Photos on website

I've been thinking about it for a while, and then after reading a response today on the forum about a woman thinking she was getting one type of face painting, but then ending up with another, I wondered what you all thought about photos we post on our websites:

should we just post photos that we do at parties/ppf events, so that people know what we can do in 3 -5 minutes, (or less)... or should we separate those somehow from those that take us longer/those we do on ourselves (for instance) when practicing... etc?

How do you make it clear on your website/s that you may not be offering everything you have posted in your gallery? (or do you? Is it necessary? Is it some kind of "false" advertising if we post 30 minute plus makeup jobs with no explanation?)

What do you think?

My explanation comes when they approach me about booking. I use specific photos on my page to find out what they want and charge extra for the more elaborate stuff. Most people go with the cheapest, but I think they all like knowing what you are capable of.

I show every type of work - I have "normal" painting on my main face painting page, then I have one that shows competition work etc that states that it isn't what gets painted at parties and gigs.

I also have different displays for different speeds of work.

Watching this thread with interest as I am doing the gallery for my website this week...

I show my pictures with an estimate of how long each takes to paint. That puts it on the client to let me know what type of designs she wants and to pay for my time accordingly For example, if they want 3-5 minute designs, so that I can paint a lot of kids in an hour, they tell me they want those designs, etc.
It's worked perfectly so far!

You can see my gallery page here:

http://www.vhdesign.com/faces.htm

Of course, now that I've looked at the page, I realize I really need to update it! LOL

I dont have a web page and just use the pictures I paint at my market gig so people can see what I do. I get most of my paid gigs through my market stall or word of mouth. I do update them regularly though and put some on my facebook

I think I definitely need to work on my website a bit. I think it is a good idea to categorize them a bit better than I have or perhaps just a bit more info on 3-5 minute things to 15 min, then the ones that are done by personal app. only. It would help guard against future confusion.

It'll have to wait a few days though.

Well, I have just about every design shown in my gallery. What do they expect for $5?! LOL

When I do birthday parties, I bring my albums to the party. One of the albums has all my 30 minute faces for show off I always state it's for private sessions for costumes. Clearly, if there are 25 kids at the party and I'm booked for 2 hours I can not do a 30 minute face on each child. I do bring my board for a visual as well. Sometimes, I will not pull my albums out, if the party has way too many kids. Most of the things on my board are less then 5 minutes. Some of my albums may take 5-7 minutes, which is fine for a 10 kid party

It sounds like your client was just being difficult.

Cotton Candy Clown, this is off topic but the other day my hubby was reading over my shoulder, saw your avatar and said, "WOW! what is that? I said, THAT is an extremely cool face painting!" LOL He loved it.

I've got a few categories in my gallery....
'Gallery' is just face paint stuff,
'Not just for kids' is where I'm trying to interest adults for parties and private bookings.
'Parties' is for stuff I've actually painted at parties....this section needs work, I find it hard to get pics at parties.
'A mixed bag' is just stuff I've done in practise just to show ideas maybe for arms, etc and to give an idea of what I maybe could paint. I don't really know, I put that section in when I didn't have too many photos and I was trying to pad out my gallery. Although I have recently added to it. Not sure if I should keep it in or not.

Hopefully people know where they stand with me, but to be honest I never really thought too much about it. I guess I just presumed common sense would prevail! LOL It's got me thinking now if my site should be changed. I like the idea of speed categories. Oh I don't know.

Jody Rife wrote:Cotton Candy Clown, this is off topic but the other day my hubby was reading over my shoulder, saw your avatar and said, "WOW! what is that? I said, THAT is an extremely cool face painting!" LOL He loved it.

Aww! Thanks Jody! I was just talking about you yesterday. I was in Huntington and told my uncle about you(he lives in South Point and owns the DQ in Huntington). I bring you up often, being that you are the closest face painter to me.

We should get together and jam sometime Cotton Candy. Rae, I like how you have your categories. I think I will still work on mine a little but just a little, I'm no web designer by far. And Rae, what was your inspiration for your avatar, very creative look!

I don't have as many pictures as I would like because the camera I had before this was not good for lack of a better(censored word). The last few busy gigs we did were just too busy to take pictures. I did notice while I was searching how I wanted to build my website that there are a few painter's websites that what their doing at gigs and posting doesn't come close to what they are posting on here. Though most are just as awesome on their websites as here. In the world of painters I'm average but would never spend hours on one design then run it through photo shop and tweak the heck out of it then post it. You can tell that from the Christmas design I posted from our jam Christmas party because I was drinking tea and sould have run the picture through to whiten my teeth.

Jody - Thank you ....I painted this for the "Summer" comp Illusion Mag had last October. So trying to capture Summer was my inspiration.

We need to work on a Jam for the forum with Metina, but in the Tri-state. Maybe Huntington or Charleston would be awesome!