Where to go for peer/market review of portfolio?

Uh.

HELllllllloooooo

so if I wanted to see your web site I would go where?

If you look up you'll see little buttons that say "Profile", "PM" and "WWW".

Click on the WWW thingy and it will take you there!

great site

exceptional, do you do geezers from the west?

I took a photography course as part of my BFA years ago. All the rules of composing shots youve broken and I love em. The balance you achieve with the placements of multiple exposures and the use of B/W and color. I screw around with a digital camera but I truly dont have its capabilities fully explored > How did you do the B/W kid with the color tomatoes? izzat gonna requre me to learn Photoshop?

In my project site in SA , there are signature fossil areas that Id like to do in color , with the surrounding rosk starta left B/W. The tomato shot is what I want to do.

Thank you all so much.

I spent a fortune learning the rules. I think you have to know the rules to really be able to break them. Some people don't like it one bit. Other's think it is cool. That is one of the reasons I'm trying to find ways to get feedback -- it will tell me how to market the service.

I know that there are some other A2Kers looking for ways to get feedback too so I thought I would plunge in.

Do you have Photoshop, farmerman? It really isn't hard to do that stuff. I can tell you how or I can do it for you (maybe) if you send me the photo (some photos don't work so well). There is an easy way that looks kind of crappy and a hard way that looks pretty good. PM me a photo and I will play with it then tell you how I did it, if it works. There has to be some contrast and I'm not that familiar with rocks.

Ill search through my shots and when I get my new computer (Only my laptop has Wxp, my desktop still has an early XP and its unable to handle even newer pdf's. Ill have the new desktop before end of summer . I keep a tight hold on whats on our computers since we do forensic work as well and I dont wanna break any company rules that Ive originally set up.

Boomer, I dont mean to sound like a sycophant but your style is great. Im particularly aware of design elements that you incorporate in your stuff like weighted centers of focus, implied odd numbers of stuff. showing partial images. I wish my photo prof could see your stuff. I wish you were tecjhing when I took photog using a Minolta XGM.
Youre great. Now when I post and youre on line My picture of you is a young Maggie Bourke White but with color

You know I like your work, Boomer. I'm not much help for figuring how to market in your area, or how to get local feedback on your website, which is very cool and likeable at the same time.

Thank you all for taking a look.

I also posted the link in a parenting forum and a photography forum. The parents were very enthusiastic and the photographers didn't like them very much at all.

Interesting. I'm not sure what to make of that but I'm happy that the parents liked them as they will be the ones that I'm wooing. One photo (boy with carrots) in particular brought a rave from a parent while the same photo got a "weird" from a photographer.

Here the comments are more about style.

All feedback is good feedback. It really helps me crystalize my approach.

Thanks again!

I spent a chunk of the day making changes based on some of the comments I have received.

One interesting comment that I received refrenced that my pictures were too happy and presented an idealized version of childhood. I wonder if this accounts for the difference between the parent's liking them and the photographer's not. What do you think?

That would totally make sense. Parents want to capture memories -- especially good ones. Photographers are looking for aesthetics, in which "happy" is more boring. (This was a huge bone of contention for me when I was in art school, and I started what turned out to be a pretty interesting thread about this on another forum -- the idea that art has to be dark to be legitimate. That beauty and happiness make something un-art.)

I love the pictures you've taken, boomer, all of them!!

However, if this is going to be your professional portfolio, I would
invest in a commercial website with your name as URL. It only cost
a fraction, and the creative display is much more diversified.
I'll PM you the site of my friend, whose primary models are her two
sons, but I really like her layout.

As for advertisement: elementary schools and preschools are a great
target (their official pictures usually suck). So are children's shoe stores,
children' clothes boutiques, and the YMCA for kids.

I'd love to see that thread, soz, or have the topic taken up for further debate on a new thread. It is really the first time I've come across such thinking. Of course, I went to "technical" school after realizing that art school and I were a real mismatch.

Thanks for sending the site, CJane. I will have to get on Mr. B's computer to look at it - mine must not have enough stuff to view it correctly.

I know I need a better site, one with my own name attached. I can do this with the site I have I just have to have a domain name. I need to call my B-I-L and get one set up. Then I can at least use this one until I learn how to do a new one.

The world is not meant for us computer impaired people!

I've been trying to get this whipped into some kind of shape so I can at least start handing out some business cards and that kind of thing. I'm going to a big children's charity deal the first of next month. I know most of the people but haven't seen them in a while. I know they'll be asking what I've been up to and I thought it might make for some good networking.

Any port(al) in a storm!

Website comments (I think you already know I'm mad for your work)

Is there a way that you wouldn't have to see all of the quotos/portraits/collages when you go to that page/option? I'm finding some of the compositions don't 'work' for me when they're together like that. Perhaps because your sense of composition is better/strikingly different than what a basic web page can offer. It's creating a weird visual dissonance effect for me.

If they have to stay together on the front page - could the portraits be mixed up differently. The first thing that strikes me on that page is that the top row is all with the cut-off head effect - which I like, but not all lined up like that.

mmmmmmm, the quotos page - work in progress, right? I'll wait.

It would be great if each page opened to what happens when you click on a photo - the sorta slide show.

Good feedback, ehBeth, all of those things had vaguely bothered me but hadn't coalesced into anything specific. I agree with all of that.

When I was researching small websites I saw one (and I can't remember which! I can look if you want) that allowed you to have images do a continuous fade-in/ fade-out thing. So if you go to the "Portraits" page, for example, there would be a continuous loop of various portraits, then maybe a row of 'em real small at the bottom that viewers could click on to look at a certain pic. That way, all of the photos/ quotos/ etc. could be seen on their own terms, but there would also be the option for viewers to look at just one that captures their interest/ have control over the process.

The forum that I had that art thread on is defunct (not Abuzz, another one), but I can start a new version here.

Oh that is good feedback, ebeth, thank you!

I went and looked at the site with "ebeth eyes" and I see exactly what you are talking about - instead of being distinctive or interesting it kind of conks you on the head with sameness.

I'm going to play around with it a little bit more but I'm thinking I need professional help!

Okay....

Changing it into a slideshow turned out to be pretty easy. I will need to figure out how to resize a few of the photos or I will have to resize and repost. I think this does look better and it doesn't conk you on the head.

When you get a few minutes let me know what you think!