http://www.danilkis.tk/

www.danilkis.tk

Hi everyone, this is the first website i've posted here for critique. I built this one in the summer for the purposes of (A) showcasing my photography as it's a hobby of mine (B) practicing/learning PHP and (C) doing some graphics/web design which i could use in my portfolio.

I expect the primary audiences for this site would be other photographers and those with a general interst in photography as well as some friends and family.

I'm still in the process of sorting out the pics, so i plan to remove 10 or so shots from the site and keep my more favorites ones.

Just let me know what you think, both in terms of web and graphics design as well as usability. It's being hosted for free right now so hopefully the speeds are alright for you (seem to be good for me, and a few friends that have tried it out.)

Thanks for looking!
Eugene

I like it. The thing on the main page should be bigger, though. At first, I didn't even notice the links.

I liked the design a lot, good work!
The only complaints I have is the first page. My first action was to click on the image on the left side of the logo - nothing happened? Clicked again and nothing happened? So please don't make links that doesn't actually do anything.
I first viewed the site using Opera 7.11. When viewing it using FireBird (uh, I probably should upgrade to FB ;-)) I noticed that the sliding images didn't work with Opera, just one still image.
Third thing, yet about the same sliding images, please, oh please don't use JavaScript to make it. The browser has to preload all those images and it takes _ages_ for the first page to load. Use some other techniques instead such as flash.

My two cents :-)

- Kimppa

Thanks for the thoughts, i guess the homepage needs work, i'll work on and post and upate when i do. I noticed the sliding image thing is inconsistent on different browsers, but seems to be acceptable in any. In IE and some others, they blend with smooth transition. In others, it's just an image swap (no transition). I didn't know it was still in FB.

I'm going to avoid using flash, simply because i avoided it throughout the site and no point making flash a requirement just to do a silly effect on the homepage. Perhaps i'll load a smaller base of images (5-10 at about 2kb each should be fine?) Or if it's still an issue i could remove the effect.

Max, thanks for the tip about the font size, i'll increase the visibility in the next iteration.

Very nice. Increase the size of the links, though.

Been kind of busy, but finally got around to updating the homepage taking in your comments, so i'd appreciate any critiques on that. Still deciding exactly which images to use in the background, but the current version is up.

http://www.danilkis.tk

for reference, here's the original homepage: http://danilkis.cjb.cc/index.php.old

Maybe just a slightly lighter font color on the About Me section... just a tiny wee bit...

Yeah...the color of the links and the quotes from "someone wiser" should be a bit lighter. Other than that, I love it!!

superb photos - it would be interesting to know what you shoot with
really sexy design
very poor code/techinque - frames, tables, javascripts, all bad ideas in my book.

Thanks for the comments, i've lightented up the font colour a bit on the about page. I didn't touch the quotes though because they're meant to be more of a background element, so i don't really want to attract much attention to them.

Thanks! I shoot with a Canon 10D these days, but most of the shots there are with the 300D. I acctually have that info on the about page.

The frames you see are actually because of the free domain name (.tk), they stick my actual page inside their own frames. So this won't be an issue once i move to a real server with a ream domain name. I do use iframes inside the pages, but that to decrease refreshing - it's highly supported anyhow. I know tables get frowned upon a bit these days with css but in some cases i just find it easier to work with. Why is it such a bad idea? And js?

iframes/frames are supported yes, but they make bookmarking impossible and i'm sure i've read that search engines won't index the pages. i don't think refreshing is a problem, take a look at my gallery (photos not a patch on your's) - http://www.bath.ac.uk/~en3cl/gallery/index.php

The images change just as smoothly as they would in any iframe, you have to remember that an iframe is 2 http requests (1 for the page and 1 for the image), which is just the same as my method - but mine is bookmarkable and accessible.

tables are a bad idea for laying out websites because they increase mark-up and confuse screen readers (there are probably a few other reasons which i've forgotten)

i can't remember why i put js down tbh, i was probably getting lines crossed with another post

Hope that helps

Thanks for the tips, Three. I'll definetly keep them in mind for future sites and revisions. I like your site and that Temple of Apollo shot looks similar to one i have as well from there (it's not on my website though)