So i finally revamped my site for a fresher and hopefully more professional look (along with actually purchasing a recogniseable and memorable domain):

www.richmeadowsphoto.com

I am in the process of adding a storefront as well so stay tuned.  As it is, there isnt a photo in the gallery which you havent seen on renderosity, and there are less in the gallery there (but they are all my favourites in terms of quality).  So whilst renderosity will always display my whole portfolio, my website is just a public display of my photography (as it should be i think).

Would love to hear what you think. Specifically in terms of site and page layout.

(Here's hoping the site doesnt go down within an hour like it did last time i announced a major update)

/end shameless plugging...

Very slick! I like it lots, has a real pro look to it. Would be nice to have a few technical notes with the pics - eg. exposure, lens, aperture, but that's just me being picky. Apart from that I think you've got it spot on.

The gallery was created using a program and the skin i used doesnt allow for exif readouts - hoping they update that skin sometime to allow me to do that.

Thanks for the feedback :)

One thing which i remembered to ask was can someone with a 800x600 or a 1024x768 resolution ("small non-widescreen" in layman's terms) tell me how the site responds - i built it on a widescreen and tried to accomodate the screen differences for particularly small resolutions (these days at least).

Rich, I think your site is very cool looking, the black background really makes your work jump off the page, I also like the thumbnails across the top, it looks very proffessional. The only thing I would suggest is on the "about" page, your font size is small an abit hard to read, or maybe just another font?  Anyway, Congratulations on a job well done!!!!!!!

Very impressive - well done :)

Very good website with some beautiful photos on there!

Very nice Rich - Your site focuses on the photography and thats important. Its clean and to the point.

Well done buddy!

I like it a lot. Your css looks to be fine. Nothing omitted, no wrong code.

Only one critique (that's me, and it's not meant to be negative!!!): why choose 10px for a font-size?
You have good eyes and you can read small text, probably even on a 1600x1200 screen. But it does become very small. Some people may have set their default to 14px because their sight isn't that sharp anymore. For these it becomes unreadable.

BTW: you know about Firefox's developer toolbar? Great and free little tool when you're designing sites.

This said, your design is really great. Conscise, to the point and clear.
Great work!

love your site !!! you do remarkable work very impressive  enjoyed looking at it today!!

Hrm - two comments on the font size... personally i think the text is fine, but that is me i suppose.  Also with people who cant read small font or  whom "accessability" is a keyword then surely the CTRL+Mouse Scroll Wheel trick is in their repertoire... ?

I tried 12px just now and even that looks big on the About.html page - i was going for no scrolling needed to make it more punchy.  You dont need to scroll at all on the website on my screen unless you are on the Guestbook page.

Thanks for the feedback :)

PS - i just DL'd the web toolbar, and so far it looks very useful, thanks for the tip

I loved your new site and bookmarked it for future reference.  I looked at the site and had a comment but in reading the comments of others I see that it has already been mentioned.  The font size was way too small for me to be able to read.  I tried highlighting the verbiage to change the color but it was still too small.  But it is a great site.

Well, your pages son't need scrolling. That's a plus. So why not add a css trick?

The font-sze is chosen in the p-tag. No further cascading is done. So if you add a blank anchor to it (a dummy link)  and then specify that if all a within p, have a hover state that changes the font size to 12px?

here's an example. remove the $ signs (to avoid code here on the site), copy and paste in notepad or bbedit, save as an html file and then open it in a browser.

$
$
$
$

this text enlarges when the mouse hovers above it

You could even add  some normal and larger "A" with a one pixel border around each on on the top-right of  your page. Most people recognise this as "aha: font-size. that's a nice guy! he thinks about people like me." and add the same kind of link to these. When people hold their mouses/mice? over it, the text enlarges. And your design is saved.

But of course it's your site, and I am as often trying to make this world a better place from my point of view. Many a war started that way. So: no interference in your business meant.

I think it looks pretty good Rich. I like the usage and the styling.
As it was designed on your wide screen I'm viewing on my 'normal' 1024 screen at work and it's got a lot of wasted space (see pic). I would suggest moving your divider line up so that more is viewed in the window and not only the bottom half of the window.
The traking that I've got on my site shows that 80% of the traffic uses the standard 1024 x 768 screen res.

Well Done on this. Do you mind me asking who your host is and did you do all the HTML yourself?

I've gotta agree the font size is a bit small and I was getting annoyed reading it really.
However the font style itself is perfect.

I also really like the slick and pro look of your site...I also agree with the font size as too small.  Quite nice, Rich.  Good work.

Ok - i think i may have to bow to popular opinion on this one, it seems my font size is way too small - i'll up it to 12px and then see if i cant put in something like Tanchelyn suggested (looks like a good way around the problem) :)

Thanks guys for the positive and constructive feedback - i'll look into page layout again Vera, i'll check my stats from my old page but i think you may be right about the average viewing size.

Thanks for the tip Tanchelyn, i'll be implementing that along with a general font resize anyway :)

Ok - opinions on the new font thingey i just did? 

Not too jumpy?  I thought that people who cant read the small size might instinctively move the mouse to the text and thus discover that it enlarges.  Decided to keep the 10px as the default tho.

I thought the small font was OK but now I've seen it at 12px I think it looks much better. Not sure I like the rollover effect though, if it were me I would stick to the larger font. Hope this helps.

Wow, man, you just invented the "t" tag.
In my idea it would be nicer if one click enlarged all the text, not only the text over which the mouse hovers.

BTW: the link at the bottom of your entries here leads to yon olde syte.

I looked at your old site and must say that your new desing is really more classy!

Like the way the font gets larger, very cool. Also the rollovers on the home page. Gallery is very slick as is the overall site. The images really 'POP'! Nice work!

Ok - text sizing version 2.0 now online... only for the guestbook and "about" pages tho (the text on the others is minimal at best)

Very nice clean layout....although the font rollover thing didn't work for me (running IE6).
Also, the site seems to be down now...couldn't get anywhere after I looked at the first gallery set.

All in all....very nice work!

Works for me my end... i'll check it with IE a bit more i think.

Also i changed it from rollover to two discreet but noticeable - and + signs near the text....

I like the idea of the plus size but maybe that could be in fint soze 12 with some wording like "for larger or smaller viewing click here" plus I don't like that I changes the whole size viewing to e bigger. I'm sure you'll get it just right but really as long as you're happy with it!

I opened up the gallery and at first I was at a loss at what to do. Then I noticed the barely readable links in the top left. You definately need to make that brighter.  I also didn't like the gallery opening in a new window. Any good reason you didn't integrate that into the site itself?

ps: if you want to view your site in 800x600 just type the following into your location bar:
javascript:resizeTo(800,600);
including the ; :) Should work in IE and FF. Ofcourse you can use any numbers you like.

Thanks for that feedback, I did have a problem with that gallery.  I did also try to integrate it into the site, but something in the way the program i used to make it works prevents it from opening within the website i have constructed (maybe i could put it in a frame but then that just complicates things).  It also doesnt have a function where i could put a "back home" link, so i decided on new window/tab opening.

I'll have another look at the links on the top left next time i update the album (it is all in one go or nothing with that program i'm afraid, so it will be on the next photo update).

And thanks for the resize tip... :)

Great site - usually Flash can get annoying (some will have 5 minutes of supposedly cool animation just to switch to another page - GET there already - forget it - CLOSE...!) but this is nice and tidy!

Went through the whole gallery - saw some familiar shots - excellent pics you've chosen! Really crisp and pop off the screen.

Don't mind the type being small - I know I'm in the minority on that one, but hey, I don't care.

Overall - very well done!
-Lew ;-)