I use Aphotofolio.com, I have not found anything else this customizable...you don't like your site a year later you can change out pretty much everything.
From scratch with FrontPage, which is now (free) SP Design.
www.dustylens.com
www.ghost-town-photography.com
Over the years dustylens has become huge and has over 700 unique visitors every day - sometimes a lot more. Record was close to 4,000 in one day.
Please feel to browse and e-mail me with any questions. Honest.
Wordpress self-hosted install on servers at http://www.webserve.ca and all my images are kept on photobucket as I don't post high-res ones on there except on the odd special occasion.
Generally I keep it Aviation Photography related but flex my Geek Muscles on occasion and write the occasional industry interest article.
I wanted total control over my nature photography site, including the ability to update quickly. So I learned code, took 4-5 weeks to learn and this is it.
One observation: not many sites promote the business. Most highlight nice photos but make it hard to tell if the photographer is for hire or just someone who takes nice photos. If you want your site to promote your business then the home page should clearly communicate tht. Not one here does that.
Answer the question visitors ask: what do I do here? Most the answer is "look at nice photos". Few say "hire a good photographer".
It's a good point. There are really two basic models here. One is Photographer For Hire. The other is Buy My Stuff (prints mainly). There is considerable variety within those two categories, but I am seeing that as the major first decision.
In the for hire sites the images are primarily serving the purpose of a portfolio or demonstration of the product the client may expect. In the Buy My Stuff sites the images are the product.
The for hire sites need limited online shopping cart services, need to emphasize contact info, and seem to have generally more streamlined and pleasing design.
The buy my stuff sites need more complex organization, smooth online purchasing, and may be a little less web design oriented in general.
Both sites seem to benefit from artist statements, blog/article/tips, and other materials that help make the artist real, and offer another way to show off and dicuss/pique-interest-in works.
I'm going to go ahead and throw myself on the fire here. My site is only a few weeks old, and is obviously a work in progress. I'll be re-routing it through a custom domain soon, but for now it's just hosted at squarespace. My sales pitch is a bit forward, but I'm very open to reshaping it, so be honest!
Bryan, as you seem to be inviting response, I would move your gallery forward (left) on the menu bar. I found myself wondering where the pics were. Also your thumbnails don't respect your full size crops and don't show off your work as well as they might. Not a big deal, but if it's an easy setting to change I would do it.
Thanks! Yeah, I'm not a fan of the thumbnails, but there doesn't seem to be an easy way of changing them in squarespace's architecture. Moving the tab is a good idea, I think I'll give that a shot!
(And I could put a shot of myself on there, I've just got chronic hide-behind-the-camera-itis. )
Thank you very much for taking the time to review my site, I appreciate it!
Every time I go to your site I am just blown away by the photos that keep flowing before my eyes. The tonality is just amazing. I am going to have to force myself to look at how the site works.
www.ceaserphotography.com for my commercial shooting
www.sidceaserfineart.com for my fine art work
www.portableportrait.com for my photography workshop
My commercial and workshop website are by the same person, who is local. He recently converted my workshop site to a word press back end, so it's very easy to manage. He's currently working on converting the back end of my commercial site to word press as well. I'm very happy that nothing visually has changed with the back end upgrade. This person also hosts these two websites for me as well.
My fine art website was put together back in 2004 by a friend. It's fairly simple design, but works perfectly for what I use it for - to show my fine art work.
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