best photo websites

[Undertow 31]

Hi guys,

 

I'm starting to put together a website and the designer we hired (not my choice) did a horrible job. The physical presentation of photos is not bad, but the site looks clunky and boxy and just not smooth.

 

I'd like to see examples of some photography websites that people think look the best, presentation and layout wise, to use as examples when I hire another designer.

 

So what websites do people like the most? Not necessarily just UW photogs, but any really slick sites. Are there certain methods of presentation (like flash etc) that work really well? I'm quite a newb to this website stuff. Thanx guys,

 

Chris

[freediver 0]

Hi guys,

 

I'm starting to put together a website and the designer we hired (not my choice) did a horrible job. The physical presentation of photos is not bad, but the site looks clunky and boxy and just not smooth.

 

I'd like to see examples of some photography websites that people think look the best, presentation and layout wise, to use as examples when I hire another designer.

 

So what websites do people like the most? Not necessarily just UW photogs, but any really slick sites. Are there certain methods of presentation (like flash etc) that work really well? I'm quite a newb to this website stuff. Thanx guys,

 

Chris

 

As someone who works as a web designer, it depends on what you want from the site.

 

Are you looking for a content management app to be able to manage your site? You will run into some technological limitations going that route. OTOH, if you're not going to admin your site and are willing to hand off your change orders to a "RELIABLE" web person, flash seems to work ok.

 

Personally, much of the Web 2.0 apps available provide a more user friendly to navigate a site - your web designer should have a solid grasp of usability standards for site navigation. Flash is just that - flashy, but doesn't provide utilitarian substance - but that's a personal POV for me.

 

I'm currently developing two CM sites for an experienced uw shooter - one is his blog and the other is for his stock photo work - each tied to the other for marketing his work over the web. If your web person doesn't have a handle on that aspect as well as the others mentioned - you're wasting your time and money.

 

PM if you want to know more.

[rinjani 9]

Take a look at the variety of different layouts that are availale on the smugmug.com website. They have a wide variety of packaged layouts, some are pretty nice.

[rbailey 0]

Hi Chris,

 

As some way to answer here's some comments / history on my route to the WWW.

 

Intialliy I got a FLIKR account but as I am in UAE all internet trafic is via a national proxy and FLIKR got banned for nudity so lost photo hosting (this is quite common here with many photo hosts).

 

I then tried writing my own website, had a go with DreamWeaver and got lost. Then managed to write my own with Frontpage which was fairly simple. However after a while the support for frontpage with my host became unstable and any change sent the site into a nose dive so gave up.

 

However now have a solution I love. I use a Yahoo small bussiness site which is written with there own editor "SiteBuilder". I find this easy to use and stable. Whilst not as many bells and whistles as a full blown HMTL written site it fits my needs well.

("bells and whistles" I mean I can't use plug ins like an automatic gallery page but just use a table and insert the photos which works just as well.)

 

Link for site builder :-

http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/index.php

 

And my results are here, have a look, hope you like them :-

http://www.images-underwater.net

 

 

Cheers,

Richard B.

[Lasse 1]

I recomend using joomla. it is not difficult if you use a template. My site is created with joomla. take a look http://www.coldwaterphoto.com/

 

Lasse

[underwatercolours 0]

I may be a little late in replying, but will add this anyway because I'm sure others might have the same question. I get a lot of people who ask me to set up small and inexpensive sites for them (even though I much prefer to design large, expensive websites). The first thing I ask them is how computer, Photoshop, and internet savvy they are. This is really important because it is very easy to place yourself out of your league technically if you make the wrong decision. I'm assuming you might want to do your own updates, build galleries and upload photos, maybe add a blog, what's new page or trips reports, etc.

 

I've got sites set up on SmugMug.com and ZenFolio.com and with both of them its difficult to tell that the sites are automated, idiot-proof template driven sites. If you want to keep things clean and simple and add all the bells and whistles, this is definitely the way to go.

 

I also am using Joomla a lot for customer sites and I love it. But someone needs to set this up for you and it isn't nearly simple enough for the lay-user. I like to customize. Creating a site that doesn't scream JOOMLA is not so easy to do. Its not all that easy to update either. A photo gallery doesn't come with the basic Joolma install and it needs to be uploaded, installed and configured before you can use it. Even when set up at the most simplified user level, there are many menu options that you will never use. Unless you're pretty internet literate, you'll end up paying someone to do a lot of the work for you. Once its all set up and you learn the interface, you can have a really nice professional site. I set up a lot of sites this way for people who plan to build big sites, can do a clean job of inputting text and photos themselves, but don't have any design skills or the budget for a really customized site. Then I bill them hourly to fix the stuff they mess up, which happens all the time. They just get frustrated learning the process.

 

I'm also helping a friend with a site where she is using ShutterBug. I haven't gotten too deep into it yet, but so far I'm not too crazy about it. Feels a bit too formatted and hard to customize.

 

To me, all the template sites look very generic and overloaded with "stuff" unless you do hire someone to clean them up and customize them.

 

Another option would be to hire someone to set up a simple HTML/CSS site using optional programs like Coppermine, Gallery, SlideShowPro or even SimpleViewer. You could also add some really nice Flash galleries like those found on OhMyFlash.com if your website designer is Flash literate. There are other programs like ImageFolio that offer full e-commerce options, but setting up a site like that could be much more expensive and overkill for your first website.

 

It really comes down to how much money you want to spend, how you want the site to look, how much work you want to do yourself, and how much you REALLY are going to update it. In spite of all the qualifications, I tell all my clients who can't afford me, to go to SmugMug or ZenFolio. Look at the "Pro" plans. They are very inexpensive and on both those sites are amazing.

 

Please do send up a link when you're all done.

[diverdon 1]

Hi guys,

 

I'm starting to put together a website and the designer we hired (not my choice) did a horrible job. The physical presentation of photos is not bad, but the site looks clunky and boxy and just not smooth.

 

I'd like to see examples of some photography websites that people think look the best, presentation and layout wise, to use as examples when I hire another designer.

 

So what websites do people like the most? Not necessarily just UW photogs, but any really slick sites. Are there certain methods of presentation (like flash etc) that work really well? I'm quite a newb to this website stuff. Thanx guys,

 

Chris

 

My Fiance built this dreamweaver site for me. www.uwworld.com I am quite happy with it. She is in the process of transitioning to a career in web design/Adobe Creative suite. It is a lot more work to add pictures than I would like it to be. Thus the website is a bit more static than I would like. But I like the layout and functionality. Some of the images are linked from flickr and some of them are self hosted.

[simonmittag 0]

Hi Chris!

 

if you are looking at a custom site, I recommend looking into Wordpress. It is free and there are a gazillion themes for it available online, it's a fully skinnable content management system and it's really easy to pick a theme that you like. There are also photo blog plugins available for it that make publishing and galleries easier, just look in the plugins section on the website. The good thing about wordpress is it's Apache&PHP based, so you will be able to get very cheap hosting for it, and it's extremely popular for blogs, so lots of good online support&forums for you.

 

Many web2.0 people use it, so if you like the clean and simple designs you will like wordpress.

 

Have a look at the photo blog link in my signature which is built as a custom Wordpress theme. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to drop me a line.

 

Cheers,

 

Simon

[adamhanlon 0]

Hi all,

 

Just to chime in with another vote for smugmug. I've had an account with them for about 6 months, and not only can you customize their skin so it doesn't "feel" like a generic site, but their support and tech forums are amazing! The tech forum is second only to this one for helpfulness!

 

My site (url below) is an "adapted" smugmug one.

 

I use Flickr still as a "bulk uploading option, but it's lack of customization options limit it as a showpiece site.

 

Hope that helps

 

Adam

Edited January 31, 2009 by adamdiveruk