My New Website...

Hi Everyone and Happy New Year!
Well, I (finally...) have a website!!! :D:D
This is my first ever venture in this field and the site is not quite finished - I have to tweak the 'Contact' page for example - but I would really appreciate any feedback - any links that are not working, for example, or should I add my contact details to every page? (I am striving to keep the site as minimal as possible). Is my copyright statement strong enough? Is the text too pale? (Again, minimal is the key...)...or anything else that strikes you!
Thanks so much!
Best regards to all,
Nicki

www.abirdseyeview.co.uk

It's fantastic! I love everything about it!!:DSuper Congrats!

Big Congrats on a very fine volume of work, Nicki! I love your creative eye and the minimalist style works well here. For what its worth, I found myself wishing I could scroll from one image to another, but other than that, I think the site effectively evokes the wonder of your vision.
You go girl!
Katie

Thanks so much Denise!!
Best,
Nicki

Katie, thanks so much for your kind words. I did think that scrolling might be an option and might decide to change it at some point. For now though, I just wanted to get the site up and running...:eek:
Best,
Nicki

Hi, Nicki. Looks very nice and a great fit to showcase your style. A few things I would do:

First, I would disable the download file link on the larger images that pop up from the gallery. You don't want to make it too easy for people to do this.

Second, given that there are pictures of things other than birds, you might put some text in the about section mentioning your love of photographing other things nature as well.

Third, I would change your e-mail address to one matching your domain name -- e.g., nicki@abirdseyeview.co.uk. I think this always looks more professional than an address with yahoo or gmail, and I'm sure your hosting package comes with at least one e-mail address. Also, this can help you to quickly identify print orders and other traffic directly from your site rather than having it mix in with all of your other e-mail.

Those of course are minor things. I like everything else -- color scheme is good, text is easy to read, the site loads quickly, and it's easy to navigate.

Happy New Year!
Greg

Fnatastic work Nicki , lovely collection of images

Greg and Harshad, thanks so much!
Greg, I like the idea of the separate email address and I shall certainly get the download link disabled. I shall also review my statement as well - great advice - thanks so much!
Happy New Year to you too and big congrats on your 'Nature's Best' success.
Best,
Nicki

Congratulations, Nicki. Site looks lovely. Good advice from Greg.

Hi, Nicki. Glad the ideas were helpful, and again, the site really looks great!

Thanks for the congrats on Nature's Best. It was cool to get that.

Cheers,
Greg

Nicki:

Lovely images. I wish I could scroll through the individual images within a portfolio, one after the other. As is, the enlarged images blocks the small thumbnails beneath it, and I also couldn't find a way to easily advance through the images one after another.

Cheers

Randy

Tony and Randy, thanks so much for your feedback.
Randy, Katie had the same thought as you as regards the scrolling - I might well add that to the site - I just wanted to get the thing live!! :eek:
Best,
Nicki

Great looking www Nicki! I agree with Greg regarding the downloading. I right-clicked on an image and was given the option to print it! You don't want that! I don't have my own www and use Smugmug which allows me to "right click protect" if I wish. Also, a very minor thing, I noticed on your home page that your title and signature lines weren't centered with each other, very minor but it jumped out at me.

I also resorted to watermarking my images for fear of theft thru "screen shot" downloading. The watermarks are a distraction but does give a bit more protection from theives stealing your images and using them on there own www's or blogs etc!

Dan, good to hear from you! Actually I did consider watermarking the images - our Camera Club galleries have this facility - but I think that I'll leave that one for now. You are right about the alignment on the home page - that'll have to be fixed!! And the 'right click protect'...
Best regards,
Nicki

I loved the site, the photography was great and so was the narrative. I am impressed with the phrasing and imaging. I plan to give it a detailed look this weekend, you have honored birds - well done.

Best, J$

Jeff, thank you so much - would welcome comments on anything that occurs to you if you do get a chance to have a detailed look. :)
Best,
Nicki

Nicki,

Nice beginning. To continue on what others have said. The text,being light gray on a white background is hard to read on my laptop screen. I suggest you darken the text.

Right click disable is useless--only stops the clueless. If you can see it, you can copy it. With things like the digital orphan act moving along, without your copyright, name and web address (minimum) on the image, people can and will steal images and use them for many things.

The icons are not full image. Thus subjects are cut off and that looks bad. E.g. the seals in particular and birds wings are clipped. Initially I skipped images because the thumbnails look bad so I assumed the main images looked bad too. The images are pretty small but take a while to load (few seconds). Are your images higher resolution and you are resizing on the fly? If so, it is adding to the load time.

Roger

Elegant and beautiful, Nicki! It all fits together beautifully. ;)

Jules and Roger, thanks so much. Roer, your feedback is much appreciated and will be given due consideration!
Best,
Nicki

Like it Nicki. Well done. some good advice above and difficult to think of anything extra to add. (a blog and links will be good...:) ) Well done.

Thanks David - wil be adding links at some point but really don't have time to blog... :D

Hi Nicki, did you use a web service for this site and if so would you mind sharing?

Nicki,

A lovely and refreshing site that is different to many.

Regards, Alan.

Hi Nicki
Congratulations on the new website. It is absolutely brilliant, unique, and very creative. Love the soft ambience. Having seen some of these images as singles, I am amazed at how well the sets of images work together to create something that is more than just the sum of the parts.
I also found the website to be a wonderful photographic inspiration.

Thanks
Gail

Alan and Gail, thank you so much for your lovely words - your comments really mean a lot to me. :)
Jamie, I'll check with the guy who helped me with site. I think that the answer is yes (:o), but I'll double check and PM you.
Best,
Nicki