I love to visit other photographers web sites and I love to critique them to myself. I’m very proud of mine and when I set out to have it redesigned I had a few goals in mind (speed, load-time, functionality, mobile compatibility, etc.)

The one thing I knew that I did not want my site to be was a Flash site. IMO, Flash web sites are slow, take up resources on a persons computer, not very SEO-friendly, images/pages can’t be bookmarked in the browser, etc.

My web site is 99.9% html. The only Flash is on the front page to make the grey bars fade in and out. It’s not even needed and if you go to my site on a non-Flash enabled device the site still works the exact same way.

The reason I say all of this to you, fellow photographers, is this. I just bought my first iPhone, the new 3GS. It’s a great phone and I find myself using it way more than I thought. I use it waiting in line, at the airport, around the studio and home, sitting on the toilet (sorry) and sometimes even when I’m in front of my computer.

As I’ve been using it I’ve become extremely frustrated by the inability to view photographers web sites built in Flash. Let me give you a typical scenario. But let’s pretend that instead of me it’s a Photo Editor, Art Buyer, Creative Director or other potential client using the iPhone.

I’m sitting at the airport waiting for my flight, at a coffee shop, on the toilet, etc I’ve got time to kill so I break out my iPhone and log onto Twitter, Facebook or a favorite blog. A cool sounding link on one of those takes me to a photographers web site. I go there to discover some new talent and the I get a icon saying I can’t view the site because it’s in Flash. I leave the site and may never go back and check it out because I’m probably not going to take the time to write it down. I’ll just move on to another link.

I don’t have any graphs or charts to support the amount of creative execs who use iPhones, but almost every client I’ve shot for in the last year has one and uses it constantly. These are busy people. If they can find a good photographer while waiting in line at Starbucks they’re pretty pumped.

I listen to and read a lot of interviews with photo buyers and they all say they get around 100 emails or more every single day from photographers who want to show them their sites. Many say they can’t look at all of them and on some days they’re so busy they just come in and delete all 100 without even opening them.

If you can increase your chances of catching their eye while they’re getting their morning coffee, then you’re one ahead of the rest. But if they’re standing in line and click on the email you’ve sent and it takes them to a Flash site that they can’t see….well, you’ve just wasted what might be the only opportunity you could have had with them.

So it’s my humble opinion that Flash sites=FAIL if you’re a photographer.