I recently read an interesting article on Photopreneur which deals with what catches the eyes of photo editors.
The point made by the article reaffirms my belief that the simpler the website the better. With photographers' websites so easy and cheap to create, how do photo editors choose which online portfolio to spend time looking at, and decide to contact its owner? The answer? The simplest. I'd also add to that that the images have to be large...as large as those on the Boston Globe's The Big Picture (which, in my view, will revolutionize the way images are displayed on the web).
The Photopreneur article says it very clearly: "Despite the whiz-bang features and slick animation offered on so many sites, simple is usually best. Editors are short of time, and faced with a large number of images they want to gain an understanding quickly of what the photographer can do. They’re less interested in what the photographer’s Web developer can do."
A great example for a photographer's online travel portfolio is by Anna Wolf. Large images and clean scans of articles with Anna's images to show how her images fit in an editorial context is the perfect example of what photo editors are attracted to.
Flash? Fuggetaboutit
