I'd say the same thing about graphic or web design. Anyone with a computer thinks they can do either. They probably can, but not well.
Many photographers may take great pics but ask them to put together some images and add some typography and they come unstuck. Your flyer to me looks amateurish and if you want to look professional, get a profesional graphics person to do that side of things. And defintely get someone professional in to overhaul your website. It looks like it was [badly] designed 10 years ago and looks anything but professional.
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Oh Mr jjj, if only you were aware of the tale of woe behind the website. I did indeed ask three so called website designers to do the job and each one went about ripping me off. Taking money then disappearing off abroad, charging 400 euros to resize 40 images and simply cocking the job up etc etc. Stuff this for a game of soldiers I thought and did it myself, at least I am in control.
When it comes to website design there is an awful lot of time and energy expended on discussing the absolute placing of every comma, font size, colour scheme and so forth, on every photo forum I've seen, and yet very little about the content, which, pardon my idiocy here, I might have thought was just as important. And what strikes me most about all the professionally designed sites is just how boring many of them are. They are all constructed to a formula which I have had repeated to me many a time and so they are all pretty much the same. If you don't believe me try looking at a few web hosting sites. Zzzzzzz...........
The site may well not be up to the standards of right on media types, but it is mine and I am trying to use photography to sell photography, a concept that my local friendly web designers couldn't really grasp. I'm not saying I've got it right, but I can change it and let it evolve at will, it is not a fixed entity by any means. What I did want to avoid was the dreaded 'Gallery' pages which I doubt are seldom studied to anything like the degree that the photographers rather fancy they are. I feel the impact and message are immediate on my site, although I think that yellow font on the home page is in desperate need of replacing with something a little more subtle.
The same applies to the flyer, but it can't be that bad as I actually get requests for it. It's bright, concise, optimistic and gets noticed. Being encapsulated means that it doesn't get thrown away either. Trouble is, that I have nothing to compare it directly with, how many other photographers have done anything similar. How do you sell yourself for instance?
Much thanks for the input anyway.
Justin.
ps. Just looked at your site and indeed it is a good 'un.