Looking for a photo/blog site addition for my website.

[dgberg]

Time to overhaul things on my website and could use input from folks here. I have used Morephotos this past year and was ready to dump it the first month. What was I thinking! No decent gallery setup. It just screams "I am selling" which is the idea but it is quite lame at best. No way to add copy to images other then what you see.
So its gone. I thought I did my research and thats what I got, so this time I am going to ask around before doing anything. I spent alot of money to have the custom site made up so I am not tearing it apart. I want to add a nice gallery section to display my images but do not plan on having an online for sale option. I want to be able to upload these images myself with copy.I also want a blog page that can take photos and pictures uploaded directly from me and not through my web gal. Lastly my workshop section needs to be a blog page of some sort as well that I can make changes on a monthly basis. Not looking for free. Looking for professional,first class.
I will be having my web gal do all the dirty work in incorporating what ever we choose into my site. Then I want to be able to do all the photo uploads,copy and blogs myself.
So far I have looked at Photoshelter with the wordpress plugin for the blog part. Flickr seems a little cheesy(Non professional). But the addition of Flickr uploading in Lightroom 3 is intriging.
My website is below for your review.

[Josh-H]

Time to overhaul things on my website and could use input from folks here. I have used Morephotos this past year and was ready to dump it the first month. What was I thinking! No decent gallery setup. It just screams "I am selling" which is the idea but it is quite lame at best. No way to add copy to images other then what you see.
So its gone. I thought I did my research and thats what I got, so this time I am going to ask around before doing anything. I spent alot of money to have the custom site made up so I am not tearing it apart. I want to add a nice gallery section to display my images but do not plan on having an online for sale option. I want to be able to upload these images myself with copy.I also want a blog page that can take photos and pictures uploaded directly from me and not through my web gal. Lastly my workshop section needs to be a blog page of some sort as well that I can make changes on a monthly basis. Not looking for free. Looking for professional,first class.
I will be having my web gal do all the dirty work in incorporating what ever we choose into my site. Then I want to be able to do all the photo uploads,copy and blogs myself.
So far I have looked at Photoshelter with the wordpress plugin for the blog part. Flickr seems a little cheesy(Non professional). But the addition of Flickr uploading in Lightroom 3 is intriging.
My website is below for your review.

Hi Dan,

Have you considered a Live-Books site?

Live-Books are extremely professional (not cheap - but you get what you pay for) and I have been more than happy with them for the last five years or so (see my site in my sig). I use wordpress to drive my blog and link this from my live-books site - which in practice works very well. I believe Live-books will soon be offering more blog services; but wordpress is just fine in my experience.

The back end to Live-books is about as slick as they come and the customisation available is pretty much limitless. I dont want to sound like an add for them as there is nothing in it for me either way. But its well worth a look for you and they now offer a free trial to boot. Its the polar opposite to a mum and dad Flickr site in terms of being professional - you only have to look at their client list - Magnum, National Geo, Art Wolfe, etc.

Best of luck.

[dgberg]

Thank you Josh.
Several questions. I already have a site and only want to add a gallery and blog section. I am not planning on starting over with new templates /new site. How would that fit in to what you have shown here?

[fredjeang]

Hi,
If you know about css/html, you should have a look at pixelpost CMS.

[dgberg]

Fred,
I know nothing about either. The plan is to have my web girl set up whatever program we choose and I will be able to upload images and blog copy myself.

[fredjeang]

Fred,
I know nothing about either. The plan is to have my web girl set up whatever program we choose and I will be able to upload images and blog copy myself.

That's exactly what it's made for. Photo but aimed to blog necessities. And it's open source.
I've used it's structure for different purposes: very stable, html friendly and you can basically do whatever you want with it.
But need someone who knows these things.
Pixelpost here: http://www.pixelpost.org/

[usathyan]

There are a few options if all you want is a CMS (content management system) based gallery - with no ecommerce. Of course, if you want it to work with LR - I am pretty sure all of these accept FTP and can be setup to export them directly from it.

I have had Pixelpost a long time ago and I wouldn't recommend it - only for the reason that it is prone to spam commenting and has security issues.

You can alternatively use Wordpress with gallery plugins (There are plenty of choices), or use www.squarespace.com for an alternative.

Of course, there are other options such as: Foliolink, picaholic, Zenfolio, Smugmug etc. and a whole lot of other choices...

Photoshelter is pretty good option if you intend to sell them online in future...You can start off with Wordpress+graph paper templates for now and upgrade to Photoshelter in future if thats the direction you are heading.

Of course, Live books is a great option - but expensive.

Your other option is to use Wordpress or Expressions engine for blog & to use a custom hosted gallery such as Gallery2 or Coppermine or 4Images or just a banana album for your portfolio images.

You can alternatively just create and maintain galleries in LR and publish them directly on your website as static pages with no CMS.

In short - There are plenty of options!

[LoisWakeman]

I second Wordpress - it is extremely configurable and very easy (assuming your gal knows her HTML/CSS and a bit of PHP as I am sure she does) to make it look like the rest of your site. I am building my own new photo blog in it, although I am waiting till I have more posts written before I unveil it.

[fredjeang]

Wordpress is probably the most versatile. You can use many plugs like simple viewer, jquery etc...
but WP is a generalist platform.
The BIG difference with pixelpost, is that pixelpost is made exclusively for photographers. And that my friends, makes a big difference in the features and control panel. It is really built arrownd the necessities of the photographer and the interface is much more friendly and efficient than the WP's.
Don't beleive it? If you know these things (php, css and html), just try it by yourself. Sure you get rid of your wordpress after.

But, if you need more than a photographic website, then WP is a better option.

Cheers.

[dgberg]

Thank you Umesh,Fred and Lois.
Much to digest. I am so disappointed in Morephotos especially after spending $400.00
I truly need a top notch gallery addition with space for a workshop blog. I am hoping this can be set up to upload photos and type blog entrys,simply.
The blog page will be mostly workshop content. New workshop dates plus coverage of custom workshops we will be setting up. One example this June and July we will be having a "Day Lilly" shoot here at our location. 750 running  feet of plant  beds with more then 100 day lilly plants. Refreshments and everyone gets a print of one of their best images. Follow the new blog if your in the north east and want to attend. A little  more research and I should be good to go.
Thanks to all that have replied.