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Photographers without websites ...
Basheer wrote: there's quite a few photographers out there with ego's who have this theory, not me though. but i guess the idea of a photographer designing a website for another photog doesnt bode well with people. who knows. Aug 12 05 01:13 am Link Well it all depends at the contend in the end - Do I want to show I'm a good photographer in search for models or do I want to show I'm a good programmer in search for new gadets. Aug 12 05 01:16 am Link Basheer wrote: There are plenty of flash tutorial websites that help you learn flash and there are also generic flash coding scripts you can get for free if you look, some of which can make great photography galleries. Aug 12 05 02:08 am Link guzx wrote: stear clear of tripod and geocities and most of the other ones like them. Last I checked, on goecities especially, they assumed copyright to all text and photos their members uploaded and could and did use whatever they wanted of their members content in their advertisements and such, especially photographs, without asking or compensation to the creator of the images/text. Aug 12 05 02:11 am Link I have a bunch of domain names, some related to photography, and have about three of them activated to have those email addresses. While I've dabbled at putting together a site, it doesn't look good and I'm not ready to spend money on a site to show off my shots if I can show them here and on other places as well. That would change if photography was a professional venture for me. Aug 12 05 06:35 am Link JvR wrote: Having your domain name and a website hosting where you can showcase your photos (and hundreds of photos not just 20) costs around $9/year for the domain and around $4/month for the hosting ... that's about $60/year ... Aug 12 05 08:40 am Link JvR wrote: Basheer wrote: But he needs a good site design. That's his point. Aug 12 05 08:53 am Link So! Jump on the bandwagon for photographers with web sites, interesting idea.....let me think about this. Wait I don't have a web site, yet still I am a working shooter. My work shows up on clients sites without a cost to me. Ok! I have nothing against web sites, but tell me what percentage from these web sites do you get paid work.....the ones that pay the utilites and all your overhead for your business. I am old school....loves the idea of direct promotional work going out to cleints every six weeks, so they get to touch it...feel it smell the chemicals on different syrfaces for which I work on....also having a rep doesn't hurt that my book is sitting in some art directors office as we speak. This is the bottom like, who views your site and what percentage are clients willing to work with you is a lot you have to come into the idea of "Hey I need a site" or is is just another photographer looking at your stuff saying " I can do better than this guy" Well there is many ways to look at it and many ways to spend your budget on propmotional stuff out there.....choose wisely Aug 12 05 08:53 am Link Great point Alex. Aug 12 05 08:55 am Link Basheer wrote: Also here is an idea for you and others out there...When I work with a client...paying gig...I have t-shirts & sweat shirts with the image of a chock outline of a dead person on the streets of Detroit with the saying " I was Shot in Detroit" by The Photographic Studio of Gordon Alexander. Aug 12 05 08:56 am Link Alex Alexander wrote: There you go. I knew Alex was the man with a plan. I love it. Aug 12 05 08:58 am Link I agree with alex. I had a web site with all my photos and what got me is the amount of work i actualy got from it. Granted it was a free site with exposure alllll over the world, but i aint all over the world to work with these people. Its better to have your work sitting in an office or on someones desk that can give you a personal referral of your work. Its easier for someone to be interested in your work and they want a photo and they say "Oh look he is in the next town, he is local"! Aug 12 05 09:01 am Link XtremeArtists wrote: JvR wrote: But he needs a good site design. That's his point. If you have photoshop (which I assume most photographers do), you can just use their web photo gallery option to create the site - not the best, but not limited to 20 photos and no ads ... Aug 12 05 09:03 am Link Alex Alexander wrote: I am currently looking into some sort of advertizing prop like this. Aug 12 05 09:03 am Link Basheer wrote: Photoshop's web gallery doesn't work on all browsers correctly. Aug 12 05 09:05 am Link I know some cool place that offer non-branded sites ... anyone interested can message me ... Aug 12 05 09:15 am Link Basheer wrote: Post them here. We are all curious to know. Aug 12 05 09:16 am Link A friend of mine got banned without notice when he posted a link to a site in the forums that appeared to be a competitor to MM !!! ... which I find ironic, since there is so much complaining about OMP not allowing various references to MM ... but I doubt anyone got banned on OMP because of a simple mention of MM in a forum posting ... ... by the way, the sites in question obviously don't include OMP Aug 12 05 09:20 am Link XtremeArtists wrote: Really? I'd like to know more about this. What are the issues? Aug 12 05 09:25 am Link Now days if you are trying to make business and call yourself a "Pro" having a website is a must...specially when you don't have a Studio, they can see your work and see if they want to continue doing business with you, its like your resme and it is worth the investment... My first one was flash..had all the efects and music...but then I realize I am trying to show my pics, not How much I was spending on my site...well, I got into the site biz and changed it to a HTML + some Juva to spice it up...the best thing I could have done...the question is what r u trying to sell???? after looking at proces quoted, I wonder why people thought $500.00 for a basic HTML site, with some Jeva was too much...actually is prety low, but in all Photography site..the work must dpeak for itself! So I am offerinf my services also if anyone interested as well in a basic, none templet website. Juancho Aug 12 05 09:26 am Link Brian Diaz wrote: The slideshow feature doesn't auto advance on some browsers. Aug 12 05 09:27 am Link Basheer wrote: So your idea was to start an informercial and then request people contact you privately so you can advertise solomodels or a similar organization you are invloved with? Aug 12 05 09:31 am Link Not exactly, the topic started as something else but shifted to more about website providers so it seems ... Here are some sites I have no relation with ... www.smugmug.com www.foliolink.com www.qfolio.com Aug 12 05 09:33 am Link XposurePhoto wrote: I agree with you. There are plenty of ways to get a good website despite. Aug 12 05 09:34 am Link Basheer wrote: And a bit of money for the design and uploading of your site to the web....not everyone knows how to use Front Page or even the ready made templates that most hosting sites offer now. ANd they are too busy to try and figure it out. Aug 12 05 09:59 am Link And it's kinda neat to have my name as a dot com: www.dawneonline.com www.dawnelizabeth.com Yeah, I'm a nut! Aug 12 05 10:01 am Link DawnElizabeth wrote: There was also a time when telephones didn't exist. As phones increased in popularity and ubiquity, I'm sure some businesses resisted, but in the end, they all either gave in or failed. Aug 12 05 10:11 am Link DawnElizabeth wrote: Nice sites. Both of them. Aug 12 05 10:16 am Link k, have to interject a bit...I do some site development as a sideline "hobby" (databases and client-server software development as a main "gig") and anyone that would charge 20k for a site is insane, and to anyone that would think to pay it...outrageous. My sites are html/javascript-based and average between 500.00 - 3,000 TOPS! I've done some pro-bono exposure work (and am doing some for some models here on MM right now)...like I said, it's my fun. Now for the FLASH...five words of advice: 1.) Most FLASH is not Search Engine Optimized...that is, it's not coded to be found by any of the search engines and therefore becomes "pretty" and unfindable. 2.) Unless coded REALLY cleanly (and helpfully) FLASH is a pain to update (as you have mentioned, you need Dreamweaver first, second you have to have the .fla files, know what they are, etc...) 3.) As you've also noted, it's neat for a few seconds, and then after that, it's rather slow and annoying. After all, when you hit a site, do you want pretty shows, or do you want to content...like have a Porsche with a Hyundai engine for crying out loud. A bit of Flash, for a title, etc...fine...making the whole site flash-based...fad. 4.) Most things you can do in FLASH you can do using Javascript, which is easier to code, easier to update and has withstood the test of time as a development tool (which leads to point number 5... 5.) Google is already moving away from FLASH as "historical" and moving to the new technology AJAX which is a combination of JavaScript and XML. Oh...and an idea of what a straight-laced Javascript site can do (with a hint of FLASH but not enough to corrupt speed) is: www.JimmyZProductions.com and it cost him $1,500 to make start to finish. Hit the portfolio for other examples of sites...I'd be more than happy to quote you a FAIR and REASONABLE price since this is my passion and not my life-blood. Take care, and God Bless. Shawn Thompson Aug 12 05 10:18 am Link I do not really want to get into the banter. I am changing but have not seen the need in the past. Clients saw my books. I live in NY city so a bit different for me. I have many separate and distinctive books, such as jewelry, jewelry on models, fashion, beauty, natural, kids, a commercial book but weak, art fashion, art, light painting, interiors and even high end weddings I do. Putting all of those books on to a site or many sites has not made sense to me in the past. I have a single simple password protected jewelry site. So very simple. I will be getting sites in the future but it is not top on my list of things to do. It is about time not just money. For me sites are for low end clients, just is for me. I will have a page in Lebook soon but no public web page. I guess I am a loser. And I guess my friend who shoots for Saks and another who shoots for rebok and on ANTM as a photographer are losers too. Aug 12 05 10:21 am Link Not all Photogs can afford the website, some either dont have the time for one or just dont want one. you cant bash a photographer for not having a website cause they can equally turn around and say well your a model how come you dont have a website.... Aug 12 05 10:52 am Link I agree with the folks that say photographers should have a web site and their own domain. It doesn't have to be designed by someone else. FrontPage is about $90 and if you've used MS Word, you already know most of it. Here's a link to mine: Paul's Portraits. It's not flash nor all that fancy but it has a lot of pictures and it's fast and easy to navigate. Paul Aug 12 05 12:55 pm Link Paul Ferrara wrote: Not every photographer has the time to try and figure out Front Page nor do they want to. Aug 12 05 01:20 pm Link XtremeArtists wrote: Thanks X. I think my brother went overboard, personally, but he is very proud of them. He is working on another site for me now....he says I need one dedicated to my headshot work. I think he just likes designing.... Aug 12 05 01:22 pm Link If I build a site, it needs to serve a purpose. That purpose can be one of many: - it's fun for me to build it or to mark my space on the Web - I can use it to share my images with others, family, models, friends, etc. - I can use it to market myself - I can use it to show off my work to the public at large Now, my reasoning: - I dabbled in Frontpage and didn't think it was fun; I don't think just having a site is much fun either, unless it serves another purpose - I do use my otherwise lousy site to post gallery pages and offer access to my family back in Holland or to models I've just done a shoot with by sending them the exact URL to that one page - this is my hobby at the moment, so I don't need to market myself - I don't think people would find my site; if I want to show my work, I can do it on Photosig, Pbase and similar sites (I actually have space on Photosig, but getting critiques is largely meaningless there, so I no longer post there) So, once again, why should I spend money on developing a real site? Irony is, I used to be the content manager for a site that cost about $500k to build and was intimately involved in having it built and my current income comes from developing content for Fortune 500 Web sites, among others. Aug 12 05 01:22 pm Link Basheer wrote: Flash sucks!! Aug 12 05 01:27 pm Link The web site question aside, I think it's important for a person to think to the future about how they will brand themselves and at least get a domain name that can serve as an email address that would at least forword to their (rather unprofessional) yahoo or aol account. I think a person would make different inferences about [email protected] vs [email protected] vs [email protected] As others have said, it's less than $10 yr to own your domain name and it will come with email forwarding and autoreply for many addresses (ie, [email protected]). Then when you want to have your web site, you already have let people know what it will be (ie, your domain name). Anyone can afford $10 a year. Aug 12 05 01:39 pm Link Curt Burgess wrote: I agree with that. I've held various domain names for years, just because I don't want to risk losing what I consider good domain names for myself. Aug 12 05 01:45 pm Link All this talk about cheap sites. Well I think they look cheap. For many we are just waiting to do it to a high standard of quality. Cheap is often just cheap. Aug 12 05 01:50 pm Link I have a domain name and the hosting, but soince I suck at HTML, don't have the money to pay some else to build the site for me, and don't have the time to learn how to do it myself... it's just sitting there, half-built with a silly template provided by the hosting service... that's why I don't announce it or use it. Basheer wrote: Aug 12 05 02:01 pm Link |
