Professional Photography Themes: Advice Desperately Needed!

[BAJParry]

Hi guys,

My name's Bryan and me and my partner are looking to set up a website for a professional photography business. We've spent scores of hours the last few weeks looking into every theme we could find online, both recommended and not recommended. But as is sometimes the way, the more we find out, the less we know. However, we are very clear about what we want.

Therefore, I was hoping for some advice from you guys. Particularly, which themes do you think we should go for? Any and all advice would be massively appreciated; I'm losing my mind now, to be honest, and have long since lost objectivity! Another set of outlooks on the matter would help us immensely.

Things we are looking for in our website...

1. We want to use WORDPRESS.ORG. I've got blogs at wordpress.com, so I've known about WP.org for a while. It's fantastic and I am sure it is the best bet for us. Therefore, we want to base our website on it (although we are happy to have the website hosted elsewhere if the themes included in WP.org aren't for us).

2. We like the look of two websites in particular.

The homepage of http://www.danimantis.com is great. We like the parallax thing and how it has been done there.

We also love the look of http://www.chikophotography.com 's homepage because the animated grid is only 2 x 2 and thus enables visitors to see plenty of images but fairly large.

We're looking for a clear and easy-to-browse website that has a few images on the front page to show off a bit of variety and a menu somewhere which easily links to other stuff (see danimantis.com and chikophotography,com for good examples of what we would like).

3. We want to have private galleries which are password protected for particular clients. We give the client the password, they type it in, and they have access to the gallery in question.

4. We would like a shop function.

* So clients can use the private galleries function and order photos from there.
* So general visitors can look at publicly displayed / non-password protected photos, which are for sale in the store, and buy those.

5. We are happy to use plug-ins or whatever is required if adding to a theme is needed.

6. We are not techy at all, so things have to be straightforward for us to do.

7. We want to be able to add, change, upload, alter images (etc) on the websites ourselves, regularly, and with the minimum of fuss.

8. We want the website to display properly and be functional whether visitors come via a mobile phone, a PC, an iPad etc.

9. We don't want the website to be too demanding to open up for visitors. I think it's called "lazy option compatible" or something.

10. We want to put our logo on the homepage in a not-hidden / sort of obvious way.

11. Synching / direct transferal from LightRoom would be a big plus.

12. The website shouldn't be prone to crashing for any reason.

13. Ideally, the theme will have decent tech support and stability behind and underlying it.

14. We're ideally looking for a dark skinned theme, potentially with a touch of vintage or old class to it; but we could settle for modernish dark.

15. The theme shouldn't force us into linking to Instagram or whatever.

Well, I really hope you guys can help us. As I say, we've done absurd amounts of research including long emails to theme makers. Yet I'm less clear than ever on which theme is for us. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Bryan

 

[tirediron]

Hi guys,

My name's Bryan and me and my partner are looking to set up a website for a professional photography business. We've spent scores of hours the last few weeks looking into every theme we could find online, both recommended and not recommended. But as is sometimes the way, the more we find out, the less we know. However, we are very clear about what we want.

Therefore, I was hoping for some advice from you guys. Particularly, which themes do you think we should go for? Any and all advice would be massively appreciated; I'm losing my mind now, to be honest, and have long since lost objectivity! Another set of outlooks on the matter would help us immensely.

Things we are looking for in our website...

1. We want to use WORDPRESS.ORG. I've got blogs at wordpress.com, so I've known about WP.org for a while. It's fantastic and I am sure it is the best bet for us. Therefore, we want to base our website on it (although we are happy to have the website hosted elsewhere if the themes included in WP.org aren't for us).

2. We like the look of two websites in particular.

The homepage of http://www.danimantis.com is great. We like the parallax thing and how it has been done there.

We also love the look of http://www.chikophotography.com 's homepage because the animated grid is only 2 x 2 and thus enables visitors to see plenty of images but fairly large.

We're looking for a clear and easy-to-browse website that has a few images on the front page to show off a bit of variety and a menu somewhere which easily links to other stuff (see danimantis.com and chikophotography,com for good examples of what we would like).

3. We want to have private galleries which are password protected for particular clients. We give the client the password, they type it in, and they have access to the gallery in question.

4. We would like a shop function.

* So clients can use the private galleries function and order photos from there.
* So general visitors can look at publicly displayed / non-password protected photos, which are for sale in the store, and buy those.

5. We are happy to use plug-ins or whatever is required if adding to a theme is needed.

6. We are not techy at all, so things have to be straightforward for us to do.

7. We want to be able to add, change, upload, alter images (etc) on the websites ourselves, regularly, and with the minimum of fuss.

8. We want the website to display properly and be functional whether visitors come via a mobile phone, a PC, an iPad etc.

9. We don't want the website to be too demanding to open up for visitors. I think it's called "lazy option compatible" or something.

10. We want to put our logo on the homepage in a not-hidden / sort of obvious way.

11. Synching / direct transferal from LightRoom would be a big plus.

12. The website shouldn't be prone to crashing for any reason.

13. Ideally, the theme will have decent tech support and stability behind and underlying it.

14. We're ideally looking for a dark skinned theme, potentially with a touch of vintage or old class to it; but we could settle for modernish dark.

15. The theme shouldn't force us into linking to Instagram or whatever.

Well, I really hope you guys can help us. As I say, we've done absurd amounts of research including long emails to theme makers. Yet I'm less clear than ever on which theme is for us. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Bryan

Pick up the local Yellow Pages, and thumb through 'til you come to "Desingers, web" and contact a few. Send them your list of requirements, ask for references and examples of previous work. Agree on a price, sit back and when the time comes, pay the bill and you're all done.

 

[BAJParry]

Pick up the local Yellow Pages, and thumb through 'til you come to "Desingers, web" and contact a few. Send them your list of requirements, ask for references and examples of previous work. Agree on a price, sit back and when the time comes, pay the bill and you're all done.

Hi tirediron, thank you for your quick response! Unfortunately, we are looking to edit and control the site ourselves on a daily basis. That's one reason why we're using Wordpress.org. However, we are struggling with an appropriate theme. If you know one, with or without plug-ins, that meets our specs (more-or-less), I would love to hear.

Kind regards,
Bryan

 

[tirediron]

WP is very configurable, but the problem is that there are so many options, unless you really know it inside and out, with your fairly strict list of requirements, it's going to be a challenge. Your best bet will be to hire someone to build the site and then turn over control to you once it's up and running; the day-to-day stuff will be fairly simple, but getting it set up is the hard part.

 

[Designer]

You should be able to import nearly any "theme" you can find. How do you think web designers get their stuff published? And don't worry; you will be doing the daily updates in any case.

 

[BAJParry]

WP is very configurable, but the problem is that there are so many options, unless you really know it inside and out, with your fairly strict list of requirements, it's going to be a challenge. Your best bet will be to hire someone to build the site and then turn over control to you once it's up and running; the day-to-day stuff will be fairly simple, but getting it set up is the hard part.

Hi tirediron, many thanks for your advice. If I cannot find an appropriate theme that provides most of the functionality we require, I will ask someone to set up a Wordpress site. But I trust it won't come to that! (touch wood)

 

[BAJParry]

You should be able to import nearly any "theme" you can find. How do you think web designers get their stuff published? And don't worry; you will be doing the daily updates in any case.

Hi Designer, thank you for your comments. Although it doesn't exactly deal with my question(!) I'm struggling to find a theme which has the majority of the features I require. Yet I know what I require isn't that taxing; I just need to identify the best themes or combo of theme and plug-ins.

 

[AceCo55]

All of your requirements can be satisfied with a Smugmug Business website.
Might be worth a look. Not sure if they have a theme ready to go for you - but Smugmug is very customisable.
This is the forum of Smugmug users: Digital Grin Photography Forum - Powered by vBulletin
This provides information about themes: What themes can I use?
The only downside might be the poor blog UI ... however there are some who have a Smugmug site which is linked to a Wordpress blog and configured to look as if they are the one site

 

[BAJParry]

Hi AceCo55, thank you for the advice. I did have a look at them before, but maybe it's time to go back and look again. Kind regards, Bryan.