Designing an effective personal photo website?

[l2oBiN]

I would like to get some pointers on designing an effective personal photo website. The aim is to display some of my photos to the outside world letting the web know I exist in photographic terms. It would also be used as a facefront to potential buyers and general people interested in my photography side. For now, I would not like to include a blog or anything fancy, just a site with some information about me and a small number of images representing the type of work that I do.

Since I plan to implement and maintain the site, the simpler the better philosophy would be helpful. If you have any examples of such websites which are effective or if you can reccomend a system/Template that would also be great.

MM

[Mike Anderson]

I think building on Wordpress would give you the most bang for the least work. (Wordpress isn't just for blogs anymore.) Search for WordPress for portfolios (https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=wordpress+for+portfolios).

The hot buzzword right now is "responsive", that is the pages rearrange their layout and adjust to various display sizes so it looks good in a browser on a desktop with a large display as well as a phone and everything in between. Most of these WordPress themes claim they're "responsive" now. You can test this out by bringing up a demo page and resizing your browser to phone width and see how the page looks.

I've yet to find a portfolio WP theme I really like, so you're probably going to have to compromise to get the leverage they provide.

[sully75]

seriously, do not try to design a website yourself. It's going to look terrible unless you are at awesome at designing websites. Which if you are asking, you're not. I'm not, you're not, most photographers are not.

viewbook.com it's simple, pretty cheap and looks pretty pro. I use it for my site but I haven't updated it in a long time. I could definitely make it look better with their newer stuff.

also you can read this
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2007/10/29/your-website-sucks/
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2007/10/30/your-website-rocks/

[J. Fada]

You should probably stay away from anything that isn't pretty simple but simple is good in my opinion. You want a design that shows off your photographs not the design. If you are looking for an easy way to go Indexhibit is a good one. www.indexhibit.org Look at the participants link to see what is possible. No matter what you do though it will take you time to learn.

Personally I prefer straight HTML. I no longer use Flash for anything since I think it will go the way of the dodo. HTML5 is going to replace it over the next few years.

[jon.oman]

I wrote my own, as you can see in my signature line....

[Brian C. Miller]

For a site that shows you how to design a website by showing you how it absolutely shouldn't be done, visit Vincent Flander's Web Pages That Suck (http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/). Flanders published a book about web design, but I found Web Navigation from O'Reilly to be a bit better.

I personally don't use Flash. I don't like waiting for some glitz to load, which could be done with straight HTML and Javascript. It slows everything down, and I don't like slow.

l2oBiN, what you need to do is go and look at a lot of photography sites, and see what works for you. Make a list of what you like and don't like, and keep refining it. Go from there.

[Ari]

I used Weebly; made the site myself, and then brought in my geek-ish brother to tweak it.
He got rid of the "Weebly.com" and linked the site to my already-owned domain name.
It's free, too, and you can upgrade to a Pro account for very little.

[Drew Bedo]

In 2006 (a long time ago in the web-world) I contacted Lynn Bell Dsigns her in Houston. We met once and I showed them my ideqas. They told me what was possible. A week or two later (I don't remember now) my website went hot and its been great. the whole thing cost ~ $700.

I am happy.

[Jay DeFehr]

I use Indexhibit and love it. It is simply designed with no clutter and very easy to update with new content. It is also free.


I like your site, Greg.

[Fourtoes]

Wordpress for me. For my website and my blog. Before that it was Flash based and not much use for iphones/ipads etc.
I looked at indexhibit but could/t get my head around it for some reason.

[Light Guru]

Check out square space. It is super easy. They have a 30 day free trial.

[patrickjames]

I like straight html although there are other good ways to do it. Avoid Flash. My site hasn't changed very much for the last probably 7 years or so, at least in the design and layout. It is as simple as I can make it without cutting too much. I use CSS and also recently started using Google fonts to maintain consistency among the many different browsers and operating systems people use. I think it works really well but it's my site so I would think that way. I have received good feedback on it though over the years. Again, it is not too flashy, just keeps the images prominent.

www.patrickrobertjames.com (http://www.patrickrobertjames.com)

[ROL]

WebMarketing (http://www.rangeoflightphotography.com/pages/webmarketing)

[Warang27]

I think building on Wordpress would give you the most bang for the least work. (Wordpress isn't just for blogs anymore.) Search for WordPress for portfolios (https://www.google.com/search?sugexp=chrome,mod=8&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=wordpress+for+portfolios).

The hot buzzword right now is "responsive", that is the pages rearrange their layout and adjust to various display sizes so it looks good in a browser on a desktop with a large display as well as a phone and everything in between. Most of these WordPress themes claim they're "responsive" now. You can test this out by bringing up a demo page and resizing your browser to phone width and see how the page looks.

I've yet to find a portfolio WP theme I really like, so you're probably going to have to compromise to get the leverage they provide.


wordpress is good. not just for blog but for personal site also.. your personal photo site would be a good fit. lots of themes can be selected but can use your own photos like being a background of your site. you can also buy your domain in a low price.