AGM59 Scoping Art Photography Websites 10 March 2021

The following is a guide that was outlined and explained by Eva Bensasson in the art photography website seminar held on 10 March 2021. This is a reference so I can start the process of revising my existing website: http://www.jenniemeadows.com.

At the start of the process, the main questions to ask myself and forumlate an answer to are:

What kind of website suits my practice?
What’s the scale/context of my website?

After this initial work, I will look at other practioners’ websites. This is vital to the process in order to:

Clarify what it is I want to do
Avoid obvious mistakes

As Eva explained, these are the first stages when either creating a new photography-based website or revising my existing one. I need to have in mind the following aspects when doing so:

Consider how the websites are structured and presented.
What choices have been made for the visual layouts, terminology and navigation?
What do I think works well?
What could be improved?
Does the artist have a social media presence and if so how is this incorporated, or not?
Consider who I think this website is aimed at; this may not be obvious, consider what might mark a successful interaction e.g. reaching a certain page, downloading a pdf, dwell time, a commercial transaction.

Elements to look at are:

Structure
Style
Wording

Ask myself the following questions:

How is the work represented?

Consider the relationship of text to image, does one overshadow the other?
How is the meta-information about the images presented in each case?
Where the photograph/artwork exists as a physical object, how is this physicality communicated?

Cross-platform? How do all these websites perform on phones and tablets? Over half of your visitors may be viewing my site from one of these platforms yet so many of the sites below are not responsive.

URLs
Look at the web addresses above. What are the patterns in the names and domains chosen?

How is the home page structured / what’s on it?
Examples for discussion:

What navigation (functionality, structure, wording, terminology – how much is there)?
See also how bodies of photographic practice are presented (as series, within ‘work’, from the front page…). Examples for discussion:

The ‘About’ page
Do all the site on this page have one? What other terminology is used?
Examples for discussion:

How do I flag news?
Examples for discussion:

Selling your work via the website

Multiple professional identities?
Examples for discussion:

Photo books

Linking to/embedding/incorporating social media

Look at the journey from site to social media account, and vice versa. The list of social profiles could easily have been as long as this list of portfolio websites. The few below are for the purpose of starting discussion.

Twitter:

Tumblr: http://guillaumegreff.tumblr.com

Medium: @jamesbridle

‘Special’ features/offer? e.g. pdf download