone outside our profession would get it. I’m serious, it choked me up. And you shot it with a Lomo, so cool. Your grandfather would be proud.
Besides all that, I really liked your work. I work for a sister paper of the Austin Statesmen in Ohio. Know anyone there? Work there? By the way, if you disagree with any of my opinions and feel the need to validate your own, you can check out my website at ckpj.com. Trust me, your site makes mine look really bad, REALLY REALLY BAD. Catch ya later.
~Cameron Knight
via RSS
via email
