By Melissa Sandford

We thought Melissa’s original post (see below) was so fantastic that we broke up her interviews into a few different parts – we’ll post one each week for three weeks! @focalkate

Recently, I started to work on a personal site and blog for my own photographic interests. As it turns out, it’s a rather large undertaking. In fact, even though it’s a personal project…it didn’t take me long to realize that I needed to treat it as if it were, in fact, a professional endeavor.

This would mean that both a tremendous amount of research and attention to detail would be required.  And spreadsheets – I can’t forget to mention spreadsheets. After all, have you ever met a Project Manager who doesn’t love a good spreadsheet?

Anyway, while still in the planning phase, one of the items on my somewhat extensive to-do list was the task of finding and interviewing professionals in the industry who had already successfully created an online presence for their work.

I wanted my research to be well-balanced… and so, I set out with the goal of interviewing:

• Someone who had found success building a site through the use of customizable templates
• Someone who opted to collaborate with a web designer and or web design team
• Someone who had utilized coding to create a site on their own, completely from scratch

When I found these industry professionals, I asked them each the same set of questions with the hope of sharing their answers, experience, and advice with you here.

Professional Retoucher: Carrie Beene

1) What were your ultimate goals for carving out an online presence for your services?

I needed a place where prospective clients could see what I was doing and how much of it I was doing. I asked my webmaster to make it easy to update and swap out images so that clients would see that we are active.

I also wanted my students to have a place to find tutorials and find updates for upcoming teaching and seminar dates. In addition, I had a book coming out that I wanted to market.

2) Did you work with a web professional/design team when creating your current site/blog?

Yes, I chose a talented Freelance Graphic Designer that I knew, someone who I felt would be able to understand my vision; I wanted to keep it simple, easy to navigate and the design clean and modern.

3) Can you tell us a little bit about the process of that overall experience?

It was a back and forth process between me and my designer. He made a first layout and I made my comments and he would tweak it again and again until I was ready to launch. We made changes more frequently in the beginning, and more changes as they became necessary, as in adding the tutorial page and the Vania Wars page that goes with my book.

4) On average, how many hours a week do you dedicate towards maintaining the content/images on your site/blog?

I don’t spend “hours” on my site, I’m a Retoucher and my work takes all of my time. That’s why I had the site built so it was easy to update. It looks like it is well tended because we swap out images regularly and update speaking engagements as needed, but it doesn’t take us a lot of time to do it. I may spend more time on the site later as people begin posting on my Book page. They will be able to post their work based on the project in my book, but that’s new and time will tell on that. (click here to check out Carrie’s book, Real Retouching)

5) What do you feel is the most beneficial feature of your photography site/blog for visitors?

Ease of navigation. I like that people can sift through the images without a lot of distraction and no waiting. I did not use Flash for that very reason. I don’t like sites that have a big intro page that take too much time to load and music and a slide show and all that… too much distraction.

6) If you could make one change or enhancement to your current site/blog what would it be?

Hmmm, I’m not sure what I would change now, but I recently had the webmaster make the front page “zoomable”. I love that capability, but I always have to make sure that each image I use is very, very clean, since you can see every detail!

7) Do you have any words of advice for a photographer who is currently interested in investing in a site and/or blog?

If I haven’t emphasized this already…keep it simple. You want to showcase your images, not the webmasters ability to add bells and whistles. People don’t have a lot of time or patience in general, and a client who peeks in on your site should be impressed quickly and not have to struggle or wait to view several images.

Melissa Sandford

Melissa Sandford is a photography enthusiast employed as a project manager with Focal Press. As a journalism student she admittedly had a brief, fleeting affair with film photography. But that was years ago, way back when. Digital is her new love... and, it just might be the real deal. Currently, she resides smack dab in the middle of nowhere Massachusetts, nestled away in the woods with her husband and their pets Lucy, Maggie, and Kung Fu.

WEBSITE

http://www.PerfectlyLovelyPhotography.com