Interview with Toronto Photographer Paul Flynn (and WordPress Portfolio Review)

About the artist

Paul Flynn is a Toronto-based photographer and video editor with broad skills and a diverse portfolio. Originally from the United Kingdom, Paul’s passion for photography began with exploring the British countryside using his father’s SLR camera. After relocating to Canada’s East Coast in 1990, he continued to nurture his creative pursuits. Currently, Paul works for a Canadian broadcaster and dedicates his personal time to photography, focusing on long exposure, cityscape, and street photography.

Paul’s portfolio showcases a diverse range of subjects, including Toronto cityscapes, long exposure shots, travel photography, and fine art/product images. In addition to his photography, Paul is active on social media platforms like Instagram, where he shares his latest work under the handle @to_shots.

We met Paul through our sister site TdotShots.com and the @tdot_shots Instagram where we host features, blog posts, photography meetups and workshops, and an annual photo contest. Paul has joined many of our events. The artist led a workshop with us focused on long exposure and night photography.

We’re excited to dive into a review of the portfolio of Paul Flynn, The following is an interview and review. Please read the interview first, to get an idea of the background, motivation and experience of the artist.

For more information about Paul Flynn and to view his portfolio, you can visit his official website at paulflynn.ca.

Interview with Paul Flynn

Who are you? What is your background? How did you get into visual art? 
 
My name is Paul Flynn. I’m a video editor by trade, but I have been into photography ever since I picked up my first camera as a child.  
 
Why did you create a portfolio? What was your motivation and what do you hope to accomplish with your portfolio? 

I originally created a portfolio with the intention of selling prints and gaining clients for headshots, family portraits, weddings and events. Once my day job became busier, I decided to move away from making photography a business but still wanted to showcase some of my work in both photography and video editing.  

What format or platform do you use? Did you have earlier versions? How did your current and previous portfolios differ? Do you have a print portfolio? 

I’m working with WordPress, but my original sites were built with html code and Adobe Dreamweaver. The difference between the current and previous portfolios is that I’ve removed weddings, headshots, family sessions in favour of the photography I enjoy shooting the most. I did have a limited edition print portfolio and technically can print anything if someone requests, but I will be curating a new print portfolio at some point this year. 

How do you go about curating your portfolio? How do you decide what content goes into your portfolio? Do you get feedback or just go with your gut? What is your curation process? 

For curating, I go mostly with gut, but I also look at the technical aspects of the photo. If it’s sharp and has multiple points of interest, good framing and visually appealing, it will usually be included. I will take into account how a photo performed on Instagram or Flickr too. 

As for my Video Editing portfolio, I’ve been adding most of my work that’s available on YouTube over the past 9 years. This might be curated more in the months ahead to only include specific scenes that highlight the editing. 

What were the highs and lows of your experience and what challenges did you face during the planning, building and final launch? 

Technical issues are usually the most frustrating when launching anything, so I would consider that the low. Sometimes you have customization limitations of text placement or order of photos, which is my current issue with the WordPress theme I use. But the highs are seeing everything together in one collection. 
 
Do you have any plans to change or modify your portfolio in the short and long term? 

My goal is to constantly update and replace images as I continue to learn as a photographer.  

Thank you for sharing these insights Paul!

Visit Paul’s portfolio: https://www.paulflynn.ca/

Screenshot Gallery

Let’s look at some highlights of Paul Flynn’s website via screenshots.

This portfolio makes use of a paid WordPress theme, called “Novo.” It looks like a beauty.

Check what CMS a website using: https://whatcms.org/
Or use Is it WP? https://www.isitwp.com/

Review of paulflynn.ca – Website and Portfolio

Before I summarize my reaction to Paul’s site, which I will evaluate on both a technical and aesthetic level, I should outline the scope of my critique. In general I adhere to keeping the following in mind when looking at a website in a critical and objective fashion. Plus I always share my feelings about the experience and highlight where the artist has really succeeded.

Website evaluation categories:

• First impressions (aesthetics, user experience, page load speed)
• Brand identity, logo / wordmark, colour scheme
• Hero content area (top section “above the fold”)
• Header and navigation (menus, links, buttons)
• Footer area (copyright notice, links, IG social embed)
• Stickiness or engagement (do I want to stay and explore?)
• Overall design and impact (worth it or wack?)

First Impressions

The website is pretty and features large format photography. I like the simple logo animation (a “PF” appears) and on desktop the image slideshow that appears in really stunning. This photography is really nicely showcased with the full width background made of a series of Paul’s diverse work.

According to the website Page Speed Insights the mobile view suffers more than the desktop view in terms of page load speed. They suggest “Image formats like WebP and AVIF often provide better compression than PNG or JPEG.”

Brand Identity

This website with black theme and full page photography is very austere and beautiful. In contrast to purely white websites which are common in this field, this site has great impact. Paul has a logo at top left which says “Paul Flynn – Photo Video” which is simple but effective. The page load and transition animation is a white “PF” on black and it adds a visual flourish.

Sometimes I feel a visual identity could be more developed but Paul’s meets my threshold for interest and use of colour (there is a blue accent on the word “Photo.” I am glad to see Paul did not use a fake signature logo, which plagues the websites of many photographers.

Hero content – Header – Navigation

The website has a decent layout and useful navigation area. 80% of the focus on any given page is on the photos and portfolio which is the way it should be. The exception is the About Me page which has a couple paragraphs but is still simple and to the point. this WordPress theme has a decent header area and Paul has put it to good use with a logo and six menu items including links for photo, video, and even a client area.

Footer area

Paul has a typical footer with copyright notice and a notice that says “All Rights Reserved.” It persists throughout the site except on the home page. There are links to social such as Instagram and Flickr. It’s nice to see the latter as many people focus solely on Insta.

the footer and bottom area of the site features a social media feed embed that showcases many of his recent works from Instagram. This is becoming a common practice which we appreciate and encourage other artists to incorporate into their sites.

Stickiness

Absolutely the site is engaging and visitors likely explore the range of photography and gorgeous images. I am not so sure about the impact of the video page. Perhaps a “reel” style video would be preferable to a dozen embeds of full TV programs. Nevertheless I did click and watch the intros of a few videos.

Overall design – Worth it? Or wack?

This site is mostly worth it. A full screen slideshow has a great motion design aspect which could only be rivalled by the use of background video. This engaging aspect along with the huge portfolio areas makes the site sticky and a lot of fun to browse.

If I had to give a rating it would be a double thumbs up. 👍👍 The only issue appears to be that image size could be reduced so page load is increased particularly on mobile. Having said that if most of Paul’s audience has high speed connections in Canada or US then they probably don’t have issues viewing his content.

Additionally, I believe this site would benefit from a blog where he discusses his process, gear, travels and other experiences, or perhaps I’d like to see the addition of e-commerce via the WooCommerce plugin on the WP site so fans could buy some of the images as prints.

Well done Paul.

Thanks to the artist

Big appreciation to Paul for contributing to this series. Follow at @to_shots and visit his site: paulflynn.ca.