Photo Gallery Comments

[MarkBarbieri]

Hey all. I'm still alive. My projects are going well.

I just joined a local photography club (Woodlands Photo Club). I put together a gallery of some of my photo work for sharing with the club. I didn't want to dump them into my entire smugmug site. I just wanted something to highlight some of my favorite shots.

If you have the time, take a look at the site. It's at http://barbierifamily.org/photos. I'd like feedback on the functionality and the style. It's a hack of a photoshop generated site using a template (lightbox) that I downloaded. I want a stylistically simple site that showcases the photos without captions, metadata, etc. I also want to make sure that it is very easy to use as the computer skills of the club members vary widely.

Thanks,
Mark

 

[wdwmom2]

Man, if I took pics like that, I wouldn't ask if I did a good job. I would just say, "Dang I take great pictures !!!".

Oh, by the way, great pictures !

 

[barrie]

I like it Mark. It's very simple and looks nice. I especially like that fire photo from the Lion King Show and the strollers!

Oh - and the zebra and the panorama - wow, those are great!

 

[Amy]

WOW! Those are amazing pictures, Mark! You really have talent!

 

[boBQuincy]

Hey Mark!

You have been missing the usual Canon vs Nikon vs Pentax vs Sony vs Etc threads.

I like your website but when I click on a photo I can't go back to the thumbnails. As for the photos, ho-hum, just your usual fabulous work.

C'mon back when you have time.

 

[Hermosa11]

Fantastic shots!!!!!!

 

[MarkBarbieri]

To be clear, I'm looking more for comments about the site rather than the photos (unless you think one is so lame that it should be dropped). My pics are my pics and it's too late to do anything significantly different about them. It's the site itself that I'd like to fine tune. Thanks for the compliments, though.

I like your website but when I click on a photo I can't go back to the thumbnails.

It's either not working right or it's not intuitive enough. If you click on the picture, it should close taking you back to the thumbnails.

Perhaps I should put some text at the bottom telling you to click the photo to close it.

 

[Amy]

Perhaps I should put some text at the bottom telling you to click the photo to close it.

When I hover over a picture, I get a prompt to click on the photo to close it. My only suggestion on the site would be maybe a slide show-type of thing - once you click on the first picture, you just right-arrow to get the next one to open, rather than closing each picture, getting back to the thumbnails and then having to open the next one, close that, etc.

 

[YEKCIM]

Mark,

You need to just give up this obsession with photography, and find something you can really be good at.

JUST KIDDING, of course!

In all seriousness, GREAT shots, as usual. Thanks for raising the bar yet again, for the unwashed masses (me being among the least washed).

Thanks for sharing.

~Ed

 

[gruZ]

Mark,

The click-the-picture-to-close-it worked for me. I agree with an above post - having naviation arrows in the "lightbox" view to go to the next, previous, or close might be more intuitive. Especially arrows to go to the next or previous picture - otherwise the viewer is forced into a lot of clicks to see each picture up close.

Also, the thumbnails are very small on my screen. Personally I would like larger thumbnails - as it is now I find myself clicking on each picture just to really see it.

Is there any reason you didn't choose to make a Journal style Smugmug, with all of the normal navigation? Either way, I like the overall concept.

Just my two cents.

Thanks,

Scott

 

[Steve's Girl]

Mark -

Great site! I really like the overall appearance of the site - clean, uncluttered, simplicity. In my opinion, that makes the photos stand out even more. I also found the site very easy to use - and I am quite technically challenged.

 

[barrie]

OK - I have to agree. It's a little tedious to have to go back to the main page after viewing each photo if you indeed want to look at them all - too much clicking. And since they are so good, of course everyone will want to look at them all.

I actually like the way smugmug galleries work with the next button for both the thumbnails and the individual photos. Phanfare works the same way. Being able to scan through the thumbnails quickly is nice, then when you come upon several in a row you want to look at it's easy to hit the individual photo next button. It's pretty intuitive so I'm not sure why you felt the need to switch.

 

[Shifletjl]

I really like the site, Mark. Its simplicity showcases the photos, and the photos are beautiful. Just a couple suggestions, it would help my tired eyes if the thumbnails were a little larger, and I would like to be able to move to the next photo without going back to the homepage.

Thanks for sharing your new project with us. I am thinking of joining my local photography club too. Have fun! Oh, and hurry back.

 

[handicap18]

Nicely laid out Mark. Took me a bit to figure out that I had to click the picture to get back to the gallery. At first it looks as though it opens the picture in a new window. You might want to put some writing with each picture to say click the picture to go back or have a seperate button/link under the picture. Not everyone might move their mouse around the screen to view the picture. Also you can't use the back button with IE to go back.

You've also done great work with slide shows on other photo galleries you have. That might be a nice idea. Not necessarily with music, but just something simple to easily view all the pics.

Great pics as usual. Keep up the good work.

 

[jann1033]

i had read the other posts so knew to click to return ...actually i like that better than a slide show since you can pick an chose what photo to look at ( i rarely use the slide show views) so maybe if possible do both??? otherwise really like the look of the site
and agree with bobq..us canonites are the minority and get picked on all the time now by those big bad pentax/nikon-ites

 

[safetymom]

I think the thumbnails should be larger. Some beginners unless it is very simple won't go any further.

 

[erinuga]

Hi Mark!
I don't know much about photo galleries like the one you've created, or if it is normal to have "captions"- but I would love to know where some of the pictures were taken- especially the landscapes and even a couple of the wildlife (like the wolf).

I know you really just want comments about the site- but your pictures of the hummingbird are amazing- especially the one of his front- great detail

 

[MarkBarbieri]

OK, I made some of the suggested changes.

* I added some instructions at the top.
* I quadrupled the size of the thumbnails.
* I added the ability to change between shots by using the left and right arrow keys (Can anyone tell if that works on a Mac?)
* I added a little click bar at the bottom of the picture view with clickable left, right, and close tags.

I didn't just use a Smugmug gallery for a couple of reasons. First, my original intent was to host this on the photography club's site like most of the their other galleries. Second, while I love Smugmug for normal sharing, I wanted a cleaner, simpler interface for this gallery. I wanted as little non-picture stuff on their as possible. I even added the cheesy frames to help distance the photos from the background.

I thought about adding comments, but I decided against it. I didn't want to do the web development and I didn't want to create a comment for each picture. I'd be happy to answer questions about specific shots. I'm not here too often these days (but I hope to be back more often soon), so if you're dying to know, just shoot me an e-mail at pics@barbierifamily.org.

The ocean landscapes were from Pacific Grove, CA or day trips from there. The mountains were from Estes Park, CO. The panoramas (actually just wide crops) were from Utah. The pool was in my backyard. The "wolf" is actually a coyote. I shot him from inside my parents house (which can be seen covered with snow in one of the landscape photos) in Estes Park. The dancing tigers were on the Asia trail at the AK.

I'd really appreciate any comments about things not working with the site. I've done some testing with Opera and IE7.

Thanks

 

[Amy]

Mark - I like it much better now with the right and left arrows to scroll thru the pictures.

One comment: in your instructions at the top of the web page, could you maybe make the font bold or brighter somehow? It was a little hard to read.

Great job!

 

[gruZ]

Mark,

Very good changes! I agree with having the instructions be a bit brighter, but all in all very nice!

Thanks,

Scott