It's my turn!

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Jo

Jo

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Jo Fisher
Edit My Images
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:lol: Lord knows you must all be sick to death of reviewing peoples sites. But I have been working flat out on this all week, through sickness and the odd day out.

This is my none flash site. My goal eventually is to have my flash site up and running, but give people the option to click through to this site if they don't like, or can't see flash. Though I am more impressed with the way this has turned out than I thought I would be :$

So here you have it, the reason I have been mostly MIA recently:

www.jo-fisher.com

I would like honest crit, but please be gentle at the same time :thumbs:

Thank you in advance!

................

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank a couple of special people too. Chillimonster, for helping me get over a hurdle or two, and Susie for being patient with me ;) Both of you have a credit for my handmade cards section of the site, where you can either pick 5 cards each with my images, or you can mail me you own pics and I will pop yours on instead.

...............
 
I really like that each time you refresh the gallery listing screen, the thumbnails change... keeps it fresh!
 
Its clean, tidy, loads fast and is easy to navigate, Jo
Thats all I look for (ask for) in a website :thumbs:
 
Very nice and professional looking:thumbs::thumbs:
 
Your site looks terrific, works extremely well, and is a joy to navigate.

A few points of contructive criticism, and these are minor:

1. I would take the gallery off the front page and make the link to it bolder. Otherwise it is just a duplication of your gallery tab. It also makes me scroll the screen downwards and detracts from the very nice and large changing image.

2. On the 'About' tab and in a couple of other places you talk about yourself in the third-party i.e. 'Jo does...' or 'Jo is...'. On the front page you say 'My...' which is much more personal and appealing.

3. Also on the 'About' tab you say 'Her physical state restricts her....'. I find this too cold and third party. As a reader I'd like to know a bit more about you and would warm to you more if you said something like ' I as born with / I have had xxx since I was yy years old, and have enjoyed learning and developing my skills in photography to expand my horizons and bring much joy to myself and, I hope, others'. I'm not very good at wording this stuff, but hopefully you get my drift.

Honestly, though, this is one of the best presented, simplest to use sites I've seen for a while on here.
 
Lovely site filled with great photos and easy to get around. I do agree about the use of two different ways of talking about yourself. It's not a personal profile or CV, so you can talk about yourself as "I", use "my" and drop the third person references to Jo.
 
Jo, i wasn't expecting anything like that. (Not knocking you by the way) You made that all yourself? that is pretty impressive :thumbs:
 
Jo, that is really nice............:thumbs:

Refreshing, not over complicated and well thought out.

I like it.
 
Thanks all :D

I see what you mean about the 'About' page now. To be truthful I didn't know what to put in there. I did a little web search and looked at a few people sites on the first page. That was the kind of thing they had on their 'About' pages. But you're right, it does look a little odd. I'll work on that in a minute.

Thanks for such a positive reaction so far folks :thumbs:
 
Right! I've changed my 'About' page. I hope that makes for an easier read :shrug:
 
i like! :) ....did you do it in dreamweaver via html?
 
Nope it was much simpler than that, the time I took to set everything up, was mainly taken by my image resizing and what not, but that was my own personal choice. Everything I did, I did on site. It really was a breeze to understand.

I highly recommend www.photium.com/. You can have a free months trial. I paid up for a few months though, which meant I got my domain name straight away. Also if you have any problems at all, if you contact their services during the day you can literally have an email conversation as they answer you straight away. When I was setting up my account I had a guy called Will initially email me, and within 30 minutes we had exchanged more than 25 emails! Really excellent service :D
 
Love the site Jo, nice and easy on the eye. I would lose the big bold click here for handmade cards link and rely either on the menu or make the end of the previous sentence a hyperlink instead. I also noticed when you view the handmade cards page the link is www.jo-fisher.com/page4034.html whereas links are ...links.html, etc. Curious why that is.

Lastly, I would suggest removing the bit about restricted mobility on the about page. It's almost like saying here I am but I can't help you unless i can be wheelchair bound. I am also curious what condition you have that puts you in that position (feel free to pm if you'd rather not say in public, or to not say anything at all...

Keep up the good work! :)
 
I'm not sure why the page link is what it is for the handmade cards :shrug: I just copied it from the address bar when I did the code for the link. You were right about that link though. It looks much better making the end of the sentence a hyperlink instead :thumbs:

As for the other, well I've just done away with that part all together. No one needs to know my situation really, so best just not to mention it :)

Thanks again everyone so far, this is a big help so keep the crit coming! ;)
 
Jo said:
Right! I've changed my 'About' page. I hope that makes for an easier read :shrug:
Click to expand...


That's splendid now. The whole site is a treat from start to finish. I'll remember photium for the next time I want to create a webiste. clikpic is good too, once you have mastered the structure.
 
Hello Jo
just looked at the site
pretty darn good IMHO :clap::thumbs::clap:

odd thing on the contacts page
the bit labelled "Question" has a strange comment next to it
is that intended or did I miss something?

well done you! :thumbs:
 
It's a very nice site. Uncluttered, good looking, easy to navigate. I like the way the image on the home page changes and I like the way the thumbnails are different each time you refresh. It prevents it from getting stale.

I can't for the life of me work out why you would want a Flash site. This is fine. Build a Flash site, annoy half your visitors. Leave as is, they'll all be happy.

A couple of the usual minor nit-picks:

1. I agree with Defiance that it would be better not to have the gallery on the home page. How about making the home page image a link to the gallery?

2. The idea of supplying handmade cards for other photographers is an unusual one, but it's buried. Nobody would find it unless they knew it was there. If that's a service you want to promote, I think you should give it more prominence.
 
That is one of the best sites I've seen in a while, easy on the eye, easy to navigate and excellent images.
 
I really like it. Clean, simple, definiety the way to go.

One of the things i dislike about Photium sites though is the fact you can 'add comments' to the pics, making it more like a forum/flickr. I find this a bit odd on a site that is 'selling' your skills as a photographer. The ability to leave a comment "great service, loved the greetings card, arrived quickly" is in keeping. But I dont think people should be able to leave comments about the images.
 
Jo said:
Nope it was much simpler than that, the time I took to set everything up, was mainly taken by my image resizing and what not, but that was my own personal choice. Everything I did, I did on site. It really was a breeze to understand.

I highly recommend www.photium.com/. You can have a free months trial. I paid up for a few months though, which meant I got my domain name straight away. Also if you have any problems at all, if you contact their services during the day you can literally have an email conversation as they answer you straight away. When I was setting up my account I had a guy called Will initially email me, and within 30 minutes we had exchanged more than 25 emails! Really excellent service :D
Click to expand...

Well done Jo, it looks great and everything you say about Photium is right, Will is brilliant, to be fair I have sent emails in the middle of the night and they has been an answer in my inbox when I get up !

I built my site using there set up and still find it a pleasure to use although I am finding it wanting in a couple of areas now, I am going to pen an e-mail to them when I get chance, nothing major though !
Mine is in my Sig.
 
68lbs said:
I really like it. Clean, simple, definiety the way to go.

One of the things i dislike about Photium sites though is the fact you can 'add comments' to the pics, making it more like a forum/flickr. I find this a bit odd on a site that is 'selling' your skills as a photographer. The ability to leave a comment "great service, loved the greetings card, arrived quickly" is in keeping. But I dont think people should be able to leave comments about the images.
Click to expand...

You can disable that function in different galleries, in fact of different pics I think !
 
Having been out most of the day, I've just read your comments and agree. So I have removed the gallery thumbnails from the from page, and also disabled the comments function.


mmcp42 said:
odd thing on the contacts page
the bit labelled "Question" has a strange comment next to it
is that intended or did I miss something?
Click to expand...

You follow the instructions. It's a bit similar to typing in the text on an image you see one some sites, it prevents spamming I believe :)
 
StewartR said:
2. The idea of supplying handmade cards for other photographers is an unusual one, but it's buried. Nobody would find it unless they knew it was there. If that's a service you want to promote, I think you should give it more prominence.
Click to expand...

I would like this to be a bit less buried, but I'm not sure how to do this without over doing it. Any suggestions? :shrug:

Thanks once again everyone. Your kind words have really given me a nice boost. I really appreciate it :D
 
Excellent work Jo!,

You've put a lot of hard work and effort into the layout and content of the site and it truly shows.

:thumbs:

Chris
 
Well, I've found something that could be simplified:
http://www.jo-fisher.com/photo1312338.html

There's the << and >> arrows for previous and next image, but the images just below the photo have the same functionality, they're more illustrative and with the sizes you use, they could very well replace the << and >> arrows.
That way most people could actually see the 'Also in:...' stripe without having to scroll much.

I'd also suggest moving the 'Order a print' link opposite to Sheep 1. Putting those two into a dark grey box just below the navigation with a small margin of, say, 5px could work well and it would be more clear what it actually is.
 
Well I love it, very simple to navigate and lovely images.

Thanks so much for your offer, patient is not normally a term thats aplied to me!!!
 
I like your site Jo, wish I could design a site that slick.
 
i'm with slapo, the site looks really fresh and easy to navigate... some excellent work in there aswell... keep it up...
 
What a fantastic site! I love it (and I particularly like the eagle with his beak open)

one little tiny thing:
"This is purely down to quality control, and me wanting you to have nothing but the best quality prints"

perhaps "This is purely down to quality control; I want you to have nothing but the best quality prints." is better? dunno. Your form of words seems slightly off target to me.

B.
 
Very easy to navigate and the content is great, well done! :thumbs:
 
Jo said:
:lol: Lord knows you must all be sick to death of reviewing peoples sites. But I have been working flat out on this all week, through sickness and the odd day out.

This is my none flash site. My goal eventually is to have my flash site up and running, but give people the option to click through to this site if they don't like, or can't see flash. Though I am more impressed with the way this has turned out than I thought I would be :$

So here you have it, the reason I have been mostly MIA recently:

www.jo-fisher.com

I would like honest crit, but please be gentle at the same time :thumbs:

Thank you in advance!

................

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank a couple of special people too. Chillimonster, for helping me get over a hurdle or two, and Susie for being patient with me ;) Both of you have a credit for my handmade cards section of the site, where you can either pick 5 cards each with my images, or you can mail me you own pics and I will pop yours on instead.

...............
Click to expand...

lovely site,im looking at setting a site up with this company.looks pretty good to me. Now one question nothing to do with your site. Your eagle shots did you use layers for the black background? only i got a parrot and want to do a shot for my folks. and ive always wondered how this is done. thanks jo :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:
 
nice one... dont you think itll be much better for the homepage (index.html) if it has no scroll down, just a full page with no scroll down for the homepage is very good idea :)
 
plus, the navigation bar (buttons), itd be much better if make it full from the right to left of the windows cos it seems like it is not finished! heh

by the way, im a multimedia student so id say im resourceful with this things and i like your website :) do the 'no-no' scroll down for index.html and gallery.html and edit the navigation bar, make it full. heh :)
 
Hi Jo,
tried to click on your site last night (Sat) nothing happened so I gave up and tried again tonight (Sun).
Wow!
Your pictures on the home page are excellent and keep the interest to see what's next!
Had a quick browse around the galleries and you are very talented with your work.
Website design is not everyones forte but I think you have a cracker here..well done.
 
I love it. Very slick and I like the changing photo on the first page as they immediately grab your attention. Very asthetically pleasing.
 
Dominic5749 said:
lovely site,im looking at setting a site up with this company.looks pretty good to me. Now one question nothing to do with your site. Your eagle shots did you use layers for the black background? only i got a parrot and want to do a shot for my folks. and ive always wondered how this is done. thanks jo :thumbs::thumbs::thumbs:
Click to expand...

Two of the Bald Eagle shots were taken at Long Sutton Butterfly and Wildlife park, and the little shed the eagle was perched in front of was painted a dark brown colour. The day we went was a very bright and contrasty day, so the background appeared to be black on the shots. It was luck really. If you want the same kind of background for your parrot, the easiest thing to do would be to use some black background and have the bird sit and pose as far away from the background as possible, so you can't see creases in material or anything. That's what I do with my macro shots and it works lovely. I'm sure you could process any shot to put a black background in, but with birds feathers it would be time consuming to get the PP right. HTH


Thanks once again everyone ;)
 
Wow, I really like it. single niggle: did you disable right clicking? (irritating as i can't open in new tab for FF) or is my PC on the blink again.
 
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