think tank forum

just finished a draft of a site. comments, please!

http://www.lucasreddingerphoto.com/ (also: a, b, c)

nice and simple. I like the layout.

have you considered grouping the different projects in to categories? (would that be too much clutter?) do you have more portraits or some product photos to display?

most of the photos are focused on details and texture, which gives a good feel for what you do, but if I were shopping for portraits i'd probably like to see more of them :)

i'd love to show more portraits. i'm lacking any others worthy of being shown. (see crap here.) i had a very difficult time pulling together ten images that are semi-respectable (in my mind).

i'm presently scouting for models. i plan on buying the nikon 135mm 1:2 dc lens as soon as it stocks at b&h or adorama (along with an umbrella). then i'll take some better photos. once i have a dozen decent portraits on the site, i'll gladly take your suggestion and group them together. :)

i wish this damn lens would get off back-order. i've thought about renting or borrowing a longer lens (than my 35mm 1:2, my only lens) in the interim, but (a) i don't want to pay rental fees when i'll be buying the lens anyway, and (b) i'd like practice with the exact lens i'll be using in the future--the defocus-control can be tricky, from what i hear.

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i should try to do some decent product photography. any ideas on what i should photograph?

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thanks for the comments!

I don't like the black border around some of the photos.

any particular reason? also, it's gray.

because it only shows up around certain ones that don't fit the aspect ratio.

so maybe i'll put it on all of them?

yeah, do. make it consistent.

ok, boys and girls, i changed it. i switched to pure black because i think it looks better.

i hate the way this looks

I like it better.

have you tried with no border?

no, but i think i'd like it worse. it's fine. :)

I think you might want to try getting rid of the border, too...it still makes the vertical images look awkward and unfinished, IMHO

huh.

ok, i changed the borders. i also rebalanced the colors on a couple of the images.

into it.

Looks a lot better now.

The text on the left side is an image :o

With indenting AND vertical space. That still hurts.

looks good. it appears that every time i click on a new photo, it refreshes the entire page.. is that supposed to happen?

> Looks a lot better now.

thanks!

> The text on the left side is an image :o

yeah, i opted for style over seo. it's a bummer. i need to work some plain-text into the page somewhere.

> With indenting AND vertical space. That still hurts.

hm?

> looks good. it appears that every time i click on a new photo, it refreshes the entire page.. is that supposed to happen?

thanks. yeah, i wanted each image to have its own uri so that people can link to a specific image. i could do that with javascript and some #names, but that adds a lot of unnecessary code.

> > The text on the left side is an image :o
>
> yeah, i opted for style over seo. it's a bummer. i need to work some
> plain-text into the page somewhere.

True, It does look better than it would ever look with just text considering the limited amount of fonts that are available ... Webfonts are on the rise but it will take some time ...

One method may be using something like:

.image { position: absolute; top: 1em; right: 1em; z-index: 10; }
.text { position: absolute; top: 1em; right: 1em; z-index: 5; }

<img id="image" src="mytext" />
<div id="text">Text, blah, blah</div>

That will put the image in front of the text with the text hidden behind it. Haven't tried this so I don't know how well it works ...

As a matter of curiousity, I noticed you use:
> <style type="text/css">
> @import "/style.php";
> </style>

Why this method and not <link />? Is it a matter of style or does this have some advantage?

thanks for the tips. from what i've read on google, they can figure out if you're hiding text they'll drop your score for it. i'm not sure how good they are at this.

> Why this method and not <link />? Is it a matter of style or does this have some advantage?

i don't know. it's just what i've always done. i can start using <link>. :)

> hm?

Separating your paragraphs with indents and vertical space is redundant.

I agree.

yeah, i suppose so.

it's too bad that i don't have a computer with photoshop anymore! indents will be the status quo for a while.

well, my site is already in google. it's on page 11 for "bozeman photography," though. :/

google did a good job of indexing the `alt` text for the images, though! :D

ok, i eliminated the indents. thanks for the help.

Nice, I like the last "r" in "reddinger".

really? i think it's a bit too much. but i saw the "ending" sort in the minion set and decided to use it. i'll keep it, then.

thanks.

yeah i like it too! keep.

k.

also, i just shrunk it down a bit so that it fits in a 1024x768 resolution screen.

http://cdn.lucasreddingerphoto.com/0010/firefox.png