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Archive 2014 · New Photography Website Platforms

  
 
tonyhart
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · New Photography Website Platforms


Hi All,

I'm at the stage where I need to start considering a fresh website. My old website has done me proud for some years, but it is growing long in the tooth and it's time for me to consider something a little more up to date. I designed my old website from scratch and used a variety of technologies to arrive at the solution I desired.

In considering a new site I am struggling on whether to go for a fully integrated solution such as Photo Shelter, RawFolio, or similar, or to try and roll my own solution. I am a complete control freak, but 6yrs into my business I'm also keen to minimise workload. My current site runs on SSP while my blog is powered by Koken. I really like Koken, but it's in its infancy and I'm not sure it's robust enough to run the full site. I've heard about so many different services such as Pixieset, Photoshelter, BigFolio etc etc but would love your input.

I'm not sure a 'perfect' solution exists, but here are some of the things I am keen to include:

1. Modern, reliable underpinnings. No Flash, HTML5 etc etc
2. Responsive design. Something that will adapt well from phone screens all the way up to my 5K Retina iMac and beyond.
3. Ideally something I can locate at my own host
4. Relatively customisable - I want a website that doesn't look like an identical to other stuff other there
5. A good balance between showing large hi-def images and showing them quickly, perhaps something that allows users a degree of choice if they want a higher-def image
6. Password protected galleries
7. Database underpinnings. I want to be able to manage images properly on the server
8. Good proofing/selling setup - something that makes it easy for me and the customer
9. Good blogging tools

So folks, what are your thoughts? I'm after the very best out there tbh and I'm willing to pay, but it's tough cutting through all the sales-pitches so I thought I'd ask the knowledgeable folks of FM! No simple recommendations please, I'm looking for detailed responses from those with experience.

I await your wisdom.



Nov 03, 2014 at 03:43 PM
ricardovaste
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · New Photography Website Platforms


I'm personally not keen on how you have the website / blog split, and info split across. What I would do is simply put your portfolio/info on your blog, and it's done, pretty simple! That would be the easiest and would tick most of your boxes - sorry, I know that's not very detailed, please don't whip me.


Nov 03, 2014 at 03:54 PM
MalachiConstant
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · New Photography Website Platforms


Wordpress + Zenfolio for client galleries and print sales.

Doesn't get much better in terms of customization+reliability with a huge user base for trouble shooting than wordpress.




Nov 03, 2014 at 03:54 PM
tonyhart
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · New Photography Website Platforms


ricardovaste wrote:
I'm personally not keen on how you have the website / blog split, and info split across. What I would do is simply put your portfolio/info on your blog, and it's done, pretty simple! That would be the easiest and would tick most of your boxes - sorry, I know that's not very detailed, please don't whip me.


I've considered just this. I do worry though as, like I say, I don't know if Koken is up to it yet. It doesn't even support password protected galleries yet so I'd need something else for client proofing.



Nov 03, 2014 at 04:31 PM
BKphotography
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · New Photography Website Platforms


Don't ask me as my wedding & portrait site is $h!t£.

I tried to do it myself with a wee bit of help from friends.

I currently have a pro working on my new commercial site which is Wordpress with a bought theme.

It looks pretty good and we hope the SEO will place it high on Google searches.

If I was you I would sub-contract it but you may like the challenge and if I'm not mistaken you don't have three young kids and may have the time



Nov 03, 2014 at 05:40 PM
Chris Fawkes
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · New Photography Website Platforms


I'm putting three sites together from themeforest. All still in progress and wordpress.

There are of course many to choose from but these may give you an idea if something there may work for you.

www.malcolmwatsonphotography.com ($55)

Ruth's site is currently on redirect until I move it to the root so may need a second to move from the old site

www.ruthtrevaskis.com ($65)

and my own. ($42)

Ruth's was particularly easy to set up. Malcolm's was very ambiguous trying to make it work but once there it was fine.



Nov 07, 2014 at 12:18 PM
pmiller228
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · New Photography Website Platforms


I use zenfolio for client galleries and print orders, and squarspace for the site. It all has been working well for me, I'm just not happy with my site design. I just need some time to rethink it. The building process is very easy though and the (squarespace)blog that I haven't used yet is nice.


Nov 07, 2014 at 12:30 PM
DigMeTX
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · New Photography Website Platforms


Chris Fawkes wrote:
I'm putting three sites together from themeforest. All still in progress and wordpress.

There are of course many to choose from but these may give you an idea if something there may work for you.

www.malcolmwatsonphotography.com ($55)

Ruth's site is currently on redirect until I move it to the root so may need a second to move from the old site

www.ruthtrevaskis.com ($65)

and my own. ($42)

Ruth's was particularly easy to set up. Malcolm's was very ambiguous trying to make it work but once there it was fine.


I really like the opening page of Ruth's site. I've been considering going to a grid layout like that.

brad




Nov 07, 2014 at 12:44 PM
Scott Mosher
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · New Photography Website Platforms


I currently am building my new website on wordpress, with gallery hosting using Pictures Pro (self hosted)
http://www.picturespro.com/

I don't do a lot of online sales, so its not a biggie for me to do all the backend stuff on my own for print orders.

For those interested, here is my new site I'm working on, so not everything is complete.

http://www.test.scottmosherphotography.com/



Nov 07, 2014 at 12:49 PM
tonyhart
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · New Photography Website Platforms


HI Guys,

Thanks for the input. I'm still looking, still considering and still undecided! Pixieset appeals in some ways, but I hate that the default, and from what I can see only, way to display images in a client gallery is as a pinterest style page of tiled images. I want slideshows by default.

I looked at ZenFolio, but to me it looked like something from 5 years ago. Capable, but not super slick.

The search continues. I'll report back with any thoughts!



Nov 09, 2014 at 12:42 PM
mirrorrim
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · New Photography Website Platforms


Have any of you checked out Good Gallery? Susan Stripling is using them and it sounds almost too perfect. I was ready to switch but then I read that they do the hosting. I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with that, but then I'm not much of a techy when it comes to webhosts so maybe I shouldnt be concerned?

http://www.goodgallery.com/



Nov 09, 2014 at 02:44 PM
tonyhart
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · New Photography Website Platforms


mirrorrim wrote:
Have any of you checked out Good Gallery? Susan Stripling is using them and it sounds almost too perfect. I was ready to switch but then I read that they do the hosting. I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with that, but then I'm not much of a techy when it comes to webhosts so maybe I shouldnt be concerned?

http://www.goodgallery.com/


Interesting. There's a lot there that I LOVE. I too would prefer to self-host, but I can cope with the service being hosted by them if it's good. What I do find worrying is that they only seem to allow 10GB as standard. Which is pretty shit if you're going to be doing a lot of uploading of retina standard images and also blogging lots of stuff.

Still in many ways the most compelling solution I've seen. I'd like to know more about the e-commerce side of it - Jerry Ghionis' site seems to use ZenFolio for sales.



Nov 09, 2014 at 03:10 PM
mirrorrim
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · New Photography Website Platforms


tonyhart wrote:
Interesting. There's a lot there that I LOVE. I too would prefer to self-host, but I can cope with the service being hosted by them if it's good. What I do find worrying is that they only seem to allow 10GB as standard. Which is pretty shit if you're going to be doing a lot of uploading of retina standard images and also blogging lots of stuff.

Still in many ways the most compelling solution I've seen. I'd like to know more about the e-commerce side of it - Jerry Ghionis' site seems to use ZenFolio for sales.


In their FAQ it says they support something called FotoMoto for e-commerce, but recommend using zenfolio or a similar site for real client proofing and print ordering. You can also pay $10/mo extra to have an extra 10GB added to your account... :/




Nov 09, 2014 at 04:50 PM
tonyhart
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · New Photography Website Platforms


Hi all, thought I'd report back.

My overwhelming sense at the moment is one of disappointment! Photography is freaking ubiquitious in this day and age and everyone with a dSLR is a pro-photographer, yet I'm struggling to find a solution that makes sense for me. I think there's a MAHOOSIVE gap in the market for a truly impressive, integrated and flexible solution.

I narrowed down my choices, I thought, to SquareSpace or Photoshelter. I was pretty much moving ahead with Photoshelter but I'm tearing my hair out after trying to do even the most basic things. Two calls to the US for support helped a bit, but when the solution involves trying a totally different theme - which doesn't really look how I want, it's a bit of a kick in the teeth.

SquareSpace is nice, but it doesn't seem to work as well on mobile devices as Photoshelter and it doesn't have as photo oriented e-commerce built in. Photo shelter on the other hand requires a separate blogging platform.

Maybe I'm being demanding, but I'm literally astonished that with such a huge potential market the offerings out there are so limited. I'm ready to spend money but there's no solution that works well.

In many ways my Slideshow Pro website from yesteryear is more flexible... I designed it in like 2008. That's a sad state of affairs!!!

GRRR.

/rant



Dec 01, 2014 at 11:23 AM
ricardovaste
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · New Photography Website Platforms


tonyhart wrote:
I think there's a MAHOOSIVE gap in the market for a truly impressive, integrated and flexible solution.


I think such things are filled by the custom built sites - maybe something worth researching and pursuing if the pre-designed/themed sites aren't ticking all the boxes for you

FWIW, I know the slideshow is important to you, but I personally wouldn't but too much stress on the proof/print/gallery buying option. If you can get everything else, I'd put that further down the list, as it's just a gallery at the end of the day, it'll never really "sell".

Just my 2 pennies, good luck Tony!



Dec 01, 2014 at 11:33 AM
tonyhart
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · New Photography Website Platforms


Cheers Rich, appreciate the thoughts. It may go that way. I'm having another play with SquareSpace at present - it's far more customisable than PhotoShelter which is good, but the image management is far less powerful. It'd be more of a portfolio website with other platforms attached for other things (blog/selling etc).

It's a frustrating hunt. I kind of accepted doing it all 5-6yrs ago because I wanted full screen jazz and decent design, I guess I was fruitlessly hoping for advancements!



Dec 01, 2014 at 12:37 PM
tonyhart
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · New Photography Website Platforms


Yep, I can see it.

On the thread subject, had a bit if a Photoshelter breakthrough and am managing to achieve some of the things I want to. Still somewhat frustrating but with a workaround (that leads to the exact functionality in after) I am making progress.

I had however forgotten how frustrating it is learning a new web system. Like pulling teeth!



Dec 03, 2014 at 06:44 PM
Sagar
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · New Photography Website Platforms


Here is one I came across recently

http://foliowebsites.com



Dec 03, 2014 at 07:28 PM
tonyhart
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · New Photography Website Platforms


At the risk of restarting a dead thread, I thought I'd pop back and let you know that my new website went live today.

It took a fair bit of work, but I am reasonably pleased with the outcome, running on a combo of Photoshelter and Wordpress. I'm one of the few photographers who has never really used Wordpress so I'm learning a lot on that side of things. If you'd like to have a look, you can find me at:

Tony Hart Photo

Would love to hear your thoughts.



Feb 02, 2015 at 08:07 AM
MRomine
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · New Photography Website Platforms


Just an FYI, just this morning ProPhoto has announced their own built-in proofing system for WP blogs: http://www.prophoto.com/support/about-proofing/


Feb 02, 2015 at 10:16 AM
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