It is a site, a site which has taken an inordinate length amount of time to come to fruition.
I knew almost exactly a year ago it had to be done. I already had a website, two in fact; one for the babies, children, family and wedding photography I did and the other for the corporate, business, event and commercial work I undertook but here was the problem apparently.
I needed all my work in one place.
I understand the advice. It was advice I took from the hugely knowledgeable South Yorkshire based PR guru #FayeSmith whilst i was on her February #BrandBooster course.
It turned out my brand was a little confused.
What this year of putting the website together has achieved, aside from a pretty fab website, is that it has lead me to a much better understanding of the type of photographer I want to be and therefore how i need to proceed, the work I need to prioritise, my desired cliental and how exactly to market myself.
Courses like Brand Booster in Sheffield, UK, run by Faye Smith, are exceptional at cementing in place in your own mind and the consciousness of the people around you who you are, what you do and how you do it.
So far this seems like a thinly veiled promotion for the Sheffield Brand Booster - I assure you it's not (though if you are a new or struggling business I cannot recommend courses like BB enough).
What this is about is an explanation for what you see now as my current website - my contemporary portfolio of work.
So here we go... this is my raison d'etre or maybe more accurately the motivation behind the madness:
My updated website's home page shows mainly the creative, lifestyle family photography I do. It includes primarily baby, children and family photoshoots, wedding photography and artistic photoshoots.
It is my ambition to do more of these types of shoots and my ambition for each type of work correlates with the order I've mentioned them in and the frequency with which they appear on the home page.
Some may find it strange that I have neglected to include the other work I do on the home page, work I do plenty of including corporate headshots (which I really enjoying doing) music photography (I love) and event and website work which is work I respect.
Not having these areas represented on the home page (even though they are represented in my portfolio) has been a difficult decision for me because I still need this work and am good at it.
What I had to put first was my brand and what I want to be doing with my photography in the next few years and after I asked myself that question there was absolutely no doubt in my head about the answer. I want to be an exceptional family photographer with a specialism in lifestyle baby and children photography. I want my reputation to come before me and I want my style of work to be recognisable. We can all dream ;)
So, in a bid to make this happen I needed to represent only on the home page the work I want to be synonymous with and I hope very much I've done the right thing. Only the next few months will tell.
The site, although lunched is in need a little preening in the removal of some of the photos from the slideshows - I am told 10-15 is a healthy and professional amount of images per slide show but achieving this is incredibly hard as I have very little objectivity left with regard to what needs to go.
Anyway, I open up my new website homepage content dilemma to you all and anyone who might have a considered opinion on it.
Either way I'd love any feedback on the site.
www.sammisparke.com
Signing off for now, Sammi
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