After some months of futzing and puttering, I’m excited to launch my new landscape photography website, The Geography of Light. I’ve posted four collections of images, including What We Stand to Lose: Glaciers in a Warming World, some images from which I have posted to NPN for your feedback. This is not a commercial website and I do not plan to sell any type of service or product, rather I just am looking for an avenue to share the fruits of my creative efforts.
I would be very happy to hear your feedback on the website itself, as well as the four collections of images that I’ve thus far posted.
Thanks to all of you for your generous feedback on my photography over the past year or so, and for providing so inspiration to get out and (try!) to make ever better images.
Beautiful! Site is clean looking, simple and professional looking. And of course, the imaging is outstanding! Beautiful and compelling work! I even like the white/light theme as it allows your images to stand out.
I viewed yesterday and there was a navigational issue where the “next image” arrow within any of the galleries was located beneath the vertical scroll of thumbnails. But it appears to have been fixed/changed or what I saw yesterday was an anomaly.
It looks great, Jeff. Navigation worked perfectly for me - no issues with arrows, etc. The photos loaded relatively quickly, both the thumbnails and the larger views. I agree with Lon that the white background works well. Beautiful collections, well done!
@Lon_Overacker wrote: There was a navigational issue where the “next image” arrow within any of the galleries was located beneath the vertical scroll of thumbnails
Hi Jeff,
I just had the same issue that Lon mentioned. I could still use the left arrow and I was able to use the scroll wheel but the right arrow was unusable.
Other than that, wow! What a clean site and as Lon stated, the imagery is awesome.
Your title is great, “The Geometry of Light” is perfect for a photography website!
I really like the message of “What we stand to lose”, messaging like that is much needed in this era.
A wonderful job!! The opening statement is a very nice introduction, and the images are wonderful and well arranged.
There is an issue with some of the wider ones appearing to cover up the right arrow to go to the next one. The arrow is still there and clicking that area works, it’s just that the arrow is hidden. I’d hate to make the pictures any smaller. Maybe it could be embossed so it shows over both the white BG and a darker picture?
Hi Jeff, I think you did a great job on the website. It’s nice, clean, and easy to navigate and really showcases the images nicely.
Out of curiosity, what plugin did you use to create the galleries?
Weird, but the original issue of the right arrow beneath the vertical scrolling thumbs, I’m unable to reproduce.
But the other navigational thing Diane points out can be reproduced. It seems to be only on certain images that have a wider length:height ratio (more pano). AND this is I think the heart of the issue - it is dependent on your monitor size. I have 2 monitors, 27" and 24" . The larger monitor has no problem displaying and navigating to the “next” image as the arrow is visible. However, on the 24" monitor, some of the images overlap on top of the right nav arrow. To me, this tells me the software is not auto detecting the monitor and/or not auto resizing based on the monitor size. I agree with Diane that making the image smaller is not a good solution - and we should expect to have to do that with a given sw program (I’m assuming you’re not writing the code yourself.) Something to look into.
larger 27" monitor
Lastly, and I just noticed this. I was trying to see what your image sizes were. You’re got right-click disabled (ok, get that) but there is the “Visual Search” icon in the URC of each image. Below that when you hove is an “Edit” link. It brings up a screen to crop, adjust and then save?? Can a viewer actually crop and save an image? What is the function of this if not for you as site administrator? Of course I wasn’t going to attempt to save a modification, but am now curious if viewers are able to. Does it put saved images on a viewers “Light box” or something? Just curious. I’m sure you’re aware of the feature.
I have a 27" monitor and I’m seeing some of the “landscape format” images overlapping both the navigation icon and the gallery icon. It seems to vary with the aspect ratio – looks like all images are displaying at the same vertical size/
Hi Jeff. I don’t know much about what makes a website good or bad, but I enjoyed visiting yours. I like that you tied the images you take to your background as a geographer. The website looks clean. I like how you named all your images and they are beautiful. I had to laugh when you mentioned having to learn to work with the flatness of Minnesota. I moved to the mountains of Tennessee a few years back from the midwest. Don’t get me wrong, I love the mountains and there are beautiful places to photograph, but sometimes I miss the flatland just because I find it is easier to isolate a subject. I guess every place has beauty–even if that beauty is different. Thanks for sharing your site.
Thank you all very much for your feedback. I’m frustrated that so many of you are seeing with the formatting on different monitors. I am using Envira Gallery on a Word Press / Elementor design interface, and I have had numerous problems with both the regular and mobile versions. So far, technical support for Envira has been great, but I wish I could resolve these problems on my own! I’ll get back in touch with them again to see what might be corrupting the monitor recognition component - or to learn what I am just doing wrong. I’ll post again when I think I have a fix and ask you to test things on your ends.
Lisa, being here has definitely taught me to look at smaller scenes. Convenient that “small scenes” are an increasingly popular style of landscape photography these days!
Hi Jeff - I think you have made an amazing start to your website. I have been developing sites and apps in WP for 20+ years, so I understand the frustration. If you have good support from the plugin developer, that is key, as often unwanted behaviors are actually a bug that they need to fix “under the hood”. Stuff breaks all the time due to software version incompatibilities, etc. Do not get discouraged in that regard.
I also like that you are telling your story, and tying in your geography with your images. I know you said here that you are just looking to showcase your photography, and not have it be commercial in any way, but you may also want to indicate that on your website. The first thing I did was click around to see if it was possible to purchase any of the images and then was not sure if I was just not looking in the right place, etc.
I have a friend that photographs with similar intentions as you - you may want to check out his site at indopacificimages.com Take a look at his opening statement about his purpose- something similar may serve you well.
Some UX stuff:
Consider having your “Collections” page be your home page. I found your home page to be pretty, but ultimately a bit frustrating as I had to click around to get out of it and into the “good stuff”. To me the home page is currently sort of a barrier to what I really want to see.
Another UX thing to consider is that people scan / read differently online than they do in print. Generally they prefer to read lines that are less than 72 characters and paragraphs of six lines or less. There needs to be sufficient contrast between the text color and the page (in your case I would go darker for the text). Also, you might consider adding vertical space between your text lines. Here is one good guide for UX in text: UX Best Practices to Improve Text
Amber, this is fantastically helpful information. You are really generous to share your expertise. I’ll play around with your suggestions and see how I feel about them. On first pass, I think they all sound right on. Thank you, thank you!
