Take some time to check out the Epic Edits blog.  Specifically the post on “10 Online Photography Portfolio No-No’s.”  The subject is of interest to me for a couple of reasons: primarily, I’m (among other things) a wearer of many hats.  One of those hats is Web Developer (a programmer, actually – but that spills into the realm of development and design), and just about everything on that list is something that I have done.

Deliberately?  Willingly?  No, not by a long shot – but that’s what the client wants, and that’s what the person writing the check gets.

Three of the items did make me think a bit, and I thought I’d expand on them here:

On image diversity

From my comment on that post:

It’s hard to disagree with many of these – many apply to *all* websites (please stop that music! And flash! And intro pages! Gah!). Photo size, quantity, and diversity, though: I’m sorta torn on those subjects. I suppose it depends on your intended audience – it’s easy to be *too* diverse, or have too many photos. I’ve seen far too many sites with repetitive, redundant images.

I suppose that’s more of an observation that it’s hard to setup a good portfolio in any environment, though. Take my thoughts with a grain of salt.

Thinking about quality & quantity, though: it brings to mind Michael Johnson’s proposal for the Tenset. I’m leaning very much in favor of his line of thought these days…

To elucidate with examples: if you’re a diverse photographer, don’t show your diversity on a single site.  Think like this: if you specialize in landscapes, don’t add in senior pics, wedding snaps, and boudoir shots to your site.  Yes, you’re diverse.  But the range from each of the subjects is too much of a stretch.

For example, someone looking for landscape photos? They’re looking for breathtaking scenery.  Don’t throw some teenagers at them, no matter how good they may look.  You’re telling your audience you don’t do landscape full time.  Wedding photos?  Don’t throw boudoir photos at them (and especially don’t throw teens & boudoir into the same site!): they’re likely to think you’re only interested in taking off their clothes.

Diversity is OK, but don’t cross genres with too much haste.  Better to have separate sites. Sure, drive people from one to the other with links – that’s a great service, and shows that you have the cognitive wherewithal to separate dissimilar subjects.

Plus, with the multiple sites: you’ll get better search results on each topic.

On image quantity

The classic complaint is that there aren’t enough images.  Put in more, more!  I disagree.  I’m no photo editor, but with the level of my current photo obsession I spend far too much time looking at other people’s images.  If I’m looking at a portfolio, I’m wanting to get a good feeling for the person quickly.  Please don’t make me dig through tens or hundreds of photos to get an idea of your work. Even if they’re all that incredible – it’s overkill, and the viewer will go numb.

I’ll go numb.

Notice the link earlier to the Tenset? Read it – it’s a great overview to not killing your visitor with quantity.  Not up front, at least.

On image size

Image size is something that heavily depends on your visitor.  If you’re looking at a photo-specific site, it’s a safe bet that you’re being visited by photo-obsessed enthusiasts.  Or at the very least, people who place a high value on the visual.  These are people who will appreciate large photos.  Give them what they want!

Visit Stuck in Customs (Trey Ratcliff) for a view of  someone who has done this well.

You’ll note that I do not give huge image views on this site.  It’s a matter of download time: usually I leave smaller images in the display for faster download.  Want the larger image?  Click the image, you’ll generally get the larger size.

Even as I type this, I realize that Trey is doing it the correct way.  So what if it takes a bit longer to download the image?  They’ll get the full impression up front, which is probably a better display.