Brent Stirton is a photojournalist whose website was among those listed in Smashing Magazine's "35 Beautiful Photography Websites" posting on July 10, 2009. Stirton is a staff photographer for Getty Images whose work has been published by many noteworthy international news organizations as well as non-profit organizations such as the World Wildlife Fund for Nature.
The website was accurately evaluated in the posting. I like the fact that Stirton includes his contact information at the top of every page, though it does seem strange that he lists only phone numbers and no E-mail address (though he does on his specific contact page). There is no link back to the home page throughout the site, but the site is not designed around a home page. There are convenient gallery links on the upper right hand side that hold the entirety of the website's media.
The site's largest limitation might also be considered its greatest asset. Each gallery is presented entirely in Flash. With 40 some images in each gallery, this makes load time long on anything but an ideal internet connection. This also means than any device without Flash cannot view the photos at all. Another thing I noticed was that the individual images do not include caption information. While this seems common among photo websites, I do wish that the norm would change to include the specific details that come with an informative caption.
There is a "words" hyperlink attached to the various galleries within the "Projects" menu. This link opens a description of the entire gallery in a new window. While I appreciate having access to the information in some format, I do wish that there was a more convenient presentation for the text. A new tab would be less awkward than a new window, but I'm not sure how that would operate in different browsers. The most ideal option would be to include the text within the website itself, possibly in a summary form that could extend into a longer format if the viewer wished to read the entire description.
While Stirton's website may not be ideal for those operating on less than a lightning speed connection, most of his potential employers at this point in his career probably do not fall into that category. His images are compelling and professional, as is the format they are presented in. Because he has lengthy experience and wide diversity in his photography he can afford to include 50+ image galleries. This would not be wise for someone in my position, but one day it just might be...
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