www.urbanframes.com

[PHOTOMANTY]

Hello All,

I recently launched my webite and I'm looking for feedback regarding my work. Hope you enjoy it!

[Sebastian]

Hello All,

I recently launched my webite and I'm looking for feedback regarding my work. Hope you enjoy it!

The load times are attrocious, the size of the splash screen is 332 kilobytes...are you serious??

You "require" 1024x768, yet your main page could easily fit into a 800x600 screen.

Your flash page just sits there forever, no loading screen, nothing. I clicked off from annoyance after a short while and I'm on DSL. No one on dial-up is going to give you the time of day, even IF they stick around past the loading of your main page.

THink about these things, they deserve much more attention than you've given them.

Your photos are good, they deserve to be seen, don't let poor design decisions on the page stand in the way of that.

[Asylum Steve]

Welcome to the site, Ty. It's not often that a single member can "raise the bar" of this place in one fell swoop, but I think you did just that...

Your site looks great. Good simple yet edgy colors, graphics, and layout. The music adds feeling but doesn't distract. Everything combines to create a great "atmosphere" to view your work...

And, boy, what a body of work you have. I really like that the first (and second and third) impressions of your photographic world are the gritty b&w urban shots done in a creative journalistic style, yet exploring the site fully eventually brings the viewer to images like your "escapes" gallery, something completely on the opposite end of the spectrum.

You've obviously shot a little bit of everything, but you do a good job of keeping your subjects seperate. I think that's important so people see you have a focus and a direction in your work...

I'm not completely sure about the ""negative"" thumbnails. Yeah, it looks cool visually, but it's also somewhat of a cliche, and the viewer cannot usually identify what the image is by looking at it's negative. Still, you instantly see the actual image when you mouseover the thumb, so I guess it works.

BTW, I don't know if this is intentional or not, but ""Brown #80" in Gallery #4 remains a full size negative image when you mouseover it...

I do have a question about your "eroom" page. These are all shots of the same woman, right? Interesting. So, she must be a special lady to you, eh? Any details?

BTW2, I just read Seb's comments. On my browser (cable modem), the site loaded fairly quickly. A bit longer than most, but once I had seen some of your images, I didn't mind waiting to see more...

Hello All,

I recently launched my webite and I'm looking for feedback regarding my work. Hope you enjoy it!

[Peter_AUS]

34 seconds on ADSL 512/128 to open to your homepage2 and get some sound as well. That to me is too long for an audience that includes modem dial up or is your audience only fast cable and fast ADSL. This is a no no when designing websites for mass audiences. It needs to load much faster and I have seen more complex websites with flash load under 10 seconds. Look at your graphics and the overhead they cause to a webpage loading.

If you are designing this in a flash program generator like Macromedia Flash, it will tell you how long the flash will take to load up. Set it for dialup and see the download time as well.

Although not the quickest on my ADSL line, my worry is for dialup, yes I have said that three times now.

Going from one gallery to another again takes a lot of my time, and RED certainly isn't one of my favourite colours to look at, at the best of times. While typing this I am still waiting for the page to load up on the browser and that is not something I would like to be hanging around for all the time. God this is slow. Right click is a good idea as a deterent but you can still get a persons site by just saving it. Takes all the images etc with it.

The forth gallery colours look better, with the red against grey and the use of red is much better than the opening pages.

[natatbeach]

hello PhotomanTY

awesome urban shots...I wish I had your gift for that style...once I turned off some flash feature and just went about it without music and such and I figured WHAT was going on...things went smoothly and I was really taken by your style of photography. You are a very welcome addition to this forum...my favorites were the woman who appeared to be worshipping at a church service(?) with her finger in a one symbol and leaning forward..... and the two little boys on the track.... and the young man in front of the Martin Luther
King mural(?)

awesome gift you have we are pricileged you are willing to share it with us....

look forward to seeing more
regards

[Asylum Steve]

Guys,

I promise I'm not going to say this everytime the subject of loading time comes up, otherwise I may get labeled a web site snob, but for the record, with my interent connection, Ty's site loaded:

SPLASH PAGE - 4 seconds

HOME PAGE - 6 seconds

GALLERY PAGES - 10 seconds average

VIDEO PAGE - 5 seconds

I find this perfectly acceptable for a high end artist who is most likely aiming at a very specific audience. I can't emphasize enough that, IMO, mass audience is NOT a priority for a lot of photographers, and it shouldn't be...

Ok, here's the snobby part: I really could not care less if someone with a dial up connection has to wait half an hour or more to see these pages. I just know I didn't...

Sure, Ty's site can probably be optimized more, and loading time is a legitimate subject for a site critique, but the bottom line is my viewing experience with this site was VERY enjoyable.

However, I'm not entirely insensitive to the average viewer. As I've said before, an image and file heavy flash site should, if possible, give viewers an HTML alternative to view, even if it's just a simple page or two with a few images and contact information.

Still, If I were an Art Director or Media Editor, all I would care about is what I saw and how quickly and easily I saw it. In that sense he's fine, and I would never consider the loading times on slower internet connections a major design flaw...

34 seconds on ADSL 512/128 to open to your homepage2 and get some sound as well. That to me is too long for an audience that includes modem dial up or is your audience only fast cable and fast ADSL. This is a no no when designing websites for mass audiences. It needs to load much faster and I have seen more complex websites with flash load under 10 seconds. Look at your graphics and the overhead they cause to a webpage loading.

If you are designing this in a flash program generator like Macromedia Flash, it will tell you how long the flash will take to load up. Set it for dialup and see the download time as well.

Although not the quickest on my ADSL line, my worry is for dialup, yes I have said that three times now.

Going from one gallery to another again takes a lot of my time, and RED certainly isn't one of my favourite colours to look at, at the best of times. While typing this I am still waiting for the page to load up on the browser and that is not something I would like to be hanging around for all the time. God this is slow. Right click is a good idea as a deterent but you can still get a persons site by just saving it. Takes all the images etc with it.

The forth gallery colours look better, with the red against grey and the use of red is much better than the opening pages.

[PHOTOMANTY]

Hello All,

Thank you for all of your comments. I truly appreciate it. Steve, Sebastian, & Peter, thank you for helping me. I realize the issue with the speed of the site and I'm addressing it with my designer. I, as a photographer, don't know much about design. I know what looks good, but the ins and outs I have no knowledge of. However, it is in my best interest to learn. I knew people like you would be a huge help to me once I lauched to the site with regards to the vast knowledge of web design. This is why I've tried my best to post the link on all photography forums.

Sebastian, you've helped me a great deal by giving me insight on the size of particular pages.

Peter, you being a web designer have the knowledge to identify the issues with the design. You were great at pointing out the issues, but offered no solutions. Can you shed some light on what I need to do to improve the speed of the site? Thanks for your feed back. In addition, you didn't tell me what you thought about my work. If you have the time, please touch upon that as well. Your feedback will help me, as a fellow artist, to improve my site and skills.

Steve, thanks for the kind words. I appreciate your feed back. To answer your question, the EROOM is a dedicated gallery to my girl friend. I spend the most time with her and have many photo's of her, so I wanted to show my appreciation for the role she plays in my life, as well as, show other females that I'm capable of photographing women should they need portraits taken.

Where can I view the work of others on in this forum?

Again, thank you for all of your help. Sorry for not replying sooner. I've been in Egypt for the past 3 weeks. Keep checking the site to see the photo's from the womderful country of Egpyt. To all the photographer's in this forum I recomend you make your way to Egypt. It's a photographers dream. So much eye candy.

[Peter_AUS]

Hi Ty,

You from Italian background, Sicilian maybe (don't want to get rubbed out). Welcome back from Egypt.

What work of others are you looking to view in this forum ?

I think your photography style is great, just some of the colours and the speed of the website is my particular worry and that is something to address with your web designers and multimedia people. Try and get the flash as tight (speed wise as possible), I just tried it again, thinking maybe it was the time of day, but still the same going from the first page to second page. First page seemed to load a little quicker. Preloading images is a good idea, and maybe the images sizes are a little big, 2 minutes to load gallery three which seems like it might contain 79 images is that correct, it seems to be 23 images. The chicken one isn't the best, eye behind the wire, but hey, pretty hard to get a chook to stay still.

Thanks for the comments about my web designing, but I don't profess to being an expert, I have an interest in web designing and try and help others and improve my own skills in the process. There are others here with more sill than I have, I moderate the forum as a help to the organisers and also for something to do as well.

Steve saying the pages load fast for him, obviously has something to do with being in the same country that the server your website is hosted on and also the fact he has cable connection which is super faster than my ADSL connection. I wouldn't like to think what the dialup people are doing, but could guess getting a coffee while waiting. Steve makes a good point that the people looking at your site probably will have fast connections too and won't notice the speed.

[PHOTOMANTY]

Thanks for the feed back Peter. I appreciate it. I'm still in Egypt at the moment. I fly home tomorrow. It's been a long trip, but well worth it. I recommend everyone visit Egypt.

My issue with web design is my lack of knowledge of how things work behind the scenes. Now that I launched the site and receive feed back from people like your self I'm able to learn and make approvements.

So, you design sites? What do you charge to make revisions to an existing site? I'm curious because my programmer is good, but after reading your reply I realize that a great designer would have done all of the things you were talking about in the first place. Maybe my programmer has and I won't know until I get home and address these issues with him.

Yes, my mother is Italian. From Sicily actually. Great guess.

I am concerned about those who view my site from dial up or abroad. I don't want teh speed of the site to deter people from seeing my work. I do know once each gallery loads it drops into the temporary files, so it will automatically boot up if you click on it again. I want my viewers to be able to see the page within 10 seconds if possible. I know I'll have to reach a medium with regards to those using dial up. Those using dial up service, didn't know it still existed, will always have a slow loading time I believe.

The file size of my photo's are rather small, 5 X 3.33 @ 72DPI. We'll I think it small, but you would know better than I. Let me know. Don't for get to tell me your fees for service. You can email me at urbanframes@yahoo.com if you don't want to post them.

[Peter_AUS]

Ty,

I think you will be able to sort it out with your web designers when you get home and it should still be included within your original payment to them. The work is done it is just a matter of sorting it out with them. I noticed the size of your images is quite small, I did that by saving one of your pages which took some of the images from the page and also the structure as well, just to see how they have designed your website. Once the site is loaded, right clicking over the page isn't allowed which is a good idea, but if someone wants something they can get at it fairly easily and having photos small and at 72dpi is a great idea.

Dial up probably isn't a big issue for most people these days, although there are still many people using it, I would think a lot have moved over to broadband either ADSL or Cable. I have ADSL 512/128 connection and from here in Australia the load times aren't that great and I think it relates to the flash side of things, which I can see from the code I reviewed on one of your pages. Again which is a good thing. Steve has cable so he gets the site loading up very quickly as he has indicated.

Talk to your programer when you get home, I think they have designed the site really well, but these are small issues not big ones and they might not have realised it, probably testing it onsite and also having Broadband connection, people tend to forget little things. I know Liz is on Dial up and there are some others here as well who would review your site but probably won't because of the wait time. See what your programer says first before heading down other tracks.

[PHOTOMANTY]

@ Sebastian - I checked out your site. I like your style. You have a great eye. What genre of photography would you say is your favorite. I'm diggin your nature shots. I like a few of the portraits you took. I've been to Chi-Town, but you really did the city justice in your photo's. Beautiful city. I'd go back in a heart beat. Especially seeing how it lights up at night. Good work!

I like the layout of the site. It easy to navigate.

[Sebastian]

@ Sebastian - I checked out your site. I like your style. You have a great eye. What genre of photography would you say is your favorite. I'm diggin your nature shots. I like a few of the portraits you took. I've been to Chi-Town, but you really did the city justice in your photo's. Beautiful city. I'd go back in a heart beat. Especially seeing how it lights up at night. Good work!

I like the layout of the site. It easy to navigate.

Thanks Manty.

I really don't think I have a favorite when it comes to genre. Thanks for the kind words.

Hey, I forgot to clear something up. I respect what Steve says about download speeds, etc. but basically your site is not a complex design, there really is no reason why it should be so large. You could easily make it smaller without jeopardizing its visual integrity.

I love your people shots, very dynamic, very full of character. I wish my people shots were more like that, buildings are almost too easy...

[PHOTOMANTY]

What's going on all? Not too much here. I'm on my way to Hong Kong this Thursday. My camera is more excited than I am. It's business but I'll have to escape the office to snap off a few rolls.

Peter - How are you? I need your help. I spoke with my programmer and he advised me that the only way for me to decrease the size of my site would be to remove lots of the photo's. He recommended I reduce the amount of photo's per gallery to 12. Now, this is out side of reducing the size of the into page. Do you think this is the only way to reduce the size of the site in order to save folks loading time? I'm at a loss. I'll reduce the amount of photo's, no problem, but wanted a second oppinion. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Sebastian - I used to fear taking photo's of people. In the beginning I never got the results I wanted. So, I began going to live performances to shoot candid shots of people. I figured no one was paying me any mind so I'd shoot all I wanted without the fear of being yelled at. I soon got over that fear. A famous photographer, Lou Jones, who serves as my mentor taught me how to "not give a ****". That's his moto. He told me to take the photo. If the person gets pist apologize and move on. Normally people forget there pic was taken fairly quickly. So, know I ask and I steal photos. In Egypt I asked all the ladies and stole the majority of the male shots.

I'm working on revising the site so it's faster and new photo's from Egypt and Hong Kong will be featured.

Hope all of you are well.