Photography website

[MetalMoth]

Hi everyone. I am thinking of having my own website to show my wildlife photos. Does anyone else here do this? If so how did you build your website? I am interested in knowing who hosts it, how much you pay for the domain and how you made it. What kind of template did you use?

If you don't have one do you know of a good way of building your own website?

Thanks!

[Geoff F]

It Depends on what you mean by a website.

Do you chiefly just want to display photos with just a couple of lines of accompanying text or do want a lot of text and explanation about the shots?

If the former method is sufficient, I use P base and this is an example of what I do. crustacean's Photo Galleries at pbase.com

The advantage of this system, if it would be sufficient, is that you have a choice of basic backgrounds into which you can place your photos. But you can edit both template colour and text style.

And you don't have to worry about viruses or spam. There is a small charge of around £15 per year.

If you want something more complicated and personal there are a number of web designers who will create a basic site for a little over £100.

[John D]

Originally Posted by MetalMoth

Hi everyone. I am thinking of having my own website to show my wildlife photos. Does anyone else here do this? If so how did you build your website? I am interested in knowing who hosts it, how much you pay for the domain and how you made it. What kind of template did you use?

If you don't have one do you know of a good way of building your own website?

Thanks!

Quite a few WAB Members including myself have websites hosted by ZENFOLIO.
All the details including templates and cost etc can be obtained from the Zenfolio Website.
Certainly worth having a look.

John D

Zenfolio | John's Wild World

[JeffH]

And have a look at Photium - full details here - Websites for photographers : 30 day free trial - Photium

I've had a Photium site for almost 3 years now and have found it very easy to manage with an excellent Admin service

Jeff
(Schedule 1 Licence holder for Kingfishers, Barn Owls and Avocets)

[Jim Ford]

I use the hosting provider 'Proserve':

ProserveUK Web Hosting - Professional and Affordable Web Hosting Providers

They charge £8.99 a year. I can't remember how much the domain name registration cost, but it was trivial for 3 years. I used 'Joomla' to set up this site for my partner:

Marianne's Home Page

Check-out the animated frog in the banner - I was rather pleased with it!

(Odd - now I've just checked and the nifty slide show plug-in doesn't appear to be working! I'll have to do a bit of long overdue site maintenance, but I'm not sure I can remember the password now!)

Jim

[jcurtis]

Ferguson Gill uses Smug mug (winner of young wildlife photographer of the year 2010) I thinks it's free for basic site and costs rise depending on functionality and you have to buy a domain.

Danny Green uses Click-It and so do I. I pay £150 per year and my domain was only a few pounds.

Other than the options the other contributors have mentioned look at flickr, basic but free.

Hope this helps

[JaySteel]

I use a free site hosted by 'yola'. It was quick and easy to put together.
You can check it out here:

http://www.jasonsteelwildlifephotography.yolasite.com


It became a little long-winded for me to tell people this web address so I then bought a new domain name from a company called 'Namesco' and linked it to that site. I bought the domain name (www.jason-steel.co.uk) for the price of £9.60 for two years. If you type in this address it takes you straight to my website at www.jasonsteelwildlifephotography.yolasite.com.
I don't get that much traffic. I've had nearly 2000 visits from 55 different countries in just over a year. I'm currently playing with a new free website template with (www.wix.com) that uses flash. I doubt if I'll replace my existing website with this but I'm not sure yet.

Jason

[MetalMoth]

Thanks for all your help everyone. I like the look of SmugMug. I will look into it. Looks quite cheap too!

[cosmicma]

iv'e used a free web site to put a Gallery together done through a company called Webs it's quite easy to use with loads of different templates and ranges from free to pro level at a monthly cost
i use the free part which serves my needs and the web address is actually usable unlike some that have a whole sentence as the address

mine is www.marks-gallery.webs.com the only thing thats added is the "webs" to your chosen address which compared to some isn't too bad
the free website do have adverts on your page but are not too obtrusive

this might not be what your looking for but it allows you to get a taste at no expense

[MetalMoth]

Thanks everyone. I should also say that if you want to see my current photos I do have a Flickr page already:

Flickr: simonphelps' Photostream

I would love to hear your comments on them!