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Building A Photography Website
Pt 1 - Why The Web?
By Jeremy Cuff
These days the whole planet seems to be getting itself online. Many photographers and photojournalists, whether professional or amateur have already made the leap and many more are considering it. Those who've been online for a while may well have considered or implemented a redesign of their site - ideas age quickly on the internet. In this, the first of a series of short articles, we discuss the building blocks of developing and maintaining a web presence…
Any photographer or photojournalist who is serious about what he or she is doing probably needs a website. A look on the "members sites" section of the BSOUP website links page suggests that many underwater photographers have already reached that conclusion.
The internet is vast. So much is already there. Much more is yet to come. We depend on it, shop on it, run our businesses on it, seek entertainment from it and do our research on it. It panders to all tastes, no matter how mainstream or obscure.
If you're a business, a web address can often be as important as a telephone number. It's a mirror of society itself. Good neighbourhoods, bad neighbourhoods. Tidy houses, untidy houses. Well kept gardens, overgrown gardens. Good taste, bad taste.
In a sense, the internet is "alive" - a living, breathing, evolving entity, developing in harmony with an individual's own progress and growth, and that of society in general.
Unlike say a newspaper, websites inhabit "real-time" - changing, building and improving at the whims of the sites owner. They can be updated monthly, weekly, daily, hourly or at whatever interval deemed suitable.
A good website inspires confidence. It's a first impression, and first impressions count. And rightly or wrongly, it says something about the person or persons behind the site. Remember, in this networked age, a website is often the first thing that anyone will see about an individual or company. So it has to be good, right?
But what constitutes a good website? It's an obvious question, but very difficult to answer. Wherever there is subjectivity, simplistic catch-all answers do not provide the most sensible approach.
I think that it's probably more rational to alert the prospective photographer wishing to get online, or an individual aiming to improve their existing web presence, to some of the common pitfalls and decisions that may be encountered along the way. So hopefully, in this series of articles, I can assist by posing relevant questions and scenarios that will need consideration.
A web presence is an opportunity to showcase your work to anybody who might be interested, anywhere. It's a chance to get your point across and to share your work with others. As a global media, there are potentially a lot of lookers. Of course, with so much out there online, you still have to be found, but that's for another article.
Ask yourself which websites you find easy to use and inspiring, and replicate it on your own. It could be that a good website is what you think is a good website. Ask yourself what you find inherently attractive and off putting about different websites - and therein might lie the answer as to direction in which you'll work. Web design is not a rigid, one dimensional pursuit - there are infinite possibilities.
But for all the blue sky thinking and creativity that you may wish to unleash, I think there are some rules of thumb that are crucial to a satisfactory end result. Practicality is massively important, as a web surfer's patience has been proven to be extremely short in numerous studies.
Although the advent of broadband has alleviated some of the modem related download problems, it is best to avoid "flash" animation extravaganzas that were common during the "first wave" of websites, which often prevents easy access to the areas of interest. It's essential to let people get to the bit they're interested in quickly or else they might give up.
Web design is a fast moving show and sites that looked good three or four years ago can look horribly dated today. For example, huge amateurish looking text hasn't stood the test of time and creates the impression of being archaic and out of date. Web surfers these days expect well presented and informative sites with simple, easy to use navigation. If a site is anything less, they'll most likely be unimpressed and look elsewhere.
Another example of online faux pas are sites that won't fit onto a standard screen - irritating to the user and giving the impression that little thought has gone into it. Out of date information is also guaranteed to send the web surfer looking for something better. Other internet gaffes include sites that open screen on top of screen - are you still on the same website and how do you get back to the homepage? You'll doubtless have some of your own internet irritations if you regularly use the web - if you have, avoid putting them into your own site.
But do you need your own website?
Only you can answer that question. Personally, I see more reasons for it than against, but that's just me. Think about it - it's available 24/7. It never closes. It's always there. It's accessible to the world.
In the next edition, we’ll look at getting the ball rolling - choosing content, selecting and working with a designer, site functionality and forward planning.
Summer 2006
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