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Rottweilers => Rottweiler Pictures => : lins_saving_grace May 11, 2006, 10:59:58 AM
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As you know I've got the photography bug and want to make a website to do 1.) pup photography 2.) crosstitch and 3.) general photography and matting and stuff.Â
I got one front page of a web site "roughly" designed and I do have another version of this one but saved it wrong to a disk last night. It's basically the same but without the dog blogs. I want to make it so each picture opens another page full of creative pics and designs, etc. but this is what I could do without it being published.Â
I hope to add other breeds by asking neighbors if I can snap some pics of their dogs. I just happen to have a library full of Rott pictures right now. It's a work in progress. I think the photography thing will have to be a pretty local thing for now anyway. :(
so...give me your opinions, advice, ideas, critisims, etc. Be brutal and open. I really want this to take off and get going soon and I want to know what people looking at it will think of it before I jump in without looking. :)
Thank you! Â
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I think it looks great! I love the name pupography. :)
I only have one suggestion. For the info with Lady, you have to follow the sentence from one side of the pic to the other, which can be a bit hard to read. You may want to format it like you did for Grace.
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I think it looks great! I love the name pupography.  :)
I only have one suggestion. For the info with Lady, you have to follow the sentence from one side of the pic to the other, which can be a bit hard to read. You may want to format it like you did for Grace.
Why thank you!!! I don't know how I thought of the name...it just fell out of my mouth one night.
I see what you mean. the word wrap didn't work there well. I just gotta move the picture to the corner and it should be continuous sentences.
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have you tried googling pet photography to see if there is anyone else in your area doing it? It would also allow you to see if there is a real market for it. I would skip doing general photography unless you have experiance or a degree. There are lots and lots of professionals out there which I think people would tend to drift too. Plus you would have to get a nicer camera. Are you looking for a side job? or a hobby? I would look into wedding photography. Brides are paying big bucks for their photographers. You could try to apprentice with someone till you have a little experiance and a portfolio. Wedding photography is nice because its usually only weekends but on the other hand it can be very stressful to make sure you get the shot (i.e. you can not miss the first kiss shot). Let me know if you want any more opinions, i don't want to babble your head off. :)
p.s. check out www.etsy.com
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I really love it Lins.... YOu have such a way with words too!
The only constructive critisism I can see is what zoocrew stated.
Awsome job Lins ;D ;D ;D
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have you tried googling pet photography to see if there is anyone else in your area doing it? It would also allow you to see if there is a real market for it.  I would skip doing general photography unless you have experiance or a degree. There are lots and lots of professionals out there which I think people would tend to drift too. Plus you would have to get a nicer camera.  Are you looking for a side job? or a hobby? I would look into wedding photography. Brides are paying big bucks for their photographers. You could try to apprentice with someone till you have a little experiance and a portfolio. Wedding photography is nice because its usually only weekends but on the other hand it can be very stressful to make sure you get the shot (i.e. you can not miss the first kiss shot). Let me know if you want any more opinions, i don't want to babble your head off. :)
p.s. check out www.etsy.com
babble away...it's good. Yeah...i could live without the general stuff. I was toying with that thinking i could do my own shots (not really of people and portraits) and kinda frame and mat them to people's liking. more of an artsy thing. I'm not ready for a new expensive camera either.
I will definately google pet photography though. I know people love their pets and I've only seen one pet photographer in the area so far. I saw her card at the vet's office.
This would start out as a hobby and maybe turn into a home based business. That's a big maybe. I have people at work asking me to take pictures for them and stuff and figured I could do it. I have a degree of sorts. Journalism. I had a few classes in photojournalis m (back when you developed pictures with that stinky fumey chemical stuff in a dark room where you could see what you were putting your hands in.)
that's a way cool website!!!! I'll have to tinker with that one with my quilts too. Thank you...you're terribly helpful.
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I really love it Lins.... YOu have such a way with words too!
The only constructive critisism I can see is what zoocrew stated.
Awsome job Lins ;D ;D ;D
Thank you so much! It's fun making stuff like this. It's relaxing in a way.
I'm gonna fix that little issue tonight. :)
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Fantastic job Lins!!!!!
Love the name "Pupography"!
I also agree with ZooCrew about re-formatting the sentences to one side of Lady's Pic.... just makes it a little easier to follow! As for the writing? it is excellent!
Way to go!!!!!!!!
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Fantastic job Lins!!!!!
Love the name "Pupography"!
I also agree with ZooCrew about re-formatting the sentences to one side of Lady's Pic.... just makes it a little easier to follow! As for the writing? it is excellent!
Way to go!!!!!!!!
Thank you! You guys are making this way too easy for me. :) I reread Lady's blog...I see exactly what you mean.
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If I ship Farley to you will you take his picture...gosh wouldn't it be terrible if I forgot the return address....lol ;)
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If I ship Farley to you will you take his picture...gosh wouldn't it be terrible if I forgot the return address....lol ;)
DEFINATELY! I'd take a million pics.
forget the return address. I don't need one. He'd only need a one way ticket anyway.Â
He could carry the customs report in his pie hole. I can see it now: a big stamp over his right eye and the inked canceled stamp across his face. :)Â
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I may take you up on that one day Lins ;) ;) Maybe Fri ...hahahahhaha
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I may take you up on that one day Lins ;) ;) Maybe Fri ...hahahahhaha
ANY TIME! :) the whole fam damily has an open invitation whenever you want
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I had a few classes in photojournalis m (back when you developed pictures with that stinky fumey chemical stuff in a dark room where you could see what you were putting your hands in.)Â
that's a way cool website!!!! I'll have to tinker with that one with my quilts too. Thank you...you're terribly helpful.
The stinky stuff is the best! I loved developing my own photos. I really need to set up my darkroom... I have everything I need sitting in my garage with no where to put it :(
Etsy is the best! I will be selling my quilts on there also. I am going to focus on baby quilts and blankets. My page is coastalquilts. etsy.com but it's not set up yet.
If I were you I would volunteer and the local shelters taking digital pics of the animals for petfinder and then maybe you can work out some kind of deal with them where your name gets the photo credits or you're allowed to hand out business cards or something. might be an easy way to get your name out there... I would also try getting booths at local flea markets, craft fairs, festivals, etc. to show off your work and hand out business cards.
But I think the absolute most important this is to have a professional, clean, easy to use website that people will feel comfortable using. I find myself steering clear of anyone that has a poorly made, or free hosted (popups and ads on the webpage like geocity) webpages because it looks like they did not have enough time or energy to devote to it so how do I know if their product is any good. I definitely think you are on your way to a great website. What are you using to create it? Do you know HMTL?
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Lins, did you code that in html yet. There is a lot to consider before you start coding. How wide do you want the page to appear? 800 px wide really should be the maximum width. Pick out a colour scheme before hand and stick to it. Try the sherwin-williams website http://www.sherwin.com/do_it_yourself/paint_colors/color_trends/
a great resource for the latest colour trends, which can be adapted to a website easily. Make sure the contrast is good, so that the font is easy to read, avoid fancy fonts if possible. Navigation should be easy to find (very important). You don't need flash animation or animated gifs to make a great website. Give all your pages in your website relevant names (relevant to the content on each page) as this will help google, msn search etc... find you, which in turn will help other people to find your website. I also agree with Rachel about the free web hosting sites and all the pop-up ads and advertising, try to avoid them if you can. You should be able to buy a domain name and a good hosting account for $100 or less for 1 year.
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HTML? no ... I wanted to get the basic plan laid out first...with where I wanted to place things (and now where I want to add "Click" things to contact or move to other pages.
I was going to call Sam's Club...they do web hosting/designing for a minimal fee and they send you disks for designing and I'm assuming using the correct sizes and colors, etc. I'm gonna call them before the end of the week to get details.Â
But I agree. I too hate hard to navigate web sites. I figured clicking on pictures would be easy. I had the idea to add sound to the pics (of course a bark) to clue people into clicking on them to move from place to place.Â
Is this kinda user-friendly?
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for your reading pleasure ;D
http://psychology.wichita.edu/optimalweb/
http://www.usabilityfirst.com/
http://websitetips.com/usability/
The most fabulous website to learn HTML
http://www.w3schools.com/html/html_intro.asp
They even let you try it yourself. This is the first place I look if I ever have simple HTML questions. Its worth going through their course (for free! always a plus!;) ). It will teach you all of the basics in easy to understand terms. If you have any questions on it please let me know I'd be happy to help.
I had to do a bunch of usabilty (making websites user friendly) research for my internship in college. Its really fascinating and you will have an awesome website because of it.
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Happy reading to me.
Am I getting in over my head?
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oh yeah and you can also google 'web page templates' and see what is out there for free.
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I have 2 programs that have web site templates ... but one more or 5 more wouldn't hurt. :)
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Happy reading to me.Â
Am I getting in over my head?Â
LOL no I don't think so. I think if you are really excited about making a webpage you will have a blast doing it.
And you can always get Microsoft Frontpage and you wouldn't have to learn HTML. :D Or use whatever Sam's Club gives you.
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thanks everyone. I was starting to wonder if shooting myself in the foot would hurt less. But I am geeked about it.
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Sorry, I didn't take the time to read the whole post...However, I gathered you want to build a site? Have you thought about NetObjects Fusion? It's supported on all platforms, is very EASY to use, very user friendly...tak es all of 15 min to get the hang of it if you can read. No HTML code to learn. Loads of free templates and plug ins. Just a suggestion...
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Lin, would this site be mostly a gallery type of approach with a front page with other information, maybe embedded gallery albums behind the front page?
If that is the case, it wouldn't be hard to setup at all, and your hosting services wouldn't have to be anything extravagant or expensive. A lot of hosts provide auto install scripts for Photo Gallerys, bulletin boards, shopping carts, etc through something called Fantastico. You can modify the front end for your gallery to meet your demands, and even have other informational pages outside of the regular gallery application pages.
I'd be glad to give you a hand installing server apps, configuring it, etc if you get stuck.
Brandon
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Sorry, I didn't take the time to read the whole post...However, I gathered you want to build a site? Have you thought about NetObjects Fusion? It's supported on all platforms, is very EASY to use, very user friendly...tak es all of 15 min to get the hang of it if you can read. No HTML code to learn. Loads of free templates and plug ins. Just a suggestion...
you gathered correctly.
is that something I can buy at the store or download that NetObject Fusion?
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Lin, would this site be mostly a gallery type of approach with a front page with other information, maybe embedded gallery albums behind the front page?
If that is the case, it wouldn't be hard to setup at all, and your hosting services wouldn't have to be anything extravagant or expensive. A lot of hosts provide auto install scripts for Photo Gallerys, bulletin boards, shopping carts, etc through something called Fantastico. You can modify the front end for your gallery to meet your demands, and even have other informational pages outside of the regular gallery application pages.
I'd be glad to give you a hand installing server apps, configuring it, etc if you get stuck.Â
Brandon
Yes! It'll be a gallery kinda thing. this is just the first page of it. But after thinking about it on the way to work this morning I thought I'd change the banner on this and call it "The Models" cus Rachel suggested that each page be called something clear and consice. So this pic will change a little and have little que's to click on and take you to another page like for maybe pics with dog and owner...then to outside shots...etc. etc. I embedded sound into this page so when the mouse hits the pics of lady and Grace it barks. I can't hear that till it's published and if I go with a host I'll have to use their programs.
So...how do I know if what I've designed and will design will be compatible with a hosts programs and if the pics will be visible without distortion?
I may have to call you and Rachel for help...i'm not so computer savey.
Fantastico...? I can get to that on the web?
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Fantastico is just some script software on your web host that installs programs for you so you don't have to do it manually. It will install a gallery, a bulletin board, etc.
If you are going to be adding lots and lots of pictures you would want something on the host to handle the pictures, you wouldn't want to have to rebuild web pages and upload them everytime you wanted to add a picture.Â
If that is the case, maybe do what your doing for a front end and have links on these front-end pages take you to different albums in your gallery.Â
This is what I did for a simple gallery, but did not build any kind of front-end or really make it elaboate, as I only wanted it to share pictures: http://www.haveparrotwilltravel.com
I could edit the gallery templates to make each page look fancier, etc, but just want it simple.
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Fantastico is just some script software on your web host that installs programs for you so you don't have to do it manually. It will install a gallery, a bulletin board, etc.
If you are going to be adding lots and lots of pictures you would want something on the host to handle the pictures, you wouldn't want to have to rebuild web pages and upload them everytime you wanted to add a picture.Â
If that is the case, maybe do what your doing for a front end and have links on these front-end pages take you to different albums in your gallery.Â
This is what I did for a simple gallery, but did not build any kind of front-end or really make it elaboate, as I only wanted it to share pictures: http://www.haveparrotwilltravel.com
I could edit the gallery templates to make each page look fancier, etc, but just want it simple.
I would update pics once in a while so I would have new ones online all the time and remove old ones. I want to be "interactive" and up to date.
that's a great web site!  :) you've been terribly helpful. I'm gonna start making calls and doing this now. Yesterday I felt so overwhelmed but you guys have really made it sound easy. :) :) THANK YOU!Â
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Suggestion: Instead of having the narrative in a large font surrounding the photo, make the narrative an easy to read block next to or below the photo and use her name as the background -- using a less contrasting color -- like a watermark. And, since you're talking about her sitting in your flower bed, try to get a photo of her doing just that!
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that's a cool block!!! I have another version of this page made but not saved right. It's a page curl with a pink color with their names on it and I plugged the pictures into the corner. But I like that box better. :)
Lady's picture is of her in my flowerbed...in the daylillies she likes to crush but i do have others that make that more clear. I think I will undo the text box blogs. It's a cute idea for a scrapbook...bu t too much to look at on the web. I agree with you there.
Thanks
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thanks, I'm glad you liked it. I could spend hours and hours creating stuff like that. I always do better when somebody gives me an assignment -- it was fun.
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that's a cool block!!! I have another version of this page made but not saved right. It's a page curl with a pink color with their names on it and I plugged the pictures into the corner. But I like that box better. :)
Lady's picture is of her in my flowerbed...in the daylillies she likes to crush but i do have others that make that more clear. I think I will undo the text box blogs. It's a cute idea for a scrapbook...bu t too much to look at on the web. I agree with you there.
Thanks
Lins, page curl may be a bit too 80's. A nice drop shadow looks good around pictures.
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thanks, I'm glad you liked it. I could spend hours and hours creating stuff like that. I always do better when somebody gives me an assignment -- it was fun.
I do that too ... i'm better with assignments. :) It was great!
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that's a cool block!!!  I have another version of this page made but not saved right. It's a page curl with a pink color with their names on it and I plugged the pictures into the corner. But I like that box better. :)
Lady's picture is of her in my flowerbed...in the daylillies she likes to crush but i do have others that make that more clear. I think I will undo the text box blogs. It's a cute idea for a scrapbook...bu t too much to look at on the web. I agree with you there.
Thanks
Lins, page curl may be a bit too 80's. A nice drop shadow looks good around pictures.
LOL! HAHAHAHHA! That is too funny! I have a ton of drop shadow graphics. :)
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Aha! Something I know a bit about besides dogs... LOL
First off, good for you for pursuing something you enjoy. Photography can be a difficult business to break into, but making the decision to do it is a big deal. Way to go. :)
Secondly, I would make your website as uncrowded as you can while still drawing in attention. For example, your galleries for each type of photography (portrait, family, kids, pets, weddings, whatever your headings) really do not have to be all that large. Even something as small as 6-10 well-chosen photos will do. You will want to keep printed portfolios to show interested clients when you first meet with them. These will expand upon what is on your website.
If you can find a photographer to apprentice with, try that. Consider what kind of pet photography you want to do-more photojournalis tic, casual shots or shots in a studio. Your equipment needs will vary depending on what you are aiming for. Try offering your services to family and friends at discounted rates in exchange for them signing waivers so that you may use the photos of them on your website.
I work a "regular" job and do photography on the side. I mostly work for friends and slowed down quite a bit this past year when I was meaning to pick it up due to job duties for my company. Things are picking up now, though-baby shots, pregnancies, a wedding, a quincinera, etc-which I am excited about. I haven't been pursuing clients as I should have, and the jobs that have come up lately (by referral and people seeing my work) have reminded me how much I love it and want to take it on as my full-time job. To do that, I need to work on the business end. While photography is about pictures, a successful photography business requires more work on the business end.
Also, be sure to consider that weddings and other events are not just one-day assignments. Photos must be sifted through, reviewed, touched up, etc. There are several meetings with clients to factor in as well. This is why you don't receive your wedding photos until weeks or months after your wedding (depending on your photographer's queue).
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everyone here has really given a lot of insight. and it's helped immensely.
1.) i'd do more of the casual thing since i don't have a studio and people like casual shots more i think.
2.) i have bribed family for baby pics and stuff to use.
3.) i may call that pet person in town and get an "apprentiship" so to speak if she'll have me.
Planning is the hardest part...but it all seems straight in my head till someone thinks of something I didn't.
My portofolio is big. How big should the portfolio shots be? 4x6, 5x7, 8x10?
I hope this all pans out. I am more of a creative person then the office cube type and it seems like it's time to do something more than sit on my butt doing what i'm doing.