Normally when photographers announce a redesign of their website I don’t really bother unless I know them personally. Usually the design will follow a standard template – main photograph in the center, navigation on the left, top or bottom. But when Andrew Hetherington announced his update I was a bit more curious because he’s done some innovative things on the web with his blog and such. So I checked it out, and immediately the new layout caught my attention. It was a hybrid of a standard portfolio site and a blog. And I thought it was brilliant.
What came to mind was that it looked and felt more like a magazine featuring his work than a standard, stale portfolio site. The scrolling features gave the instant impression of activity, of a photographer that was producing new work frequently.
That impression is important, in fact it’s enormously important. Most of the time the recent work is buried a few clicks away, but here on Andrew’s site, it’s right there. We know immediately what he’s been up to. For photo editors this has to be a dream.
I was talking about this with James over the weekend, and he thought it was certainly good for commercial photographers. I said, it would also be good for documentary and fine art photographers. Again, it shows immediately that you’re actively producing work. I know most photographers have blogs where they update their audience on current work, but again, they’re sometimes buried, and in many cases infrequently updated which can actually send the wrong impression.
Andrew’s approach eliminates the need for an infrequently updated blog, or even a news page. Could this work for someone who blogs more frequently? I’m not sure. Andrew tackles that problem by having a separately branded blog, ‘What’s the Jackanory?’ that’s more frequently updated with his day to day production.
Perhaps I’m making too much of this or maybe I’m just unaware of other sites that have done this but I think this approach is on the money, and I suspect we’ll see more photographers move in this direction. Too many photographer’s websites feel static. I don’t think that’s the type of impression you want to send out to your audience or clients. I’ve been calling this ‘The Portfolio Magazine’ approach because ‘portfolio blog’ just doesn’t seem to fit. ‘Portfolio stream’ might be another way to describe it.
Whatever you want to call it, I think its a sign of what’s to come.
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