Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Pro Business Discussion => Topic started by: uintaangler on March 08, 2014, 10:40:53 pm
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I would like to create a distinctive website for displaying my images and selling fine art prints
I tried Zenfolio and lost interest in it - the combination of my limited computer skills and Zenfolio's limited choices just didn't give me what I was looking for
I am willing to pay a professional to design the website for me
Any suggestions and leads would be greatly appreciated.
Reply right here or send me a PM
Thanks,
Bob
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Get a domain name if you don't have one then get a hosting plan. Mine is from BlueHost (http://www.bluehost.com/) but there are plenty of other options. Then get a WordPress or Drupal installation (WordPress is easier and take less maintenance). Both are free and your web host should help you set them up. There are lots of free themes to choose from or you can pay for a theme or pay someone to custom design or custom modify one.
My themes came from Elegant Themes (http://www.elegantthemes.com/). I paid $39 for access to all of their themes for one year. At the end of the year I can keep what I have downloaded or renew and continue to have support.
My gallery and sales are handled by ShootProof (https://www.shootproof.com/) (when you go to the Gallery you are on a ShootProof (https://www.shootproof.com/) page). ShootProof (https://www.shootproof.com/) has several plans depending on the number of images you need hosted. The cheapest is free (for about 100 images). I pay a small subscription for 1500 images. When someone orders, it can be sent to one of several labs (Bay Photo, ProDPI, WHCC) or I can self fulfill the order however I want. ShootProof (https://www.shootproof.com/) does NOT take a commission on sales. They take out credit card fees and any lab fees and shipping and send the rest to my bank. I can also allow digital downloads of whatever size I want. It's a great service for a reasonable price and it saves me from having to host my own galleries or do any e-commerce.
My two sites (linked below) both came together in about a week total. There are a few little tweaks to do and I'm working on SEO but they are pretty much done.
Richard Smith Photo (http://www.myrsphoto.com)
The Singular Image (http://singular.myrsphoto.com)
Hope that helps. My description may sound more complicated than it actually is. Just wade in. It's easy and there are people all along the way to help.
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Hi Bob,
If zenfolio is giving you trouble, you should probably stay away from Wordpress and Drupal for the time being (in my opinion). While neither is super tough if you're comfortable installing software on servers, FTPing files, and making inevitable tweaks, they still require more computer skills than zenfolio.
Before you pay a designer, I would take a hard look at Photoshelter (https://www.photoshelter.com/). They will give you a very professional web presence along with built in e-commerce and SEO in a way that is user friendly for both you and your visitors. You'll still end up dorking around with things, but it will be a good site right out of the box and probably a better, more researched design than you will get from most custom jobs.
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Hi Bob,
If zenfolio is giving you trouble, you should probably stay away from Wordpress and Drupal for the time being (in my opinion). While neither is super tough if you're comfortable installing software on servers, FTPing files, and making inevitable tweaks, they still require more computer skills than zenfolio.
Before you pay a designer, I would take a hard look at Photoshelter (https://www.photoshelter.com/). They will give you a very professional web presence along with built in e-commerce and SEO in a way that is user friendly for both you and your visitors. You'll still end up dorking around with things, but it will be a good site right out of the box and probably a better, more researched design than you will get from most custom jobs.
While I am not specifically familiar with PhotoShelter, I think most of the photo gallery/selling sites are limited to some degree in the manner the OP is concerned with. Even ShootProof, for how much I use it and recommend it to others, is quite limited. That's why I only use it for the few functions for which it works best.
Drupal can be a problem for new workers but WordPress does not have a steep learning curve and there are lots of helpful resources to get you running. BlueHost, and many others I'm sure, does not require your to install on their server. They have automated functions that do the work for you. Plug-ins, photographs, and other materials can be brought into a WordPress site without ftp. WordPress has a very good upload function that uploads from wherever the file is stored (local hard drive, cloud, ect.) directly to WordPress - no ftp or file manager needed. But you are right that this can be a problem with Drupal.
In short, I think if the Bob will take a little time to learn WordPress, he will be repaid in short order with a site that is personal and more exactly what he wants. I say this after several years of working with Drupal sites. The two WordPress sites I referenced are my first WordPress attempts. It's just not very hard, at least if you have a web hosting service with good customer support.
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The advantage of getting a good designer is that the site will look a lot better than a basic wordpress site. Important for someone who want to sell work and also has limited computer skills which was what Bob said in his post.
Another consideration is budget. Photoshelter is $360 a year, so a few years of that should pay for a designer no problem. And if they do it properly, you'll be able to upload images, add/remove content yourself quite easily.
You can even get someone to set up Wordpress for you, cheaper than starting a site from scratch and should be better looking than a generic template site.
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I am a full-time professional photographer and I use Photoshelter. I'm very, very happy with their service. Their sites are easy to build using their point and click interface but they are also quite powerful. And, they look good. I've had numerous compliments on my website from clients, including magazine photo editors who appreciate its simplicity and ease of navigation. A fancy site is cool and all but the focus should be on your photography, not your kick butt website. I highly recommend you check out Photoshelter.
Bret Edge Photography on Photoshelter (http://www.bretedge.com)
Photoshelter (http://www.photoshelter.com)
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Hey Bret-what Photoshelter theme did you go with?
Mike
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Hey Bret-what Photoshelter theme did you go with?
Mike
My site utilizes the Beam Promenade template.
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Bret Edge Photography on Photoshelter (http://www.bretedge.com)
Photoshelter (http://www.photoshelter.com)
It looks great Bret.
I'm really not sure what a custom designer would bring to this to improve it.
The really nice thing about the upper-end portfolio services like Photoshelter and aphotofolio.com is that they not only have good designers and coders, but they also understand the industry. Photoshelter puts a lot of work into researching how people find, use, and sell images and that work shows in their designs. I'm sure you could find a designer who would do all of this, but that's not going to be the norm. I designed and continue to maintain my own site, but it's only because I enjoy it. If I didn't, it would not nearly be worth the time because the off-the-shelf options are so good these days.
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You could also have a look at Squarespace: http://www.squarespace.com/
Mike.
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It looks great Bret.
I'm really not sure what a custom designer would bring to this to improve it.
Fixing this maybe... :P
[Unless it is meant to look like that :-\]
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I assume that's a visual pun on his last name. I think it's not only meant to look like that, I think it's pretty clever.
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That's very charitable, don't you think?
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Looks like a web layout mistake to me.
My theory on doing things wrong is that you should leave no doubt that doing something wrong was a deliberate choice and not just a mistake.
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Looks like a web layout mistake to me.
Of course, we can all have different opinions, but it's not a web layout mistake. The whole logo is a single jpeg. Having said that, I agree with you—if viewers think it's a mistake then it is a mistake—just a different kind of mistake. It didn't strike me as a mistake, but as John suggests, I might just be charitable.
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I assume that's a visual pun on his last name. I think it's not only meant to look like that, I think it's pretty clever.
Yep, you nailed it. My designer created this logo a few years ago and I still like it, which says a lot since I've got the attention span of a 5 year old. Squirrel! ;-)
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Looks like a web layout mistake to me.
My theory on doing things wrong is that you should leave no doubt that doing something wrong was a deliberate choice and not just a mistake.
To each his own. In the 8 years I've used this logo you and John Beardsworth are the first to think it a "mistake".
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It's a context thing. One would assume it is deliberate on a business card or stationery, but on web sites 99.9% of such cut offs are CSS layout errors. So at first glance that's what it looks like.
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To each his own. In the 8 years I've used this logo you and John Beardsworth are the first to think it a "mistake".
Add me to the list of those who will vocalize that they think it is a "mistake." Take a poll. After 8 years it might be time for something fresh. Or not. Your call.
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It's a context thing. One would assume it is deliberate on a business card or stationery, but on web sites 99.9% of such cut offs are CSS layout errors. So at first glance that's what it looks like.
Exactly my point. A 'mistake' used in design needs to appear deliberate.
On a business card, no problem, on a website....
Also bear in mind most people won't even mention if a website has an error. I only did so because of the specific context of conversation.
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Bwah hah hah! I hope you don;t go down the same road I did - my own domain name, an attractive web site, lots of lovely images, and so on. Not a single sale in over 2 years. The web does not work as we might wish, putting good stuff out there is not enough. Why? Because 1 billion other people have also put good stuff out there.
This has been true for my photography as well as for my medical consulting business. My web sites are a place to send people for more information, not a way to attract new customers.
I am taking a new tack, and that is to focus on local promotion Still in the early stages, but I have hopes. If I can meet a potential customer and shake him by the lapels ... er, convince him to buy ... I expect it will work out better than expecting some photo collector in San Francisco or Bangor to buy a print based on my web site.
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Peter,
What you say makes sense - can you expand upon what you mean when you say "local promotion" ?
Bob
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Bwah hah hah! I hope you don;t go down the same road I did - my own domain name, an attractive web site, lots of lovely images, and so on. Not a single sale in over 2 years. The web does not work as we might wish, putting good stuff out there is not enough. Why? Because 1 billion other people have also put good stuff out there.
This has been true for my photography as well as for my medical consulting business. My web sites are a place to send people for more information, not a way to attract new customers.
I am taking a new tack, and that is to focus on local promotion Still in the early stages, but I have hopes. If I can meet a potential customer and shake him by the lapels ... er, convince him to buy ... I expect it will work out better than expecting some photo collector in San Francisco or Bangor to buy a print based on my web site.
Your comments parallel my experiences. Most of my promotions are done at local shows where I’ll see up to many thousand prospective buyers and up to 20 confirmed buyers per day. The web site is good for follow up and also helps to get into shows. Many times after 1-3 shows someone will say, i saw your work at ... show(s) and want to buy. I think this is probably broadly true for most newer members of the art sales arena. Those who have been around for a long number of years may have a greater opportunity to generate sales from a web site because their prospective customers have seen the work first hand at some points before.
There are so many artists’ web sites that they become akin to grains of sand along a long beach.
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Justan,
Who did your website?
I like it - clean, simple, effective
Thanks,
Bob
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Brad Crandall did the website for him. You can find him at http://www.pugetsoundwebdesign.com
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Just updated mine, a very simple Dreamweaver flexible grid using Juicebox Pro for the galleries. Finally got rid of the flash and went html5
www.craiglamson.com
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Justan,
Who did your website?
I like it - clean, simple, effective
Thanks,
Bob
I’ll pass your complement back to Brad. He does good work and is very reasonable. He did the original build modeled on another web site i found, and i add to it periodically, using an older edition of Dreamweaver. I plan to add some additional features in the near future but am happy with it overall.
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Don't forget that a website needs to work well on tablets/phones too.
For example, if you use Flash, then it needs to degrade to HTML5 gracefully.
I'm not happy with how the front page of mine works on the phone, past that it's fine. But every alternative I've looked at has had a drawback of some kind. :-\
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Bwah hah hah! I hope you don;t go down the same road I did - my own domain name, an attractive web site, lots of lovely images, and so on. Not a single sale in over 2 years. The web does not work as we might wish, putting good stuff out there is not enough. Why? Because 1 billion other people have also put good stuff out there.
This has been true for my photography as well as for my medical consulting business. My web sites are a place to send people for more information, not a way to attract new customers.
I am taking a new tack, and that is to focus on local promotion Still in the early stages, but I have hopes. If I can meet a potential customer and shake him by the lapels ... er, convince him to buy ... I expect it will work out better than expecting some photo collector in San Francisco or Bangor to buy a print based on my web site.
Well said and it needs saying more often, a website is not an immediate sale maker, in fact I often doubt its usefulness to many businesses other than to reassure customers that they not totally behind the times by having one. The number I see that started off full of promise and have not been updated for two or three years lies as testament to this but there is such a vast industry trying to sell you the concept of the indispensability of one that we all to some extent become brainwashed by it.
Websites will work when you are a dedicated online trader and have the time and interest in maintaining it and focusing your efforts on web sales, and are dealing in products that sell on the web. They are also essential to many as online brochures but to others they are a just another shiny big spanner that they are expected to carry in the marketing toolbox, nice to look at but rarely useful.
If you are going to have a website then you are going to have to drive traffic to it. SEO is often mentioned but you are competing for attention with people who have teams dedicated to ensuring they appear at the top of lists rather than you, whatever it is you are trying to sell. I have a regular blog which I take time to bring to peoples attention, it's the most frequently visited page, which is the good news, the bad news is that 70 - 80% of visitors spend less than 30 seconds viewing any of the pages on the site and I defy anybody hear to improve much upon that number, say 50% spending more than half a minute on their site.
I'd say to the OP, get a site together by all means to ensure that you are taken seriously, but do not expect it to perform any sort of magic.
Peter, I wish you all the best with your alternative approach and I think you are quite right to try it.
As for Facebook..... Don't even start me!
Oh, and my blog is - www.inkplusimages.com/wp :)
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Can someone take a look at the website of Henry Domke and tell me how I can get one like it?
Mike
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Can someone take a look at the website of Henry Domke and tell me how I can get one like it?
Mike
It seems to be a Stockbox - www.stockboxphoto.com. Generally with these services you upload images to their site's management pages and then output your own web site using a template/options they suppply.
One little point is that Stockbox seems to be stripping the colour profile and not tagging the images with sRGB. So the colours are probably off.
John
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Has anyone considered SITEGRINDER?
You design the site in Photoshop and it somehow is supposed to make it into a website.
I purchased it, and its been sitting with no use, as I need to upgrade to v3. But I'm hesitant to invest the time into it. I think Richard Smith's response was rather helpful and the route I would resommend.
I have 2 sites and have art directed 5 others. I usually get a few templates to pick from and customize them for clients. I work with 1 or 2 specific programmers to get it done. I know WordPress is very popular now. Maybe I should learn that before SiteGrander? I had learned to use Flash some time back, but with mobile OS's, its not that friendly for iPhone users.
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I contacted Henry Domke and yes they used StockBox but it is highly customized.
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Mike,
Do bear in mind what I wrote about the colours. A lot of online services resize the JPEG images and strip the colour profile, and while you might like Domke's site, the pictures' colours are off. I didn't look at the metadata in the JPEGs, but I'd bet copyright and other info had also been stripped.
John
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Has anyone considered SITEGRINDER?
You design the site in Photoshop and it somehow is supposed to make it into a website.
I recall looking at it a few years back but times move on and not sure it is worth bothering with (http://medialab.zendesk.com/entries/23882496-Is-Site-Grinder-going-to-carry-on-or-shut-down-).
Plus.....
Media Lab Support Status
Tom Summerall February 13, 2013 • Media Lab News and Extras / Announcements
I apologize for the state of our support right now. We are acutely aware that robust tech support is a major priority for a software company and have traditionally provided some of the best support in the industry. Unfortunately such support for every question we receive is not possible at the moment given our current staffing situation.
Media Lab sales have been hit hard in the past year and, as a result, we have been unable to maintain our excellent tech support staff. Tech support for SiteGrinder is especially challenging because our support engineers must be expert in not only SiteGrinder, but also Photoshop, HTML, CSS, javascript, jquery, AJAX, PHP, Web server configuration, and more. As you can imagine, this skill-set makes our support engineers extremely valuable in the jobs marketplace. In addition many tech support questions involve lengthy complex investigations into things like novel hosting incompatibilities, and cannot be answered quickly. The result of this situation is that we literally have more support questions than we can answer.
Customers who have urgent problems can pay as little as $15 to enter the paid support priority queue. The response time for this queue is usually same day on weekdays during normal US business hours.
This situation is not one we chose, it is one we have been forced into. Media Lab will continue to provide the best support we are able to, including fixing bugs, but we do ask your patience given the constraints placed on us right now.
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I did mine with a cargo collective template.
http://cargocollective.com/
Very basic but finally a lot of customizing work with html, css, ...
Optimizing it for the ipad / iphone was horrible.
Still jet not finished ...
Check it out:
www.geisselbrecht.biz
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I did mine with a cargo collective template.
http://cargocollective.com/
Very basic but finally a lot of customizing work with html, css, ...
Optimizing it for the ipad / iphone was horrible.
Still jet not finished ...
Check it out:
www.geisselbrecht.biz
Just loved the video work there, especially the use of slow motion. The photos were a tad slow in loading though.
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I did mine with a cargo collective template.
http://cargocollective.com/
Very basic but finally a lot of customizing work with html, css, ...
Optimizing it for the ipad / iphone was horrible.
That's the tricky bit, making a site work well on desktop and mobile platforms.
Looks very good on desktop, similar in some ways to what I'm aiming at for next iteration of my site. Site loads very quickly, my only niggle would be the [nicely edited] splash video could be higher quality for viewing on higher res screens, but then there's the trade off in speed. Is there an option for different res output for larger monitors?
Had a look at it on iPad and the template doesn't seem to do dynamic resizing to fit photos properly on screen which is a shame. But as you say, you not finished yet.
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Cool video. I couldn't scroll the photos as there is no indication where, so I can only see 2 or third is cut off on FireFox. Might be a good idea to check that, and Chrome, besides iE.
I hear you Jeremy, about SG. wish I never purchased SG v2 in the first place :-(
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I've added some thoughts on websites as a sales tool and the internet in general here - http://inkplusimages.com/wp/