![]() ![]() I suspect the underlying problem is that the UI designers see picturesĪs unimportant. Mouse over a picture, and the caption drops into the picture area convenient in terms of access, admittedly-but why put it on top of the image? Couldn't it just as easily pop out just above the image? I don't understand why this is so common on the web: it's like looking at a picture in a museum and having someone step right in front of you to tell you something about it. Worse, on Simon's site the navigation features crowd not only all around the pictures, but into them as well. ![]() It's not for me to say people shouldn't put their copyright notices in the image area, although I don't like the practice: anything in the way of the picture is bad in my book. Secondly, the pictures are defaced by a copyright notice. First of all, the pictures are too small. Especially if the first picture takes an eternity to load, I'm outta there). It's not the worst I've ever seen (maybe one site in every ten or twenty chases me away with the pure awful badness of its user interface. Simon's site is a convenient case in point. However, the other overriding impression I'm left with whenever I surf many photographers' sites in one sitting is that maybe half of the sites seem to be actively working against my desire to see the pictures there. I hasten to emphasize that I don't mean to criticize Simon's photographs I agree with Jenny Rose. In the "Commentariat" post, a reader named Jenny Rose nominated a site by a photographer named Simon Robinson as being worthy of attention. I'm sorry a practice like that didn't get to be web-conventional early on. But can't we exercise a little creativity on the nature and labels of the piles? We're supposed to be creative people, after all.Īnd give me a tenset at the outset. Granted, people need some way to sort pictures into meaningful piles-you can't lump it all into one immense heap. (They could usually simply be labeled "Pictures I've taken that look just like other pictures I've seen.") Which, four times out of five, with headers like that, is going to be generic and imitative. I haven't seen a single picture, and I'm already a bit prejudiced against the work. I don't tend to like, and don't much trust, photographs that can readily be sorted into pat categories. Worse, I might find something like this under a "Gallery" menu header: ![]() If I'm surfing fast, my next move might be to leave. And still have the same problem.don't know where to go next to get a handle on that photographer. The legend says "Just a few snaps of my favorite auntie at her anniversary party! We had tons of fun." ![]() Say, "Ted and Alice." Misfire: the gallery has three shots in it, all bad flash pix of a beaming middle-aged couple at a party. So I end up just clicking on something at random. I want to see quickly what that photographer's all about, what kind of chops he or she has, what his or her way of seeing might be I want the most characteristic work first. What the heck am I going to click on? I have no idea. One of the menu items is "Gallery" or "Portfolio" or "Photographs" or "The Work." I click on that. I don't actually care if it's five or twelve or twenty, but I'd like it if the photographer would give me a hand in getting a quick handle on who they are and what they do. I'm fully convinced of the need to give close and long attention to photographs, individually and collectively, and I do that often, but there are times when I can't, when I need to look and evaluate quickly, or decide quickly whether I'm going to give a particular site more time. I spent most of a long day yesterday looking at many more. I look at an awful lot of photography websites. A photographer's ten best, or ten favorite, or ten most characteristic pictures, up front. Call it a tenset to give it a name.a set of ten. I'll come right out with this.I wish every photographer's website started out with the ten pictures (of their own, I mean) they love best. ![]()
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