Website updates - feedback appreciated!

Have finally had the chance to spend some time over the last few weeks to tweak my website a bit and would appreciate any thoughts you may have on it!

First up is a revamp of the homepage. With an emphasis very much on the images, I decided to change the slider at the top of the page to have full size images, more of them, with the thumbnails underneath. This definately gives more impact and seems to work better visually. The main text underneath has been changed from 2 columns to 1 as well.

Noticeable at the bottom of the homepage is a 'Latest from the Gallery' filmstrip which now also shows on every page across the site.

The main work has been done on the galleries themselves with the main points being:-

- Most of the links have been removed from the menus! Clicking on each item in the menu now takes you to a page with images to explore the galleries from there. The idea here is that hopefully you should see more images that you might not see elsewhere on the site whilst browsing through!

- Each parent page now shows large images of each species for you to choose from to see that species on its own page, rather than every image from the whole category being displayed as small thumbnails. The original layout was ok with fewer images, but as more are being added, this became too many to take in at once in places!

- Each species page was limited to 12 images per page and there were small grey round buttons at the bottom to flick through the pages. This wasn't completely obvious so has been removed, now all images for each species are on the same page.

- When on an individual species page, if you click on the image title rather than the image itself, it will take you to it's own page where there may be a description, or a link to a blog post. There are not that many images with descriptions yet, but having this option is helpful to have a direct link to an image for putting on social media sites. Also you get the chance to leave a comment on each image!

The showcase section might get changed so that the images and text on each story are full width. This would make it a lot easier to view the images as you would not need to click on them to enlarge them and would also give more emphasis to the content as the sidebar would be removed. The only downside would be full width, small text across the page so might not be so easy to read. Would appreciate your thoughts on this one.

Overall I think the tweaks really make a difference, the thing is I'm not sure what visitors think! Do you like it? Was it easy to navigate? More images needed or fewer? More content needed, blog posts etc.?

If you have a few minutes spare and get the chance to have a look around, I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know what you think!

Thanks in advance for your time!

Danny.

Just had a quick look round and it looks good mate
Some of the images are a little slow to load but that could be my end not yours.

Who did you do your website with and do you have to pay? I would lie one that isn't too hard to show my photo's off

Great site by the way.

Hi Danny!

Love the website - it caught my eye as I'm contemplating doing something similar as well, but on a much smaller scale. I'm not sure whether to go for a website or open a Flickr account to show and share my work.

I really liked the layout with the menus at the top and also down the bottom with all of the different headings. I also like the fact you have lots and lots of stunning images and they are not repeated in other parts of the site.

The review section is also a really good idea as it can be hard buying new equipment - a minefield for a newbie like me! It's also nice to know what other people are using and see their results. I always love blogs, mainly because I'm quite nosey, but I also find them entertaining too! The showcase section is a really good idea too and I like the backstories you've written as every shot has a story to it and I think it gives them more depth and you can sometimes identify with the story too - I especially like the comment you made on the red kite backstory when you got a really good shot and did a little dance - I do that too and I'm so glad I'm not the only one!!

Overall, a really good site and definitely something to aspire too! It's now bookmarked so I can follow your blog!

By the way, I now really want the Pentax F 250-600mm lens after seeing your wildlife shots - my husband won't be pleased!!

Hi Daz, thanks for the feedback, must admit that being used to having fast broadband I didn't think that it might be slow loading for others! If anyone else thinks the same, I'd love to know!

Thanks Louise, it's a Wordpress based site and as it's on my own domain, I do pay for it! If it's free and easy that you are looking for to show photos off, maybe a facebook or flickr etc. may be the way to go to start with?

Hi Kirsty, thanks for the excellent feedback, just what I was after! It's definately a lot more effort than a Flickr page, but then you do get complete control over how everything looks. This one has most definately been a labour of love and I've lost track of how long I've spent on it, but it can be rewarding!

Would love to hear more though please, good or bad, I know you've been looking!

Thanks very much. I have a display on Facebook, will add my K30 one's soon. I would like to take shots of the snow, but a bit worried about this ice. I don't want to slip up.