Gallery Organization...

[ShutterSpire]

On your website, do you split your galleries:

1) Into individual clients "Joe & Susan", "Mark & Nancy"

2) Into parts of the wedding "Details" "Ceremony"...

3) or into session type "Weddings" "Engagements" "Bridals"

Your thoughts???

We have done the first and the last. We just now started doing the individual clients, and so it is too early to tell if we really like it. The third option does allow for you to select the most stellar images, but leaves out any kind of 'personality'

[LadyShutterBug]

i have more than just wedding photography, so mine are split into a few wedding galleries (no real difference, they're just there to browse at your leisure)... couples... brides... and then the other things i shoot.

i have too many from different weddings to be able to just highlight a few. it's like picking children, i know i need to weed out some of the older ones, but i love them all. i know you know what i'm talking about...lol.

[ShutterSpire]

Originally Posted by LadyShutterBug

i have more than just wedding photography, so mine are split into a few wedding galleries (no real difference, they're just there to browse at your leisure)... couples... brides... and then the other things i shoot.

i have too many from different weddings to be able to just highlight a few. it's like picking children, i know i need to weed out some of the older ones, but i love them all. i know you know what i'm talking about...lol.

Yes I do!! And we didn't feature some of our favorites because I only have a couple favorites from that session and I didn't want to have a "Vicki & Pete" category with only 3 images...

[LadyShutterBug]

i don't like using names. sometimes a name can put someone off (eeewww, i dated the sleaziest guy named pete in college!) so i like to just keep it neutral...lol.

[ronocnikral]

we fall in the school of, if you give them everything on the website, they are less likely to contact you. So...we don't want to present full weddings, we want them to come to us to look through our albums to see a full wedding, not to make that decision at the website. our website's purpose is to create an emotion that makes them want to contact us. then, it is our job to talk to them, get them in for a consult and create a booking.

using people's names has no upside, imo. you want people to come to your site and be able to see themselves in the pictures, and jack &jill's name detracts from that. so...we just lump into categoires.

[ShutterSpire]

Originally Posted by ronocnikral

we fall in the school of, if you give them everything on the website, they are less likely to contact you. So...we don't want to present full weddings, we want them to come to us to look through our albums to see a full wedding, not to make that decision at the website. our website's purpose is to create an emotion that makes them want to contact us. then, it is our job to talk to them, get them in for a consult and create a booking.

using people's names has no upside, imo. you want people to come to your site and be able to see themselves in the pictures, and jack &jill's name detracts from that. so...we just lump into categoires.

I totally agree. We wont show full weddings either. It is just TOO overwhelming. I had one client ask to see a full wedding once, after a consultation, and I did send her a link... but that isn't something that we come by regularly.

[csa]

We break by categories with sub-galleries to allow us to pull details, ceremony, etc. out into their own sub-gallery. From the point of view of shopping, since all my kids got married last year, I don't like galleries split by couple's names.

[PhotoDude79]

I'm the total opposite of everyone here. I have 3 full weddings up on my portfolio site and post full weddings on my blog. The bride that book me love it!!! They know exactly what they are getting and know how I shoot a full wedding from beginning to end. But hey different strokes.. different folks.

[LadyShutterBug]

i don't have a problem posting "full weddings"... especially on the blog. i feel like people coming to the blog want a story of the day, and i'm gonna give them that. they want to see the rings, the cakes, the couple, the kiss, the dancing, the flowers. not a problem. come on down.

i also like being able to link a couple to the blog of a wedding i shot at their venue. "Oh, I love Zaza! The last wedding I did there, we had some incredibly beautiful first look shots... take a look at Jane and John's blog: (blog link)".

linking them to an actual "full wedding gallery" is another story. i don't have a problem doing that if they specifically request (because some of them have read the book or magazine that says "be sure to look at an entire wedding"), but i don't just do that out of the blue.

as for the portfolio on the website, i don't think i could ever pare it down to just 3 or 4 weddings. they're all so different, i could NEVER choose. i prefer to just pick the ones i feel to be the most "me" and the most beautiful. i folks, this is what i'd like to shoot, what i enjoy shooting, and what i think is great. if this is what you want, i'm your girl.