Need advice on my website: I have a website "woodywud.smugmug.com" My question is this My ship gallery has 3612 pictures My tugboat gallery has 1490 pictures landscape 198 Stuff...

mwoods222 Loc: Newburg N.Y,

I have a website "woodywud.smugmug.com"
My question is this
My ship gallery has 3612 pictures
My tugboat gallery has 1490 pictures
landscape 198
Stuff gallery 86 pictures
My question is mainly my ship pictures. How many pictures of the same topic is too much.
I average yearly hits is 150,000
Any suggestions on weeding some out or starting a new gallery for 2020

SMPhotography Loc: Pawleys Island, SC

It is your gallery so however many photos you have on a particular topic is totally up to you. Over 3500 is definitely quite a lot though and I don't think many people really look at stuff you did past maybe the first 500 or so. But again, use your own discretion.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

My thought is that a website should be a gallery or portfolio of your all time best 50 or 100. More than that makes it a catalog. But, if sales is the goal, maybe a catalog is better.

Are you trying to display your best work or are you trying to sell photos?

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

bsprague wrote:

My thought is that a website should be a gallery or portfolio of your all time best 50 or 100. More than that makes it a catalog. But, if sales is the goal, maybe a catalog is better.

Are you trying to display your best work or are you trying to sell photos?

If it were my website I would only show the best of the best. In tugs you have planes?

How are sales going? Meeting your goal?

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Wow, that's a lot of images!

The most I have in one grouping on my site is 110.
But mine are primarily just for display.

dat2ra Loc: Sacramento

Ask yourself: 1) What is the purpose of your website? 2) Would you look through that many photos in someone else's site? 3) Is the reason you have so many because you are emotionally attached to your photos so you cannot cull them? 4) If you can go through a set and say "I really like that one, and that one, and that one.", why post the others?

Najataagihe

mwoods222 wrote:

My ship gallery has 3612 pictures
My tugboat gallery has 1490 pictures
landscape 198

You're doing yourself a disservice.

100 per group, tops. 50 is better.

Subdivide your pictures into categories that will allow your viewers to "drill down" to that in which they are interested.

Ships:

Subdivide by type: Tanker, Bulk, Container, Military, etc..

Subdivide types: Destroyer, Aircraft Carrier, Tanker for military, etc..

Subdivide by size, material, type of propulsion, location, etc..

Sort by century or decade of build.

You might have the same photo in different categories.

Limit each subdivision to 50 - 100 photos.

If the content of your site is easier to get to what the viewer wants, the more useful (popular) it will be.

In short, sort them by anything that will differentiate large groups, saving the viewer the tedium of looking at EVERY, SINGLE PHOTO!

You don't have too many photos.

You have too many unorganized photos (and a lot of work ahead of you).

I can NOT emphasize enough the importance of mapping out your sorting plan BEFORE you start shifting things around.

Good luck!

cahale Loc: San Angelo, TX

Depends on why you are there. Ego, or profit. If it's ego, pick the best and dump the rest. If it's profit (and you are actually selling some), the more the better.

CamB Loc: Juneau, Alaska

mwoods222 wrote:

I have a website "woodywud.smugmug.com"
My question is this
My ship gallery has 3612 pictures
My tugboat gallery has 1490 pictures
landscape 198
Stuff gallery 86 pictures
My question is mainly my ship pictures. How many pictures of the same topic is too much.
I average yearly hits is 150,000
Any suggestions on weeding some out or starting a new gallery for 2020

After checking out your website, I have some thoughts. Something I noticed right away was that, while most of the photos some were technically good, there were quite a few that were not. (out of focus or blurry or poor exposure.) These I would remove. Next, there were duplicates (not the same picture, just the same boat) of many. I would weed out the lesser quality shots of those. Just keep the best. Sometimes the quality of a shot might not be that good but there might be other reasons for keeping it. I might note this with the picture. ("The last trip down the river of so and so boat.") And then, like others have said, grouping ships in category's could make it more interesting to browse for others who might just be into a certain type of ship. Someone might only be interested in ore carriers because they worked on one at one time.
...Cam

mwoods222 Loc: Newburg N.Y,

thanks for the advice I will look into what u suggest

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

Najataagihe wrote:

You're doing yourself a disservice. br br 100 per... (show quote)

👍👍

cameraf4 Loc: Delaware

Yeah, what Cam said. Quite a nice website, BTW.

saxman71 Loc: Wenatchee

Most of us who have been doing this for a while tend to improve our skills over time. Both the actual picture taking aspect (exposure triangle) as well as the post processing part of the final image. We should be getting better at composition as well. I periodically go through the older shots on my two web sites and try to weed out those images that I think are not quite up to snuff with my current skill level. I'm pretty sure nobody is going to look at over 3000 pictures of ships. I would try to find the best 100 or so and really feature them.

mflowe Loc: Port Deposit, MD

If the purpose of your website is to share photos with family and friends, the more pics the merrier. But if you want others to look, such as potential clients or buyers, I feel you should cull the heard, and only put your best foot forward. Also for others a "about" page would be nice.

russelray Loc: La Mesa CA

mwoods222 wrote:

I have a website "woodywud.smugmug.com"
My question is this
My ship gallery has 3612 pictures
My tugboat gallery has 1490 pictures
landscape 198
Stuff gallery 86 pictures
My question is mainly my ship pictures. How many pictures of the same topic is too much.
I average yearly hits is 150,000
Any suggestions on weeding some out or starting a new gallery for 2020

I asked that question of a high school friend 5 years ago since he was into computer science (he now is a graduating senior at Cal Berkeley with a 4.0 GPA in computer science and a job offer on his desk of $120,000 annually). At the time I was trying to create a web site with all my favorites on it, which probably would have been in the tens of thousands. I wanted people to have a choice. He said, "Don't give them that many choices." and pointed me to Hick's Law and The Paradox of Choice. Consequently, I don't have too many choices for any one month, but I rotate each month to provide new stuff.