Jared Polin, froknowsphoto.com and welcome back to another Squarespace Rapid Fire Critique
where I take one of your websites and give it a critique.
A critique should know, if you don't have your own website, I highly suggest you check
out squarespace.com/fro to get a 14-day free trial to see if you like it for yourself.
It's what I personally use for jaredpolin.com and I guarantee that you can get something
set up within 30 minutes to have your portfolio online and looking professional.
And if you decide it's for you, use the code fro that helps me out.
So here we go.
We've got Dustin Lawson Photography.
Now, a pretty cool looking thing down here, it says monochrome projects.
Monochrome, this is built on squarespace.
I can tell because it just looks like squarespace, but it definitely is.
So we've got projects where you see monochrome, candid/portraits, Low light, Machu Picchu
in Mono, which sounds like monochrome to me, travel, about me, contact and all these social
links.
So first, let's read about me because I like to see who the site is about first before
I go a certain direction.
So if they're a professional photographer, I'll critique it one way.
If they're just a hobbyist looking to do pictures for fun, I'll critique in another and that
is fair to do because those two people have different styles of what they're trying to
or different things they are trying to accomplish.
A little bit about me.
I am a native East Tennessee photographer who loves to travel and tries to capture the
essence of places I visit.
For the past three years, I have been snapping as many photos as possible with my Canon cameras
and learning as much as I possibly can about light, exposure, and composition.
When I am not taking photos, I am working as an archaeological field technician, or
shovel bum.
This allows me to travel around the country and capture moments from the road.
I learned about -- let's see, I learned photography by working as the assistant photographer for
my good friend, Sabrina Simon on the excavation of Choctaw village in Mississippi in 2012.
So right here, we see that this person is not a professional photographer.
They like taking photos and because of their job, they get to capture images all over the
world, which is good.
So let's keep reading.
I got my first DSLR camera in the hopes of simply taking better photos, outdoors, landscape
when I went backpacking.
From there, I progressed into travel, black and white, and low light photography which
are now my passions.
Working as an amateur photographer, I would like to expand my horizons into candid portraits,
extreme sports, and photojournalism.
I'm going to skip.
My primary goal with this site is to develop my own private spot on the Internet so that
I can share my work with people on my own terms.
My secondary goal is to finally start a blog to document my travels and chronicle my further
development as a photographer.
I am available to shoot special events and other assignments as needed.
Okay.
So two-fold here.
Don't go calling yourself an amateur and then ask for the job.
It's very difficult if you call yourself an amateur and then say, hey, pay me to take
your photos.
That's going to scare me as a client from hiring you because you just called yourself
an amateur and you're still learning.
So why would I trust you for your with my special event?
Think of that when you're writing this up.
Now, you talked about having a blog.
Is there a blog on this site?
I don't think so.
I don't see it yet.
So if you're going to tell us about it, either, yes, this is your space, which is what you
made perfectly clear that you want it to be your space to share a blog, well then share
a blog.
I don't see a blog on here at all.
So let's click on monochrome just to see how it lays out.
It looks good.
I like the side scrolling thing.
If you want to see a picture larger, you can go ahead and click it and do this.
I think your monochrome editing is fantastic and I'll call it black and white.
I think your processing is really nice.
I don't like this photo personally with the movement.
There's some really nice photos on here of your travels.
Let's see, candid/portraits.
And so we've got candid/portraits, that's really nice.
Some nice things going on here.
Projects, low light, machu picchu in mono, maternity/pregnancy, I'm not a big fan of
those personally.
That's just me.
Hurricane Matthew.
All right.
So that's interesting, covering that.
These look more like snapshots and photographs.
I don't think that's very representative of the quality of work that you put out.
See, this photographer is doing a great job with their monochrome project.
The photos look tremendous for the most part.
And then I click on this Hurricane Matthews one and it just looks like snapshots.
This may be a better place to put photos, a photo story in a blog, then as a portfolio
type of thing.
Now, we'll keep talking about this as we move on.
We've got travel, Peru and Israel.
Well, what's different than projects, Peru and Israel?
Hey get out of here, Nikon message center, nobody cares about you.
Get off my screen.
Those are two things I would put together your best work and showcase it.
You've got your monochrome from your travels.
I don't even think you need to call it Machu Picchu in mono or maternity or all of these
different things, separate them, but put them together, which made absolutely no sense now
that I just said separate, hashtag, separate them, but put them together.
That makes no sense, Jared.
That is terrible that you said that.
What I'm trying to get at, the point I'm trying to make is that, break it into a small bunch
of categories.
You've got your travel photos, which seem to be the things that you do as well as the
black and white.
So put those together and then maybe have the other portraits, maternity, pregnancy,
oh, that's the same thing as maternity in one little category.
But if you're going to do travel, then you need to have a bunch of different travel photos
in there.
I mean, you've got two of them here and projects.
It all seems to be the same.
This is where you create a blog.
You put your best photos up front in a portfolio, but then you blog about all of the other things
that you're talking about, your maternity photos, your travel photos, your projects
that you're doing, these places that you're going.
This is the stuff that you should be doing in a blog.
You said you want to do a blog, but you didn't do it yet.
And I'm yelling at you because you wrote about it in the about me.
So instead of writing about it, do it.
Start it.
You're using squarespace already.
Squarespace is really easy for making blog posts.
They have templates already in the back-end that allow you to do it quickly and efficiently.
So, go ahead and start doing it.
That's the kick in the ass you need is me telling you that.
You already know you want to do it.
So do it, your photos are really good if you'd want to get jobs, don't call yourself an amateur,
call yourself somebody who is, what could you call yourself, you're a photographer.
You don't have to say professional, you don't have to say amateur, you are a photographer
who loves to do X, Y and Z.
Here's my best work.
Please follow my blog.
I like blogging and you could say something like, on my website, I'm using this as a place
to share my journey with the world.
Follow my blog, see where I've been, see what pictures I've taken, see the stories behind
that and oh, yeah.
If you'd like me to capture your special moment, please contact me, which brings us up to the
contact page.
All right, here we go.
Contact me.
If you would like to contact me about setting up a shoot or to order prints, please leave
your name and email address to the right.
This is the right, correct, right, right over here is the right.
There is something missing.
Yes, right.
The box is missing.
So Dustin, make sure you have the box.
I see that you have a button up here to click for your email.
You've got your Instagram.
You have your Flickr and you have your Facebook.
Let me go to your Instagram, if you had a phone number, I would've called you.
Let me go ahead and hit follow for now.
But if you're going to have a contact page, Squarespace has a really simple way of making
a contact that you literally drag and drop it.
It says what do you want, name, email address, phone number and something else and it will
set it up.
You tell what email address to go to and it sends it to you.
So this is it for this Squarespace Rapid Fire Critique, but what I will say is Dustin's
photos are really good.
There are some really solid travel photos in here.
I love the colors and tones that he's getting.
Take a look at his website, see the monochrome photos, but also look at the travel photos
in color.
They're fantastic.
So heed the advice that I'm giving you Dustin.
And if any of this advice fits for you guys watching for your own website, go ahead and
make those changes, because I think it will make your site a better place and the possibility
of getting more jobs, if that's what you're looking for.
If you are looking to build your own website, I highly suggest you check out Squarespace.
It's what I personally use for jaredpolin.com, go to squarespace.dot/fro to get a 14-day
free trial, no credit card needed at all.
Try it for yourself.
Once you get it set up, which I know you could get the basic stuff set up in under 30 minutes,
I guarantee you that you can put up a gallery in a matter of minutes and change it around
to your liking.
If you decide that squarespace is for you, go ahead use the code fro at checkout to get
10% off your entire first year or first month depending on what you go ahead and pick.
And that is where I'll leave it.
That is my affiliate link.
It helps me, it helps you.
And that's where I'll leave it.
Jared Polin, froknowsphoto.com.
See you.