Luminosity, if you are just intending to show off some of your photos, have you considered just using a blog to display your images off of your flickr account? I use the free version of wordpress and then pay a small yearly fee to do some small modifications to the html of my blog. I made it a little cleaner than the default profile and have a much bigger image size that is displayed compared to the default. I think I pay about $10-15 a year for this ability.
If you wanted the name of the blog template and the html code to do that, let me know and I will give it to you. The blog is linked to my profile. The only thing I do to display an image is create a new post then insert the long flickr code for a large size image and then post it with some text and tags.
I am also about to start up a Zenfolio site in the next week or two, hoping to create an area to sell some prints. Hopefully I can figure that site out!
another vote for smugmug....very easy to use in my opinion. It is very easy to make the site look different from the basic without putting too much effort into it. If you are looking to sell, it is also very easy to price by photo/gallery/entire site.
You can build the web site here http://www.tucktail.com/ and also get the hosting,domain name register, domain appraisal, online file folder, ssl certificate etc...
For my purposes smugmug is great, I do primarily parent print sales of sports and for this smugmug is ideal, its a professional third party that handles pretty much everything between upload and purchase as far as prints are concerned
Once you get your head around it, making an attractive, simple site is very easy these days. Using something like Tumblr (example; http://thelivest1.tumblr.com/ ) with a premade photo template or Cargo Collective (http://cargocollective.com/#/featured) is the simplest way to create an elegant site that can be easily updated. (you can also make them yourname.com if you don't want a .tumblr.com or similar)
I don't love smugmug because it's not any easier than lots of the other CMS and it's so indistinct.
If you can't get your head around it, call up a designer friend and ask them to set it up for you for beer or something. I'm sure you could also find someone on here to start you up with something for a little cash. If you get really stuck, PM me and I'll try and point you in the right direction.
i've tried jalbum, tried "hiring" a professional (a buddy who's a graphic designer....all i could get for my "budget" was html, crap....)....then i found this...the end all, be all for customizable, search friendly, awesome looking flash templates...the best.... www.photobiz.com ....sooooo awesome...and their service is awesome too....
