I finally have a website!

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I finally have a website!

Postby climax » Wed Mar 09, 2011 11:52 am

Hello everybody !
I know I've been away from the forum for a while, and I'm sorry for that.
I have been so busy lately, developing my work as a photographer, and now I'm finally getting my photography website ready. I did it myself from a flash template, and would love suggestions for improvement.
I feel the website is kind of too full of pictures, but I can't decide what photos should be left out of the galleries... I would love to hear your critique and advice regarding this issue, and I would love also to know what is your honest opinion about the website itself... did it load fast? was it easy to navigate?
Thank you !!

www.cristinarijskamp.com

Cristina
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby kabeeo » Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:27 pm

Nice job on the site. It loaded very quickly. A few translation suggestions for you:

Hi there! I'm Cristina Rijskamp, a brazilian photographer living in Finland since 2007. Passionated (should be Passionate) about life and photography, I like to bring the colors, the joy, and the emotion of brazilian culture into my images. My mission is to portrait (should be portray) your life with fine art photography. I’m mainly a natural light photographer who prefers outdoor locations or clients' homes over a studio. My photography is all about you. I believe you are unique. Different. Let’s skip those traditional posed studio portraits ... let’s have fun and capture who you really are... YOUR LIFE... YOUR STYLE... YOU... in nice artistic pictures. I truly believe life is beautiful, and it’s made of moments, for example... you have the cutest baby, you’re in love, you’re getting married, your wife is pregnant, it’s your son’s birthday... or you’re simply feeling good about yourself... they are all good reasons to stop for a while and celebrate your life with nice photography. I’m here to help you creating those images you have on your mind, that will really portrait (should be portray) the way you look at life. All you have to do is be yourself, and have fun. This way your photos will be “alive” and full of emotions. After all... what would you like to remember? Poses? Or feelings, laughter... Please, check out my info page for more details.

Other than that and the fact that you have not yet posted any slideshows it look great! Good luck with it.
--Kevin
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby climax » Wed Mar 09, 2011 12:43 pm

Oh ! Thank you so much Kevin for taking the time to read my text, and pointing me these embarrassing mistakes.
I'm working on a slideshow for promoting my own work as we speak... so... soon there will be some activity on the slideshows page.
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby kabeeo » Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:17 pm

Please, don't be embarassed in any way. English is not easy as a first language! You did a great job.
--Kevin
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby JEMedia » Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:29 pm

Nice website.

Your English is better than most people for whom English is a first language.

And remember, once you speak good English, well, ain't nobody can't never take that from you. :D

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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby climax » Wed Mar 09, 2011 1:34 pm

Thank you JEMedia ! Indeed... Knowing how to speak english has always helped me in my life
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby Ron » Wed Mar 09, 2011 3:04 pm

I would love also to know what is your honest opinion about the website itself...

Hi Cristina ... I think you did a very nice job you should be very proud for I'm sure it took a lot of hard work. If I had to critique it I would have to say 1) Not to use the intro page but go directly to your home page, many people I feel get annoyed to have go that extra click. 2) Stark white background doesn't quite do it for me although I'm sure some may disagree. Thats about all I could think of for as I said you do good work.
Take Care & Good Luck
Ron
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby Aida » Wed Mar 09, 2011 4:57 pm

climax wrote:
... would love suggestions for improvement. I feel the website is kind of too full of pictures, but I can't decide what photos should be left out of the galleries... I would love to hear your critique and advice regarding this issue, and I would love also to know what is your honest opinion about the website itself... did it load fast? was it easy to navigate?
Cristina

I've just visited your website: it looks very professional & tastefully done.

It loaded fast, was easy to navigate. And I don't think it's too full of pictures. I wouldn't remove any of them, especially because the photos show prospective clients what they can expect from your services as a professional photographer as well as how you approach your photo taking sessions outside a studio. Or in your words:


The photo sessions are relaxed and fun, and happen at the place of your choice. Can be a park, downtown, your home, you name it!

I think the included photos illustrate very well what you've just said.

Just one minor thing that I noticed: in English we capitalize the names of nationalities and languages: thus Brazilian should be with a capital B

I see you have your website in both English and Portuguese. I was wondering if you're going to add Finnish as well.

Sua carreira parece estar indo de vento em popa. Que assim continue.

I take my hat off to you.
-aida
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must
carry it with us or we find it not." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby gpsmikey » Wed Mar 09, 2011 5:25 pm

Very well done Cristina !! A couple of things I would consider changing - on the page you get to when you click the link, I think I would put "click to enter" or something like that. On the "About", you had a statement
I’m here to help you creating those images you have on your mind, that will really portray the way you look at life.

I think that should be "create" - or maybe "I'm here to help you - creating those images ... " ? (where are our punctuation experts when we need them? ). I really liked your selection of images as showing a full cross section of what is available. Not sure how you get ladies in bathing suits up in Finland though :D I hope you do very well, I think you have a great approach. As far as "English" goes, we can't even agree between the North and South here how to speak it (and the King's English too ! - they drive on the wrong side of the road ! :? )

One other thing you might consider - I was glad to see you got the home page title set (how many bookmarks have I seen that say "home page" ... for what ???). Anyway, you might want to add your name in front of the title on the home page -- "Cristina Rijskamp - Your life in pictures"

mikey
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby moehler » Thu Mar 10, 2011 5:04 am

Cristina:

You really have some beautiful images on your site; It is great to see some other have given you some good feedback on your text. Something I ask a lot of people about their web sites is how are you expecting people to find it? Is all your traffic from word of mouth or are you looking for search engines to send traffic to you?

If it is that later, you probably will want to look at some Search Engine Optimization. Since you are just starting the site, it is the best time to consider looking at it. You are doing some things very well there, but I would recommend not using flash as the search engines don't do well with finding this content. I know this can be very disheartening to hear, but it will be struggle to rank high in the search engines with a Flash-based site. It can be done, but it takes a lot more work to do so. If you are still set and using Flash (and again the site looks great), you will want to get as many referral links to your site as possible.

To help you out, I posted a little article on my blog about your new launch. I didn't want to steal any images from your site, so the post doesn't have any photos. If you'd like to provide me a headshot or such, I'd be happy to add that, if you'd like. Feel free to comment on the post on my blog if you'd like, too.

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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby climax » Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:17 am

Ron wrote: Stark white background doesn't quite do it for me although I'm sure some may disagree

Ron, thank you for your feedback! But I didn't understand what you meant by stark white background... once more my limited knowledge of english :roll: . I don't remember having anything white in my site... Considering the first entrance page I'm still considering if I should keep it or not. You were the first one to say something about it so far. In my personal experience I always had a good reaction when I find sites with that... somehow creates a bit more expectation...

Aida, I will corretc the brazilian word and put it with Capital B. Thanks! Yes I have plans of having a finnish version as well, but not for now, because I still don't feel confident speaking finnish, and I thought having a finnish version would suggest my probable clients I'm fluent, and unfortunately that is not the case yet. Muito obrigada pelas suas palavras gentis!

Mikey, I agree with you and will change creating for create. I'm glad you liked my images. If I decide to keep the entrance page I'll consider adding a note click to enter somewhere. Thank you for your feedback!
moehler wrote: Is all your traffic from word of mouth or are you looking for search engines to send traffic to you?

Mark, thank you for all the interest you have always shown regarding my development as a photographer. I still remember the suggestions you gave me more than a year ago when I mentioned I wanted to create a site for my photography business. And if I didn't follow your suggestion is because I reached the conclusion I am going to focus on developing my site through word of mouth only. I have no interest in becoming the busiest photographer in Finland. On the contrary, I'm interested in developing nice relationships with my clients and becoming something like the old days "family doctor", or in this case the "family photographer". Another factor that led me to choose my own name as my domain avoiding too much search engine traffic to my site is for safety reasons... you see... I'm a woman working on my own, going to my client's homes carrying expensive equipment. So I do feel safer if this client came to me as an indication of someone else I know. But thank you so much for mentioning my site on your blog ! I loved it and would be happy to provide a picture for you to post overthere.

Thank you all so much for the time you spent giving me all this feedback.
Cristina
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby gpsmikey » Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:35 am

Hey, I'm old enough I still remember the "family doctor" making house calls at our house (on the other hand, my kids think I should still remember the dinosaurs too :evil: )

mikey
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby moehler » Thu Mar 10, 2011 12:28 pm

@Cristina:

I'm happy to help out. I hope it all goes well.

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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby HunnyB » Thu Mar 10, 2011 3:46 pm

Looks like you have some very good help already.
You are off to a great start. Looks good. :D
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Re: I finally have a website!

Postby climax » Thu Mar 10, 2011 3:47 pm

Thank you Hunny! :D
Cristina

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