Bow Tie Photography

Have you seen the new website design?  This is something we’ve been cooking for about a year…  We originally planned to do this in February, but then my morning sickness was bad with Abby and Mark was busy with work, then with other things and then, well, time just got away from us.  The good news is that the additional time gave us ample opportunity to really solidify what I wanted the new site to look like .  “Let’s keep it clean and simple,” I said to Mark.  He had all kinds of ideas for bells and whistles at first, but in the end he’s come to see the wisdom of what I’ve been saying.  And now he’s very focused on all the little details, from miniscule spacing changes to font sizes.

If you like the new website, let me know so that I can pass along the comments.  I think Mark deserves huge kudos for his work.  This is not what he majored in by a long shot, but he’s done a terrific job.  He’s built this website to take the business through the next several years (the last incarnation has been around about four years and *really* needed an upgrade!)

Improvements include:
  – A streamlined, pared-down look.  The new website focuses on my three favorite kinds of photography.  While I’ll still be doing printing (business cards, postcards, posters) and other kinds of photography, the highlight is now on weddings, portraits, and senior pictures.
  - A different flowchart, so to speak.  To simplify the website, we’ve rearranged what links go on which pages.  We’ll also be adding informational pages that weren’t there before so that there’s someplace to turn when you have a question at midnight and you think it *might* be too late to call me
  – New, larger galleries.  The old website had a nice gallery design, but the images were a little smaller and the galleries themselves had a smaller selection of pictures to look through.  The new galleries have an easy-to-use flash interface and more and larger images.
  – This new blog!  I’ve been tossing the idea of a blog around now for quite some time.  I didn’t want to create a blog simply because it’s currently the trendy thing to do.  I recently realized, though, that it’s a great way for clients to get to “meet” me before we even get together.  Very seldom do I ever meet my portrait clients before the day of their photo shoot, and I often have wedding couples that I’ve never met until I arrive at the church!  This will be a good way for potential clients to get a feel for what I’m about.  Plus it’ll be an ideal place to highlight some of my favorite images from different shoots.  Like when I meet a stellar senior and I have to share how beautifully the images came out.  Or like when I come home from a wedding all hyped up on cake and need someplace to rave about the day

That’s it, in a nutshell…  Let me know if you have any feedback.  We’re constantly looking for ways to improve, even if we don’t get to implement our ideas right away!