# Quick Website Question



## Destin (Dec 13, 2011)

Okay so I'm in the process of re-branding myself (aka I'm sick of shooting weddings and portraits, I've discovered that sports and event coverage is what I want to shoot) and with that comes some website work. 

I used to be that I had separate pages for weddings/portraits/sports/events, etc, with their own respective portfilio and proofs sub-pages. 

With the Elimination of my Portraits and Weddings I'm considering eliminating the portfolio galleries all together, in favor of a slideshow on my home page containing my portfolio. Would you do this, or keep the galleries? Also, should I list pricing info online, or not? I mean, I'm looking at charging around $100/hour of shooting time to cover events, but should I just have contact information on my site, and give individual quotes for each event?

Any other feedback would be great! My site is DestinDanser.com


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## MLeeK (Dec 13, 2011)

I am no help for you, just curious to follow this thread. 
I accidentally fell into shooting sports and haven't done jack diddly for a website that is actually aimed at marketing. It's only at ordering at this point. 
I have gotten every bit of business through visibility at events leading to ANOTHER team or school or parent or organization... asking me to shoot for them. It exploded on me when I was NOT trying to bust into sports. 
Carrying business cards and wearing your information has been key for me. 
I also actually think I make more $ off the stuff that I am not paid by anyone to photograph. The selling of prints is more money than that hourly will ever be. I have 2 arrangements where the school gets a copy of all photos AND I can sell them as well which is just golden for me, but that's not the norm most of the time.


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## photoseo (Dec 13, 2011)

I think it's a great idea to rebrand, that should definitely bring in new clientele. Not everyone has the courage to transition away from what they have been doing so I think that this is a great move on your part. I'm  not sure what would appeal to your audience better; galleries or the slideshows. I would also say that if you're on the fence about your pricing... consider this.. not listing your prices may compel someone to email or make contact with you if your photos are enough to draw them in as far as what they have seen on your website. Those are just my thoughts for now.. I can also be of assistance to you in ranking as well. Good luck to the rebrand ! 



Destin said:


> Okay so I'm in the process of re-branding myself (aka I'm sick of shooting weddings and portraits, I've discovered that sports and event coverage is what I want to shoot) and with that comes some website work.
> 
> I used to be that I had separate pages for weddings/portraits/sports/events, etc, with their own respective portfilio and proofs sub-pages.
> 
> ...


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## GooniesNeverSayDie11 (Dec 13, 2011)

Personally, I hate the slide show setups in place of a standard portfolio. They are nice as a preview on a homepage or something, but not as a portfolio. I want to be able to browse at my own pace in a fairly straightforward manner. Not be at the mercy of a slideshow's settings. Smugmug has a lot of customization available and their site dgrin.com has a forum dedicated to this. Many people can help you on there with code. I am still in the process of building mine, I have a Portfolio link. If you click that, it takes you to a thumbnail gallery of EVERY PIC ( other than private client pics ). However, if you hover over the PORTFOLIO link, a drop down menu shows up with individual genres. I find this to be cleaner and look slightly more professional. Thats just me though.


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## Destin (Dec 14, 2011)

Alright guys I've done some more work on my website, and It's starting to come together. I want to incorporate a drop down nav bar, but I'm still figuring out the code for it. I'm also working on a Biography/About me Page, but again haven't got it looking how I want yet. It's a really simple site, but I like the clean look, it's easy to navigate, and I think it puts an emphasis on the photos over the look of some fancy site, which is what I want. 

But for now, I'd like to see what you guys think about it: Destin Danser Photography -- Western -- NY -- Portraits -- Sports


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## Alpha (Dec 14, 2011)

I like it but why is the height fixed?


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## shootermcgavin (Dec 14, 2011)

Yeah I think it will be great but I'm assuming it's not finished, there is way too much white space.  Some great portfolio shots too.


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## MLeeK (Dec 14, 2011)

You're close to me. My nephew and 2 of my husband's cousins race at Area51. I looked for shots of Colt, but I didn't see any. You have some great MX shots in there! I don't know the other numbers, so... I don't know if you have any of them! 

The website is clean, but lacks a professional polish. Then again, mine us just a crash landing page for sports at this point-so yours is simply amazing compared! LOL! The landing/home page looks like a slideshow, but only one slide. I'd include one slide from every sport you have shot in there. I know you're working on it now, so I am sure it's coming.
The categories at the top are somewhat redundant and this is ONLY opinion so take it FWIW... I'd eliminate the sports portfolio page and put your portfolio in that slide show on the home page. 
You said you are working on an about me page and I'd think about a "where's waldo" page that shows what sporting events you are shooting coming up. It may be premature for that at this time, but if you have people following your site and they know you are going to be shooting at THIS game for THAT school you can take pre-orders such as "hey, my kid is #37 for Pembroke boys basketball. I am looking to get a poster made of him if you can get some good shots..." I get a LOT of those kind of orders and most are guaranteed money. 


And your website is changing as I type. Looking great on the first page!!!


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## MLeeK (Dec 14, 2011)

OH!! One other website pet peeve of mine-nobody ever includes the area they serve in their websites. You have to guess. That's really nice to be able to find easily!!!


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## iresq (Dec 14, 2011)

On my browser, many of your thumbnails have heads cut off, weird crops, etc.  Very distracting.  I could not find your phone number.  It should be on every page so I don't have to look for it. Why are there two sport pages?  Is one just for images for sale?  A little confusing.


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## Destin (Dec 14, 2011)

MLeeK said:


> OH!! One other website pet peeve of mine-nobody ever includes the area they serve in their websites. You have to guess. That's really nice to be able to find easily!!!



Check my header. Notice the "WNY" You wouldn't notice it if you aren't from here, but EVERYONE here knows instantly that I cover Western New York. I'll go into more detail on the about me page that I'm working on though. Also, the Phone number will be in the footer in the final design, as well as on the about me page. 

Honestly though, I've never had ANYONE call me from my website. I get a TON of emails, but no phone calls.


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## Rephargotohp (Dec 14, 2011)

Destin said:


> MLeeK said:
> 
> 
> > OH!! One other website pet peeve of mine-nobody ever includes the area they serve in their websites. You have to guess. That's really nice to be able to find easily!!!
> ...


Well, you know it, they may know it. But what does Google know?

If someone was doing a search would they realistically put in WNY sports Photographer? Or would they put their town in or the actual full name Western New York. What about the people from the town of West New York that use that acronym?

On your first page you should have an area that says what you do and where you do it in terms that people would search by.

Other thing I am wondering about are you front page images. They are of course very nice but they are also highly edited and looks like some tonemapping done.

Is that a reasonable expectation that your customers can expect. Are you doing specialized sport portraits that a client hhires you specifically for that would give you the paycheck to do this time of editing on that one persons photo. Or are you a sports events photographer that has to take good shots right out of the camera,upload those quickly and charge $7 to $15 for. There is no Margin in there for editing there shouldn't be either.(remembering that your time editing an image goes into COGS)

But if you sell someone a sports event image, will they be expecting what's on the front page. (You'd be surprised what customers expect)


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## Destin (Dec 14, 2011)

Rephargotohp said:


> Destin said:
> 
> 
> > MLeeK said:
> ...



Gotcha. There is some tonemapping in many of the images, but I don't have crazy high order volume. I'm working on a before/after page to show customers different editing options available when they order, more in depth edits will have slightly higher costs. Not a single one of those photos in the slideshow took more than 5 minutes to edit.


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## Rephargotohp (Dec 14, 2011)

OK,That sounds good if you are offereing that as an option.

It's just when I ask Portrait shooters about their workflow and they say. "I give my client 100 Fully edited proofs" and I ask about the edit time are they accounting for that in their prices.They say,I only spend 5 minutes on each image....which is 8 hours. And then you find they havn't accounted for that at all in their COGS.

But that's a diferent situation then if you are offereing this as an add on and you are pricing correctly to account for that remebering that labior costs usually are a greater part of COGS than materials are.

Just something to think about

Good luck, Nice shootin!


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## GooniesNeverSayDie11 (Dec 14, 2011)

Personally, I wouldn't give them before and after editing options. I would find your own style and go with that. Unless they want some  poster type edits where you do text, and effects that include the photos. For the most part, I think that sports images should be fairly tame on post processing effects unless its a portrait type shot.
Another thing is that most people do not understand the intricacies of RAW images vs JPEG or what post processing actually entails. You may have the effect of making them think that you take subpar pictures and then photoshop the crap out of everything. 

Sometimes it can be nice with portrait work, to show people how nice you can make them look, but again I think on the flip side it could be counterproductive. People want to get their pics and feel good about themselves, not think "oh, wow, he must have really tweaked me". 

I also tend to be opposed in general to pulling back the curtain so to speak on the process at all. I think the images and your style/talent should stand on their own as a finished product. 

One other caveat, is that you are allowing the customer to choose how the image gets edited. Some effects work better on some images and not so good on others. So if you have a generic sample as the example, they may choose an effect that they THINK they want, but ultimately takes away from your work and makes it look like crap.

Maybe thats just me though.


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## kamerageek (Dec 14, 2011)

It looks like it's coming along nicely.

I would suggest importing your style sheets rather than imbedding them directly into your html pages. It'll make it easier to manage those changes if you only have maintain the changes in one spot rather than 1 time for every page in your site. I also find that linked styles make it easier to experiment and try new things without irreparably breaking what you've already built.


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## Destin (Dec 14, 2011)

kamerageek said:


> It looks like it's coming along nicely.
> 
> I would suggest importing your style sheets rather than imbedding them directly into your html pages. It'll make it easier to manage those changes if you only have maintain the changes in one spot rather than 1 time for every page in your site. I also find that linked styles make it easier to experiment and try new things without irreparably breaking what you've already built.



You're way over my head on web editing there man. I'm using a smugmug page as my "base" and their easy customizer does the majority of the work. I only have to use code for a few things here and there (nav bar, adding text only pages, etc)


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## GooniesNeverSayDie11 (Dec 14, 2011)

I definitely think it is starting to look better than it did yesterday. If you want to check out my smugmug site for some ideas, you can PM me. I don't want to broadcast it on here mainly due to it only being about 80% finished.


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## Destin (Dec 14, 2011)

Alright just added a SHORT about me page, obviously I need to edit it a bit and add a few more paragraphs, but it's there. I just have so many ideas that I want to do, I don't know which one to start on next.


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## MLeeK (Dec 14, 2011)

Lookin' nice. 
Your about me has some run on sentences and awkward sentences, but the general feel of it is very good. It gives a little about you personally and about your current work... Those things are hard as hell to do!!! It needs a little refining, but the content? Great. 
Overall it's clean and simple and shows well. The only thing everything lacks-website and everything in there is a BRAND. It's generic. Not bad, but you may want to do some study and research on BRANDING and making your brand stand out. www.amantoafish.com is one of my favorite blogs on marketing/branding. There are a ton of others out there too.


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## flashyinteractive (Dec 15, 2011)

I would have a portfolio gallery display all of my work and have a contact page that has your contact information and contact form for people to send you an email, if they want to hire you or have a question.


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## kamerageek (Dec 18, 2011)

Destin said:


> kamerageek said:
> 
> 
> > It looks like it's coming along nicely.
> ...



Sorry, I sometimes my geek trigger kicks in before I realize what's happened. I think your site looks great. WYSIWYG tools are sometimes a little less flexible than crafting it all by hand, but you should be fine with a combination of the customizer and the code you do know. Just remember to test your site in the four major browsers. They might not all render the pages the same way.


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