Critique my site?

[summeresque]

I've just finished revamping my website and would like some constructive feedback on it. Functionality, design, etc.? The link is:

Summer Owens Photography

Thanks!

[junglebear]

Very nice website, it has a streamlined feel and clean layout, no clutter nothing unnecessary included. I like the title design as well.

One thing I would say is that the bio does not seem professional at all. Now I don't know what you're intending to do with this site, but if you're intending to 'go professional' you'd need something with a more serious tone. If it's just your personal site then no problem!
Also, why 'summerowens(at)gmail(dot)com', is that to stop spam or something?

Joe

[summeresque]

Yeah, I'm not going professional anytime soon (if ever). And yeah, the email thing stops spam bots from just clicking on your email link and sending things. It certainly doesn't prevent all spam but I've found it does help.

[DannyF1966]

The only thing I'd be tempted to change is to have a slower transition from one photo to the next on the slideshows. Nothing too slow, maybe just a half-second dissolve, but the way it's set up at the moment the photos seem to "blip" too quickly from one to the next. Also, see if having each photo displayed for a second or two longer improves the feel of it, I sometimes felt that no sooner had I started to appreciate a picture, it had gone!

Other than that minor quibble, a very good looking site indeed. I like the clean lines and the fact you let the pictures speak for themselves.

Edit: another thing... I've got my screen set to a very high resolution (1600*1200) and even then I had to scroll down to see the slideshow properly. Scrolling down meant that the navigation menu disappeared off the top of the screen - maybe having it down one side, next to the slideshow, will be better.

[OsmosisStudios]

Are you sure? The last time I did as asked on here I got quite the earful...

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*By continuing to read this post you agree not to take the comments contained herein personally or as an attack of any kind. The comments following this disclaimer are constructive criticism only and represent the opinion of this user.
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Assuming yes, read below

Initial impressions:
_Clean, concise, streamlined. It looks good.
_Flash was quick loading, unobtrusive and NOT the basis on which the site is built.
_Overall design: I'd be tempted to move the menu below the sample images in the top right. I feel its just too far off the page. Either that, or slide it into the seperator bar, and make it just a tiny bit wider.
_Menu order: The menu is, in my eyes, in the wrong order. Should read Home--Portfolio--Bio (About)--Blog--Contact.
_Title Bar: I'd change the order to it being YOUR NAME | Your Location | Your business | other Meta Tags

Home page:
_Works perfectly fine. Slideshow is a good item. The only thing I find lacking is text: there really isn't any. While I agree that the flash item is the important part, I'd be tempted to make it smaller, push it to the left and put a small paragraph of text on the right describing what you are and so on.

Bio:
_Looks good, well layed out.
_I Don't like using the third person though. Feels impersonal.

Blog:
_Someone has FINALLY connected their blog and site stylistically, content and tone wise. Thank you for that
_Only grip: I'd go with the same background colour on the blog as on the site (instead of the turquoise thats there now)

Portfolio:
_Looks good, though I was a bit confused whether the images shown were individual images or galleries. Once the rollover appeared, though, it was clear
_Individual galleries are fine, though I dont know if I like them having the thumbs on the left instead of the bottom. I also dont like how some have 2 columns, some only 1.
_Content is good as well. The editing isn't to my taste, but if it's your style, then it's fine. There are some images I might not include as they aren't technically that great.
_I do find that loading separate galleries takes a while though.

Contact:
_You need a bit more than that on the contact page. Incite people to contact you. Give them options. I'd also make your e-mail address a link in a mailto:

Overall:
_Clean design and effective use of flash, if a bit slow to load at times
_Excellent integration of the blog
_Not all images are, in my very humble opinion, portfolio worthy.
_Only some small changes to be perfect in my eyes.

[summeresque]

Thank you all for your responses and insight!

[Rolling Stone]

Os says, "Whew!"
I liked it. Streamlined, no clutter and easy to navigate.
I suppose I have the same issues of the flash as those above. Maybe a little smaller and slower. I think I'd like it better if it continued through all of your photos. Instead of having to coerce it to the next batch of photos. Not sure if you can do anything about that. And could be a clear case of pure laziness on my part.
All in all, I enjoyed my walk through., Well done.

[DannyF1966]

Another thought - gmail is actually very very good at filtering out the spam - in fact I forward emails from my own domain into my google account, and then I use Outlook to pick up from google. I haven't seen any spam in my inbox for ages, so don't be worried about putting your full gmail address on there...

[Athas_orm]

Just a note regards gmail. You can set it up to fetch mail from you domain names mail.

I think this looks a lot more professional. Then you can set up summer@summerowens.com and still read messages in your gmail.

EDIT:
After I started typing this I noticed that your entire site is served from blogspot. This isn't possible in this case, IMHO if you want to make the site look really professional I would consider buying your own domain name and hosting. However If you already have a lot of traffic through to your blog. Its probably a bad idea to remove it.

EDIT2:
I'm on a flaky connection so I haven't been able to verify the content yet. The flash times out arround 20% for me.

However the one time It did load. I clicked on the image of the duck in your header assuming that would load it within the flash file. Obviously I was wrong. It may be pretty cool if these were connected.

Wes

[Jim Poor]

The site looks pretty good, but I found a few things that put me off.

1. The slideshow navagation controls on the home page either don't work or are really slow to respond. The slideshow transistions too slowly for me, so I wanted to move forward at my own pace and couldn't.

2. Using (at) and (dot) in an email address is OK for a forum or something but looks realy cheesy on a website. Either integrate a secure contact form (I think you can get one for blogspot) or just use the email address and get a good spam filter.

3. I'm not a fan of gmail accounts for contact just as I'm not a fan of Yahoo accounts and the like. They don't inspire much confidence. You can get a really inexpensive hosting account and use it just for the email address if you don't want to actually host your site there.

4. I don't care for a blogspot hosted site and would prefer a personal domain. That said, for what it is, the site is OK.

5. I can't stand it when folks talk about themselves in the third person on their own site.