My Photo Site

[jeff1022]

My Site (http://www.rocklobsters.net)

Hello!
This is a photo site that I have been messing around with for awhile and am looking for suggestions on how to improve it. I have the gallery set up so members can post there and also the forums are set up to allow attachments. I also have a few tutorials for digital editing.

Thank you in advance for your suggestions :)

[symo]

I like it. I only checked one tutorial (photoshop), but it seemed really well put together. The panorama of the city almost made me run out and get an order of ribs (or two) :D and "sky porch lightning" was very nice. The "cityscape chicago" (the one towards evening), was good, but I would like to see that same shot about 20-30 minutes later (a little darker ambient light and more building lights, or perhaps a bit more agressive crop on the top). I know... you didn't come for a critique of the photos, but they are very good.

To me, the site looks "clean". Coppermine looked better than I thought it could. The integration of phpBB worked well with the color scheme and header graphic.

Great shots.

symo

[aenimalius]

I like it. The majority of the site is very clean and professional looking. The things that I would suggest changing are the front page and the guestbook.

For the front page, I'd suggest removing all of the icons and such simply because they page the page look like you simply tacked on one thing after the other. This is in stark contrast with the rest of your site.

For the guestbook, I'd suggest using a different layout and keeping it centered. Once again, the theme and design of that page contrast sharply with the well done layout of the rest of the site.

Another thing that I just notices is that the navigation changes from the home and about pages to the rest of the site. It's generally best to keep your navigation menu consistent throughout.

You have a great site, you just need to make all of the pages as good as most of them are.

Peace.

[jeff1022]

Thank you for your ideas and critiques!
I moved all the stuff off the main page and dumped it in the About page middle section for the time being. I have to redo my Links page and don't have the time right now but that was an easy fix.
I tried to keep the navigation as static as possible but with the gallery and forum I had a bit of trouble in that I still am figuring out php. I managed to put a few links in the page menus but will work on that.
The guest book is a link and I don't have control over that and really don't want to lose all the entries but you just never know. I may just lose that altogether somewhere down the line.

Thanks again! You guys were very helpful.

p.s. I will get down to the lakefront again soon and try to get some more night shots!