Building a Photography Website

If you would like to post, you'll need to register. Note that if you have a BCG store account, you'll need a new, separate account here (we keep the two sites separate for security purposes).

Member's gallery
I also use Adobe Portfolio. It's fairly easy to use and lets me share my images with friends and family. I don't sell, but if friends ask I will print a few for them. It's abwolfson.myportfolio.com
 
Member's gallery
Abinoone said:
Do you have your own website to showcase your photography? If so, did you code it from scratch, use a website builder like Wix, or do you use a template for photographers like Zenfolio or Smugmug? What has your experience been using your particular method, and would you recommend it? Who is your target audience for your website, and have you had much use of it? Do you offer users the opportunity to purchase images from your site, and have you had many sales from it?

The reason for my questions is because I’m again considering building my own website. I once had a web presence through Zenfolio but abandoned it because it was receiving little use, and it was somewhat of a pain to maintain. Lately however, I’ve received a number of inquiries about buying some of my images, and I’m wondering if I should have a website available.
Click to expand...
http://www.annettesiegel.com/ I‘ve just built my photography website with a program called RapidWeaver it’s basically code formed into “Stacks” so you don’t have to write your own code. I found it to have lots of flexibility. You can find tutorials, templates and also Foundry or Foundation for greater customization. I get along with it but everybody’s different! As far as ecommerce there is a sie called Ecwid by Lightspeed that offers a free option for sales under a certain amount…I was going to try in on my website but haven’t put it together yet.
 
Member's gallery
Wade Abadie said:
I used Adobe Portfolio to build my website….and I’m very pleased with it for my purposes. However, I’m not doing any sort of e-commerce (which I don’t think is possible with Adobe Portfolio). Plus, it’s free for anyone who already has an Adobe CC subscription (or rather it’s included in your monthly fee).

It was very simple to do, and there are quite a few templates and customizable features. I wanted a simple and clean layout, and I feel like I accomplished that. Feel free to check it out:

wildshotphoto.com

Wild Shot Photography

I am a nature photographer based in Texas, who can provide services for wildlife, ranching, real estate, and other outdoor photography-related needs.
wildshotphoto.com wildshotphoto.com
Click to expand...
Your website is great. I also just started with Adobe Portfolio but it’s not looking as professional as yours 😄 Did you purchase your own URL?
 
Member's gallery
I've used Photoshelter for years, specifically designed for photographers and built in features for commerce that I never used and they even streamline picture orders to third party printers. Different pricing plans depending on image volume and features, it was affordable: www.adiringer.com
I'm now switching to my own website on Wordpress, and I'll use a photography plugin (Imagely) that creates a pricing structure you can add to your images. I do want to promote other services and option on the website, that's why I'm switching artemisartworks.com (work in progress)
 
Member's gallery
I have been wondering for a long time, and I still wonder, what is the point of maintaining your own website to publish your photos? Paying for a server, paying for a license for a CMS system, for a mail server, etc.? Does this make sense?

There are plenty of well-prepared presentation portals, such as 500x, ArtLimited, X3, Flickr, Smugmug, where you can place your entire portfolio. You have a ready-made affiliate system, tracking system, etc., but above all, you are part of a certain community.

The other part of the Internet has been taken over by social media, where most of us post photos in 1200px format and our recipients are fully satisfied. Same on Facebook etc...

The role of classic websites that present photos in a way that is not connected to any community is probably starting to die.
I have been running a blog on my website and I have there galleries of my works for over 15 years, but the number of visits to the galleries themselves is getting lower every year.
Nobody goes to my website gallery since I have the same photo on Instagram and in the blog post.
We got a little carried away with it all :)
 
Member's gallery
This is my first post on this site. I have been in the publishing business and a professional photographer for more than fifty years. I have used SmugMug for a couple centuries at least and it has nearly 900,000 photos on it....my favorites of the nearly two million photos I estimate I have taken in my lifetime. I take hundreds of thousands of photos a year.... I am a ranch rodeo and ranch photographer in addition to being a wildlife photographer. and have sold thousands of dollars worth of photos on the site over the years. www.buckaroocountry.smugmug.com. SmugMug's many templates help me to have a professional looking viewing and selling space...it is easy to setup prices and any other features I would like including a slide show on the home page. I pay for StatCounter to keep track of visitor traffic on my SmugMug site so I can track who is looking at what.....and how often. I drive traffic to smugmug from my three main Facebook pages which, together, have more than 800,000 followers: https://www.facebook.com/mary.w.hyde/ https://www.facebook.com/BuckarooCountry https://www.facebook.com/buckaroocountry2
For my business website www.maryhyde.com I used WordPress but I don't use Wordpress anymore because keeping all of the software that makes it work up to date is a nightmare. If I build a website for clients, I love Wix. Here in the Klamath Basin of Oregon , our National Wildlife Refuges were allowed to dry up so a friend and I have created a refuge restoration and wildlife advocacy website with WiX which does everything we need it to do. www.klamathbasinbirding.com
Also in case my house burns down, SmugMug allows me to have off-site protection for my photo archives.
 
Last edited:
Member's gallery
Abinoone said:
Do you have your own website to showcase your photography? If so, did you code it from scratch, use a website builder like Wix, or do you use a template for photographers like Zenfolio or Smugmug? What has your experience been using your particular method, and would you recommend it? Who is your target audience for your website, and have you had much use of it? Do you offer users the opportunity to purchase images from your site, and have you had many sales from it?

The reason for my questions is because I’m again considering building my own website. I once had a web presence through Zenfolio but abandoned it because it was receiving little use, and it was somewhat of a pain to maintain. Lately however, I’ve received a number of inquiries about buying some of my images, and I’m wondering if I should have a website available.
Click to expand...
I use SquareSpace Since almost two years ago. The first year, the price for subscription was ok. The second year the renewal was too way high! They increase their prices too much. When if my renewal in July will increase again, i am going leave them.
 
Member's gallery
ingweDave said:
I use Wix. I built it myself which was fine but I don't have the attention span to do it properly. I then used one of Wix on line assistants and paid them to do a better job for me. Now it is set up, it is easy to manipulate.
Click to expand...
As a web designer, need to say to you - they did a good job for you :) WIX is a program I develop in quite often for businesses or individuals that wish to manage it on their own after the initial design (or with minimal professional help).
 
Member's gallery
Nimi said:
I switched to Google because of what they said, and I hope the abide by their promise. Good article here:

www.zdnet.com

Are your Google Docs safe from AI training?

With AI continuing its slow rise to prominence, consumers are concerned their personal content is being used to train Google's generative service.
www.zdnet.com www.zdnet.com
Click to expand...
In the spirit of the rules of the community here I won’t do any vendor bashing. I’ll just say this: my trust in any of the hosting companies is minimal. If a buck can be made from the data they host, they’re going to do it, sooner or later. Be aware of that.
 
Member's gallery
tegel said:
Nice website Wade! I've also use Adobe Portfolio. I found it fairly easy to setup, but have issues when I want to update. I create collections in LR that I sync with portfolio, but it doesn't always work. So these days, I mostly just leave it alone. Funny, mine site is very similar to yours: https://tomegel.myportfolio.com/

--Tom
Click to expand...
Tom,

I actually decided not to sync my LR with the website. I found it was much easier (for my workflow at least) to simply upload the images I want to use on the site. I can update my site with new images in a matter of minutes.
 
Member's gallery
As the OP on this thread, I found everyone’s comments to be very helpful - thank you all for your suggestions. I was looking for a solution that was low cost, simple, easy to use, and not necessarily oriented towards commerce since I’m not interested in trying to sell images online. I ultimately went with Adobe Portfolio since it fits my needs, and because I already subscribe to Adobe CC. I’ve been pleased with it so far, and was able to put together this website (https://bynaturephoto.org/home) in just a couple of days (and yes, I did buy my own domain for a whopping $6.75). I’d be curious to know what everyone thinks about it.

Thanks again for your many suggestions. Your willingness to share your experience is one of the many reasons why BCG is such a great community of photographers.
 
Member's gallery
Abinoone said:
As the OP on this thread, I found everyone’s comments to be very helpful - thank you all for your suggestions. I was looking for a solution that was low cost, simple, easy to use, and not necessarily oriented towards commerce since I’m not interested in trying to sell images online. I ultimately went with Adobe Portfolio since it fits my needs, and because I already subscribe to Adobe CC. I’ve been pleased with it so far, and was able to put together this website (https://bynaturephoto.org/home) in just a couple of days (and yes, I did buy my own domain for a whopping $6.75). I’d be curious to know what everyone thinks about it.

Thanks again for your many suggestions. Your willingness to share your experience is one of the many reasons why BCG is such a great community of photographers.
Click to expand...
nice galleries. I really like those old trucks in the West Virginia gallery.
 
Member's gallery
I've been using Zenfolio for more than 10 years. For me, the greatest value is hosting my event photography and providing fulfillment. But it also serves as a very good website with lots of options for layouts. There is an integrated app, support for downloads if needed, and intellectual property protection such as optional watermarks and size options.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top