Patrick Ward - Documentary Photographer

At first glance this website seems very professional and well maintained. The big image slide show works well to view each image big however his website is glitchy. Half of the images aren't loading but if you click down the bottom to change to view as a gallery you can view all the images straight away, no problems with loading. I did find that half of his links to the right work only some of the time and then some of the time some of the pictures show. To me this suggests that one or more of his files are too big for his website to keep up with. Furthermore, after spending longer on his website around 10 minutes I discovered it had given the whole website chance to load and then you could click on anything you wanted to.

The size of the links to the right for me are a little on the big side, but one huge problem for me was when I clicked on his about page and seen just how small his text was. Even on a big screen the text is diddy, I would recommend to make the text bigger to make it more user friendly. 

Dougie Wallace

Wallace's website stands out straight away, its a site that is hard not to look through once you are on it. The images are very intriguing, it shows humans as is and when people are having fun, completely oblivious to the world around them, no cares given. As non of these images are black and white, I think the black background gives the images a good contrast and don't take away from the images but more focus them. There is lots on this website to go through, I think maybe reducing the amount of images would work better to keep people attention to one gallery at a time. 

The name is bold but not too obvious that its all you can see. It blends nicely as well, with Wallace being a size smaller. One thing that does bug me though is her book selling pages. His book covers shown to sell the books as shown above are very, very small, which I think isn't very user friendly. His prints page is very simple but so simple its lacking. He has just put the size of prints, what paper and the price. I think it would be nice to see an example for clarity. Overall though, I think this is a pretty solid website, catchy and easy to navigate. 

Carolyn Mendelson

Mendelsohn has a very modern, earthy feel to it. Nothing immediately strikes you in the face, it all nicely blends together but stands out individually. Compared with the last two websites I have viewed she has much more content, such as, information, FAQ, mentoring, blog, kind words and clients. Some people might think she has too much on her site and that its crowded, however I feel like its more personalized and says much more about the photographer. It speaks to her personality as well as her creativeness.  

She has used a website builder, Melissa Love - The Design Co Space to build her website. I feel as though there are slight Squarespace vibes to it, which was possibly used as inspiration for this build. You can find all of Mendelsohn's socials on her site and little personal touches like her signed name at the bottom of her homepage, how many days she has been alive for, how many snow globes she owns, how many major awards she has won and how many coffees she drinks a day. I think this is commendable and interesting. 

For now I have opted to keep my testimonials or in her words 'kind words' and clients together however she has opted to keep them separately and adding one of the shoots images to give the testimonial more context. I feel that the majority of her images have a smoothness and slight haze filter to them, almost like Mendelsohn's trade mark. Keeping her site personal again she has kept her about page more personal rather than just trying to sell her abilities which I think is natural and a great way to gain trust. One think I am not a fan of though is her portfolio pictures, when viewed as a gallery the square tiles crop her image's and for the tiles that have two photos in one image it is much more noticeable, however when you click on the image and it goes full view the style is stunning. 

Overall this is my favourite website so far, it has a stunning layout, its simple and easy to use and the photographer and website builder aren't afraid to show Mendelsohn's personal side which I think is great!

Matthew Murray 

What the google link takes you to

What happens after you click on his name in the middle afterwards

So at first glance at Murrays website, I was very confused. One because it took me to his about page and two I couldn't see a portfolio, project or work type tab so I was wondering if the site was maybe under construction. It was only because I accidently clicked on his name that the page refreshed itself and suddenly the white text had a background so that the text becomes visible. However when you click on pages work, about and contact the words go almost invisible again, the only page with a background to the title is film which I think would help if that was through all of the pages. 

Once I had figured it out I started to look at his work. I still found the pale background quite jarring for some reason, too distracting. However I quite like his layout of keeping each page to one large image and three smaller images with context and a working store link for 'Saddleworth' and 'Stripper'. Ska also work well as a triptych however I like it with the large image better. However I find Millstream Way a little odd, the way the images are scattered with different sized gaps in between. That doesn't work for me, maybe if the gaps were small but it looks although images are missing. 30 Minute Walk Zine works well too, the layout looks good, however it would be nice to view the portrait images on the browser page as a whole, because they are so big they spill below and you have to scroll to view the whole image. 

All in all I think Murray has a solid website but just a few things I would change personally, to make it visually more aesthetically pleasing and user friendly. 

Priscilla Kanady