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|| SportsShooter.com: Member Message Board
Blog software as your primary portfolio website
Kevin M. Cox, Photographer, Assistant
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Galveston & Houston | TX | US | Posted: 5:57 PM on 03.15.10 |
->> Hey folks, I'm curious how many of y'all are using blog software to power your primary portfolio website. I'm mainly interested in hearing about those who are using something like WordPress more as a way to display your portfolio and less as a typical blog site.
Jack Gruber's site is the one that got me thinking along these lines:
http://jackgruber.com
Here is another example I found through the Showcase at Graph Paper Press:
http://michealbphoto.com
I'm looking for some personal opinions on the pros and cons of building a site in this manner. Thanks for any thoughts. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 8:00 PM on 03.15.10 |
->> I do a lot of small customization jobs for other photographers running wordpress... This is what I've run into:
When you start off with a highly structured site, things tend to run well. What I mean by that is that when a theme specifically targets photographic content, and can split that content off into a coherent presentation, it tends to really make things work well - so you can in one pass update your portfolio, put recent content online, let your blog readers know what you're up to, etc... And it only takes about a minute or two tacked onto the end of an assignment to do it. The Graph Paper Press themes are a great example of this - they take care of all the fine details and handle searching, archives, featured/portfolio stuff really well, and (if you want) will still allow you to integrate a blog into it.
On the other hand, what seems to happen a lot is that people (guilty but slowly working on it!) will tend to use generic themes, which don't quite fit what they're trying to do - put a face forward that matches what they're about. A lot of the time things end up getting organizationally cluttered, it's annoying to update because the themes don't automagically resize your images, etc... And every time you update it just wears on you until you're just totally dissatisfied.
That said, look for a theme that handles the content management for you. Get something with great typography, a lot of the time this will make a big difference in longevity.
Try to avoid something that requires you to do a lot of work in the long run; initial setup and getting used to it might take some time, but what really counts is: how much of a busy week do you have to use to update?
Does it seem to convey who you are in how it's laid out?
Obvious example: Jack Gruber's site works great because it sticks one big nice photo at you right when you hit it. The clutter is hidden down below, but is still organized and easy to navigate. And it handles all the organizational stuff on the fly so Jack doesn't have to worry about it; it lets him put content out there super easy. And it's kind of laid out like a newspaper too ;)
The Micheal B site works well because it's just minimalist and doesn't try to do a lot, very similar to his photos, and I would guess, his living room too! The theme is just a simple, easy-to-access framework.
A lot of the time what people will do is they'll pick up a theme from GPP (or plethora of other places) that's pretty close and have another developer make some small customizations to it, just to make it stand out (because having the same theme as your competition just doesn't work for marketing!) - a lot of the time this just takes a couple hundred bucks and a decent idea of what you're trying to put forward stylistically.
But what you really want to do is get something that can handle all the content management for you, so you don't have to try to do the job of a web developer every day instead of shooting :) |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Boise | ID | US | Posted: 8:04 PM on 03.15.10 |
| ->> Oh, and btw, Jack Gruber's theme is also by Graph Paper Press. |
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Israel Shirk, Photographer, Assistant
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Ed Mulholland, Photographer
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Pompton Lakes | NJ | USA | Posted: 11:00 PM on 03.15.10 |
->> I use it as well, it's photoshelter on the backend, with a wordpress blog and a graph paper press theme. I'm happy with it...
http://edmulholland.com |
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Joel Hawksley, Student/Intern, Photographer
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Athens | OH | USA | Posted: 11:51 PM on 03.15.10 |
->> I custom-built a wordpress theme to fit my needs. I like being able to have alt tags/captions on my images in the html. It makes for much better SEO than a Flash based site.
Israel hit the nail right on the head though, it's all about doing it right the first time out, and having things easy to update for the long hall. That's the point of using a CMS after all, isn't it? |
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