The first thing I notice is the nice clean design. I like how big the images are, though one problem with this is that part of the photo is obscured “below the fold.” What this means is that I need to scroll down to see the entire photo. One way this could be improved is to decrease the size of the header. I like the header, especially if it is actually a personalized signature. I am guessing it is not, though? Regardless, it looks personal. Though “Foto” in papyrus does look tacked on.

The thumbnails of the rest of the photos in each series is below the large image. This works well, though, once again, the viewer has to scroll down to see them. One additional problem is there is no space below them, so they get a little bit lost at the bottom of the screen. I would just add some padding to the bottom, or an additional footer, that just gives a little breathing room below.

I like the information button, though I wish it showed more than just the title. The next/previous arrows I didn’t notice at first (and are not even visible in the small screen capture above) so I relied on clicking on the thumbnails for navigation. I do like the multiple options for navigation that the arrows bring, I just wish they stood out just a little bit more.

The navigation at the top I think is done exceptionally well. The contact button is easily visible and all the links are easy to click on.

The most important aspect is Speed

The second thing, and a major point, I notice is how incredibly slow the images load. At first I was wondering if I didn’t click properly, so I clicked again. And it still didn’t load. I did not notice a loading wheel or bar, so then I thought maybe the images were broken. At this point, if I were a client, I would have already closed the website. This is especially the case for an art buyer that has little to no time.

The #1 suggestion I will make in this critique is to compress the images. Make sure they aren’t full size photos being displayed at a smaller size. If this is the case, the browser still has to load the entire full resolution file, regardless of display resolution. So, resize the images to their display size first. Then, in Photoshop, use the Save for Web command and save as a compressed JPG. I wouldn’t go any smaller than 70 in the Quality entry. I usually put between 80-90 in there, but my main goal is looking at the end file size. Depending on the size of the photo, I try keep it as close to 100K as possible, though upwards of 500K is usually acceptable.

Make no mistakes

Since Anthony wanted me to just focus on the website itself, and not particularly the images, I will leave the home page and the photo categories to move on to the Biography section. In regards to what I said about the homepage having things below the fold, the bio (when in full screen) is perfect. Though, to be honest, I rarely look at many webpages in full screen. I guess I don’t have any actual analytics on how many people do have their browser full screen or not, so it would be interesting to hear who does what in the comments below.

As for the copy on this page, it frankly needs some work. There are some grammatical errors right there in the first sentence with taken instead of taking. But truthfully, the entire first paragraph is rather pointless. I would scrap it altogether, or at least move it as the second or third paragraph instead.

The second paragraph reads better as a first paragraph as it actually says something about who you are, which is, in my opinion, the entire point of the biography. You write that you are the main photographer for APhungFoto. Is there another photographer? If there is, that’s fine, but if there isn’t, just say so. There is no shame in being a one man operation. That’s what I am after all! Your next sentence has another grammatical error with provides, instead of provide.

Though, reading this further, I realize this isn’t a bio at all, but a business services page. In that case, you should either rename the page to such, or write something else that actually is a bio. Write a little about yourself and how long you have been a photographer, what your background is, what education you have, whatever you feel like. I recommend keeping it short, but if you want to have a short and a long version that is fine. This is actually something I have been meaning to rework on my own site, as my bio is quite long. But you should also try to keep it at least somewhat fun and entertaining. No one wants to read a dry biography on someone they really don’t care a whole lot about. I won’t read a dry biography even if it is written about one of my heroes. So, if you do keep it as a bio, try keep it light and humorous. Most importantly, write it as who you are.

As for the photo, it isn’t my favorite of the photos you have of yourself, but it is entirely how you want to portray yourself. With this photo I see you as rather artistic, quiet, and thoughtful. These are perfectly acceptable traits for a photographer.

I like that you have a mini contact point here on this page (in addition to the actual contact page) as the more and easier opportunities a person has to contact you, the more likely they actually will. I love how you link Google maps in there, though I wish it was more specific than just Montreal as a whole. My guess is that most people that visit your site to hire you will come from Montreal, since that is where you service. If people outside of Montreal are looking at you, it is still highly likely they know where Montreal is. Instead, if you are willing, link to where your studio is located. Better yet, if you have a Google listing for your business (and if you don’t have one, why not?) link to that. It will not only show the map, but show your logo, some photo examples, your hours, your services, and probably a street view photo of your studio entrance. As an example, here is my google listing, which I notice really needs some updating.

The mailto: put here is a great addition.

How do I contact you?

I think your contact page really shines. As with the bio, I can still quickly get to the photos by clicking on any of the categories. But what is really great on this page is the multiple avenues of contact. I like that I can choose to email you, tweet at you, find you on facebook or flickr, or just simply use your contact form built in right there. Perfect. The addition of writing your website in this list is kind of pointless, however. I would just scratch that out.

Another addition here would be the Google places listing I mentioned earlier. And I wonder why you don’t have a customized name for the flickr entry? Even if your link address isn’t customized, you should at least put your flickr name as the link, instead of the random characters.

Ending this rather long critique

I guess it is expected to be long when I am critiquing an entire website. And honestly, Anthony’s website is rather simple as far as pages and whatnot. I like that, though. This is definitely where things can be simple. Show the work, give a little bit of background, and make it easy to contact. Now just make the site faster and you’ll be set.

If you have any further insight into Anthony’s website, or critique of my critique, please post it in the comments section below. If you would like a critique of your work, do so by hitting my critique submission page. And if you ever need a web designer for a project, send me a message through my contact form here.

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About the photo

The photo is made up of 28 total layers, which includes many photos as well as some adjustment layers and various things. I started with a neutral base photo of myself. Then I just took a slew of photos of myself doing various things to mess up my face. I didn’t use all of the images I made, but the majority of them. So, all of the defacement is manually done, not liquefied or altered much at all within Photoshop. The camera settings are thus:
Shutter – 1/25
Aperture – f/5.6
ISO1600
80mm focal length.

As for lighting, I have a bare fluorescent light slightly behind me and camera right. Another bare incandescent light slightly behind me and camera left. Some fill directly behind camera. The different types of bulbs give the warm and cool colored light to either side. This helps with the uneasiness of the feel of the image. I also increased the contrast and did a bit of color adjustment, adding in some subtle green and blue tint to the image overall. This also enhances the disturbing effect.

To give an idea of the retouching process I went through with this image, I made an animated GIF that shows each step. Then smoother in reverse. Here you can see that.

So, what do you think of the image? Think I should turn this into a series? Leave comments/questions below.

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What is the first creative or artistic thing you remember doing?
It started with drawing when I was just a kid. I used to spend lots of time just doodling with any paper I could get my hands on. My dads cousin had pencil drawn portraits of us kids that my dad kept on the wall when I was growing up. I would always look at those in awe and want to draw just as good as he did.

Do you consider yourself a mixed-media artist or photographer or something else?
I would have to say I consider myself a general/modern artist. I use many creative outlets to create what I do.

What made you get into photography?
It just happened. I wanted to get into a new hobby and really enjoyed taking pictures and have not stopped since.

What kind of education do you have in the field?
None to speak of. I guess you could say it is all self taught.

What do you think makes a photo fine art, beyond just a pretty picture?
It really has to start with honest emotion. I believe the photographer or artist has to feel something or have an emotional reaction to whatever it is they envision.

How do you market your work for sales, licensing or anything else?
I mostly use my personal website and social media sites. I try to get my work out there to as many people I can.

What was the most inspirational thing or moment in your life?
It really started with a photography artist named Maria Delakou (Maradinn Photography). I saw her work years ago and was just purely floored how she could create such beautiful images and tell stories with her photography. It inspired me and showed me that I could create art through a camera lens.

Who or what inspires you regularly?
My daughter is one of my biggest inspirations. Her creativeness and imagination really inspire me. I also am a big gothic novel fan and that helps inspire the dreamlike themes to my work. Another thing that purely inspires me is all the creative minds of so many talented people out there I have come in contact with these last few years.

Your images are very dream like and often contain birds. Do they symbolize something? Are there other symbolic elements to your images?
Birds are just something that always seemed so natural in my works and a thing I always just came back to when creating my images. I guess animals in general are a running theme and have some-what of a symbolic element. I grew up with animals in my childhood and they represent a past. They also represent all the natural things around us and why maybe they are so common in my images.

Do you ever use elements from stock or elsewhere in your creations?
In some work yes and others no. I try to use all my own work. Lately it’s been no stock and 100% all my own stuff.

Your images are also fairy tale like, have you ever written a story to go along with an image, or vice versa?
Actually there has been a couple old folk tales that were inspiration for some of the images. As I did with an image I called “A Russian Tale.” Inspired by an old childrens Folk Tale entitled “The Golden Fish” by Lilian Gask. In a picture I did entitled “Imagination,” the story just was a vision in my head as soon as I saw the playground wooden made boat. That would make a really good story and maybe, I will eventually write a story to go along with that image as inspiration. It has been a long goal to be published and have one of my pictures inspire the creation of a novel.

How much time do you put into your photo editing workflow?
A lot of work goes into my images. It starts with a small idea or inspiration and it builds on from there. It could take hours or even days worth of composing an image. I could end up adding several different layers like a painter would or like an author building on a great epic story leading to a great final end before its all finished.

Do you have a workflow soundtrack, music you typically listen to while editing?
For sure. For me art/photography and music go hand in hand.
These are the ones the get played every time I am working on something…..
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Snow (Hey oh)”
Amos Lee “Windows Are Rolled Down”
Florence + The Machine “You Got The Love”
Black Ghosts “Full Moon” – This one basically describes what my art is if it were put into music (this is what it would sound like) =]
the rest is what ever mood I am in..

What would you suggest to a photographer/artist just starting in the field?
I would say don’t lose focus on why you do photography/art. Always do it because you love and are passionate in your work and in return it will always show in the work that you do…

And most importantly, Cake or Pie?
Pie!

All images are copyright to Leslie Moroney.

So what do you guys think? Have a favorite image? Any suggestions on a future interview subject? Sound off in the comments below, and don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss the next featured artist.

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Today I have to show a set of zombie illustrations I made throughout the year. These are made for a private event as the invitation poster to give to a select few friends. I wanted to demonstrate first the posters then go in a little deeper and review the two different printing companies I used, shutterfly.com and docucopies.com.

The posters:

It is pretty evident from these that I am a big horror and zombie movie and game fan. I take it lightheartedly though, as I think the zombie genre generally calls for it. Most of the movies are really terrible, and in these cases, these movies are the worst of the worst. If you like B-movies, I recommend watching them with a group of friends and make fun of them.
At the end of this post, I will post links to amazon to the games and movies mentioned, for those interested.

Print Review

As for the printing company, the first three were printed by Shutterfly. They did an alright job, but it was about $5 per 8×10 poster to print and ship. Not bad price really, if I were selling them. Problem was, the paper isn’t very heavy and they are most definitely not matte, even though the matte print option was selected. I can’t see the dots per inch (dpi) in the prints, which is good. I uploaded 300dpi images. But what I found odd, and I think it is due to the coating on the paper they use, I could not for the life of me get a clear sharp photograph to view them. I was using a 300mm macro lens on a tripod, but it just wasn’t working. Overall, the printing job was good, but I wanted it cheaper with better options, particularly true matte.
Here is my attempt at showing the closeup. This is 100% zoom from the camera.

You may ask, why did I go with shutterfly in the first place? For one, I was on a deadline and it was the cheapest option I found at the time. I wasn’t going for super high quality amazing prints, these were simply mementos for some friends, after all.

With the 4th poster I found docucopies.com as an alternative. They were a LOT cheaper, or at least I initially thought so. They also have many more options and items that they print. I had my reservations, but thought I’d give them a try. Like I said, I wasn’t worried about too amazing of prints, but I do have my standards. I chose an #80 recycled paper cardstock with no coating. Their order process was very simple. I thought the shipping of $15+ for 10 prints a little ridiculous, but I think each print was only like 12 cents (plus a $7 or so set up fee). In the end with shipping it worked out to be about half the price of shutterfly. Score!
But how did they look? Absolutely fantastic, in my opinion. Initial inspection, I thought it looked like actual ink was printed on the paper. Particularly in the letters. With the naked eye the only place I could see the dpi was on the very edge of the print. You can see that here in 100% from the camera.

So, what I saw with the naked eye was the wavy, almost scalloped edge. You can kind of see the texture of the paper in this photo too, but not great.
As you can see I was able to get a very nice sharp photo of the actual print quality. I think this is because they are truly matte, without any coating like the shutterfly prints. These were sent as 300dpi PDF, which kept the vector ability of the type. I guess I should mention that shutterfly only accepts JPG, which does not have vector. As I mentioned, the red type looked like ink, and I think it was mostly because of the texture of the paper, because you can definitely see the dpi in the closeup here:

Conclusion

So what printing company will I use going forward? Well, at least for this kind of printing I will absolutely choose docucopies.com. I am more than happy with the print results in this case and wouldn’t really hesitate to sell these. If I wanted something really amazing I would use letterpress with real ink, but this is a great inexpensive alternative.

If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments. I hope you liked the posters and I hope I covered everything in the review.

Amazon links

/note/ I do get a kickback if you purchase from these links.
From poster 1:

from poster 2:

Wasting Away is another title for Aah Zombies!

from poster 3:

Dead Nation is a PS3 download only.

from poster 4:

Which poster is your favorite? Let me know in the comments below!

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The tagline here was just a stand in for a possible line later on.

After I came up with the ideas, I put three of them into a more coherent form and went to Lori to see what direction she preferred. She had a definite preference for one of the ballerina styles. So my next step was to work out the illustration in Illustrator and work on the typeface treatment. Color was the final touch and some final tweaking and here is the final logo:

I also created a flatter version and a black and white version that would work well with embroidery and other cloth treatments. I thought this would be important for cloth tags, whereas the full color gradient version would work great on a website, or on paper sale tags and the like. I also made a reverse option in case she wanted to go with a dark color scheme.

Testimonial from Lori Lindholm, 5Pinkfairies:

I’m so excited! I love what you came up with for my logo. You did an awesome job and I love it! THANK YOU!

I was also very happy to work with Lori, she was a great client that I hope to do work for again in the future. And you know who to look up if you ever need a tutu for your little girl. She can be found on facebook here. If you are a small to medium business looking for design work, such as a logo, branding, brochures, web design, or anything else, please do use my contact form to get a free quote.

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