Hi Angel, some thoughts for you … there are a couple of things to consider before embarking on your trip. 1. What do you want the site to do? Do you want a gallery to show off your work? Do you intend selling? Do you want a vehicle for selling your services as a photographer (ie attracting clients)? The answers to each of these will greatly influence the kind of site you end up building. There are a number of technologies around to help get images onto the web and display them.
My website (www.lushpupimages.com) is in its second version and started out as a place I could point people to demonstrate my skills as a photographer. After a while I realised I needed something a little slicker to showcase my work and the site undergoing changes behind the scenes to transition it from an “online gallery showing off my work” to “a portal to promote my services as a photographer to prospective clients” … I’m having to think about what I want to say and how I say it. It kind of marks where I am as a photographer right now and where I want to be.
As for the technologies behind it … I use Lightroom to handle all all images management (keywording, sorting, arranging into groups) and a third party application called SlideShowPro to create the slideshows that form the kernel of each gallery page. It runs within Lightroom and creates the Flash slideshows for me directly from the collections I pull together in Lightroom. The slideshows are embedded into my web pages which I created in Dreamweaver before being published to the active site.
Prolly just rambling a bit now but the most important thing (I reckon) is to have a clear idea of what you want your site for before you start building it. Have a look around at other’s galleries and sites and bookmark the ones you like and which appeal to you. There’s lots out there … hope this helps even if a little :-)
This is going to be rather short and sweet, but it’s sincere for all that:
Register your own website name – both angelawarda.com and angela-warda.com are available as I write for about $16 (£10) a year. Look carefully at who you register with and be sure you get good quality access to your site without restrictions on total upload capacity, email addresses etc. Take a look at doteasy.com for example they are not the one I use, but i have heard good reports.
Next, get yourself a good, user-friendly Web site building program. You can pay what you like for them but many of the moderately priced ones will be easier to use and less expensive than the like of the Adobe CS suites. If you have a MAC, chances are, iWeb is sat there waiting for you. Whatever you get, be sure it has the facility to build your Web site using CSS which, though a little complicated to get used to at first, is in fact a real blessing and is now the industry (W3) standard.
And finally, Get yourself a copy the excellent book “I’d Rather Be In The Studio” by Alyson B Stanfield. The title says it all, but Alyson gives you all you need to get the message out there and still have time to concentrate on the other important stuff – in your case, clicking that shutter!
Well Angela The First Thing I Would Ask Is It To Sell Your Works Or To Showcase Your (With Possible Hiring Possibilities).
If It’s To Sell, Do Some Research On The Most Popular Themes People Search For In Photography So That You Can Target That Market Segment With Something That’s Unique.
If You’re Just Considering Featuring Your Work; Setup A Some Free Wordpress And/Or Blogger (Blogspot) Blogs Targeting Different Types Of Your Work (You Can Also Use This For Determining Which Photos Would Make Good Selling Photographs By Getting A Feel For How Popular Something Might Be Before Investing Bucks In Web Design, Web Hosting, Marketing…).
You Can Also Use This To Start Generating An Email List, You Could Put Up Tutorials On Lighting, Composition And The Like.
If You Want To Monetize These Blogs You Can Use A Site Like GumGum Or Other Similar Sites… 2FunnyPics And Others.
securing your domain name is the first step…..you can spend a lot of time and money setting up a site…just remember that a website is like a phone number…lots of people have them…frankly in the 3 years or so I’ve been doing this I have not made back what I invested in my website… but you have to have it, just like you have to have a business phone…so I do plan to keep my domain name, but will not be renewing my website when it expires in a year or so…the reason as I mentioned above..return on investment… I’ll be looking for some free ways to host my work…I joined Fine Art America also which you may want to look at.. they are one of the top 3 providers of artist websites…
I think it really depends on what your goal is as others have mentioned above…why do you want a website? Do you plan to exhibit in galleries or sell you art in shows? To offer photography services and use the site as a reference? What is your end game?
I highly recommend you keep it simple and inexpensive from the start. You can always expand later if warranted.
Good Luck and choose wisely! btw I currently use GoDaddy to get my domain name and do my web hosting. I’ts about $12/yr for the domain name and about $200 for a 2 yr contract for the hosting. For that it was all set up for me and I can customize it myself and store lots of images… you can check it Here
Add Your Comment
You need to login or signup to add your comment to this work.
Geoffrey Dunn
Hi Angel,
some thoughts for you … there are a couple of things to consider before embarking on your trip.
1. What do you want the site to do? Do you want a gallery to show off your work? Do you intend selling? Do you want a vehicle for selling your services as a photographer (ie attracting clients)? The answers to each of these will greatly influence the kind of site you end up building. There are a number of technologies around to help get images onto the web and display them.
My website (www.lushpupimages.com) is in its second version and started out as a place I could point people to demonstrate my skills as a photographer. After a while I realised I needed something a little slicker to showcase my work and the site undergoing changes behind the scenes to transition it from an “online gallery showing off my work” to “a portal to promote my services as a photographer to prospective clients” … I’m having to think about what I want to say and how I say it. It kind of marks where I am as a photographer right now and where I want to be.
As for the technologies behind it … I use Lightroom to handle all all images management (keywording, sorting, arranging into groups) and a third party application called SlideShowPro to create the slideshows that form the kernel of each gallery page. It runs within Lightroom and creates the Flash slideshows for me directly from the collections I pull together in Lightroom. The slideshows are embedded into my web pages which I created in Dreamweaver before being published to the active site.
Prolly just rambling a bit now but the most important thing (I reckon) is to have a clear idea of what you want your site for before you start building it. Have a look around at other’s galleries and sites and bookmark the ones you like and which appeal to you. There’s lots out there … hope this helps even if a little :-)
Geoffrey Dunn
Apologies for the poor proofing ;-)
John D Moulton
Hi Angel,
This is going to be rather short and sweet, but it’s sincere for all that:
Register your own website name – both angelawarda.com and angela-warda.com are available as I write for about $16 (£10) a year. Look carefully at who you register with and be sure you get good quality access to your site without restrictions on total upload capacity, email addresses etc. Take a look at doteasy.com for example they are not the one I use, but i have heard good reports.
Next, get yourself a good, user-friendly Web site building program. You can pay what you like for them but many of the moderately priced ones will be easier to use and less expensive than the like of the Adobe CS suites. If you have a MAC, chances are, iWeb is sat there waiting for you. Whatever you get, be sure it has the facility to build your Web site using CSS which, though a little complicated to get used to at first, is in fact a real blessing and is now the industry (W3) standard.
And finally, Get yourself a copy the excellent book “I’d Rather Be In The Studio” by Alyson B Stanfield. The title says it all, but Alyson gives you all you need to get the message out there and still have time to concentrate on the other important stuff – in your case, clicking that shutter!
You will find details of the book at: www.IdRatherBeintheStudio.com – Well worth the read!
Good Luck!
John.
xzendor7
Well Angela The First Thing I Would Ask Is It To Sell Your Works Or To Showcase Your (With Possible Hiring Possibilities).
If It’s To Sell, Do Some Research On The Most Popular Themes People Search For In Photography So That You Can Target That Market Segment With Something That’s Unique.
If You’re Just Considering Featuring Your Work; Setup A Some Free Wordpress And/Or Blogger (Blogspot) Blogs Targeting Different Types Of Your Work (You Can Also Use This For Determining Which Photos Would Make Good Selling Photographs By Getting A Feel For How Popular Something Might Be Before Investing Bucks In Web Design, Web Hosting, Marketing…).
You Can Also Use This To Start Generating An Email List, You Could Put Up Tutorials On Lighting, Composition And The Like.
If You Want To Monetize These Blogs You Can Use A Site Like GumGum Or Other Similar Sites… 2FunnyPics And Others.
George Lenz
securing your domain name is the first step…..you can spend a lot of time and money setting up a site…just remember that a website is like a phone number…lots of people have them…frankly in the 3 years or so I’ve been doing this I have not made back what I invested in my website… but you have to have it, just like you have to have a business phone…so I do plan to keep my domain name, but will not be renewing my website when it expires in a year or so…the reason as I mentioned above..return on investment… I’ll be looking for some free ways to host my work…I joined Fine Art America also which you may want to look at.. they are one of the top 3 providers of artist websites…
I think it really depends on what your goal is as others have mentioned above…why do you want a website? Do you plan to exhibit in galleries or sell you art in shows? To offer photography services and use the site as a reference? What is your end game?
I highly recommend you keep it simple and inexpensive from the start. You can always expand later if warranted.
Good Luck and choose wisely! btw I currently use GoDaddy to get my domain name and do my web hosting. I’ts about $12/yr for the domain name and about $200 for a 2 yr contract for the hosting. For that it was all set up for me and I can customize it myself and store lots of images… you can check it Here