I suppose that's the way most porfolios go these days, and visually some of them DO look very nice. However, I'm a bit annoyed at some pages that over-do flash, or scripting, to the point where the page loads and for 10 seconds you can't scroll or click because it's not done "running" things behind the scenes.
I think you can do a lot of nice things (exercise the ol'e HTML magic, if you will) with basic tables, and some rudimentary javascripting.
Personally speaking, I wonder "Why does that page look and feel like a blog? Is it a blog? Shouldn't it be a portfolio" when I view some of them. I say if it's going to look, feel, and act like a blog, just create a blog. Many people use those to a great degree of success. If you're going to make it a webpage (i.e. not a blog) then stay away from those elements of a blog that give the wrong feel.
Please don't misunderstand, I'm totally supportive of the opinions posted above me, I'm simply adding my 2 cents as well. The question I had was: Why do you need a MySql database? The answer I inferred was "to automatically update new posted content on a regular basis" and my response was "but... isn't that a blog?"
I know, I know.. I'm not one to speak. I don't even have a photography webpage, and I'm not up on the latest marketing trends and so forth. My HTML has been more recreational over the past 13 years or so, but I have been active enough to pick up on a few things.