Considering to develop websites specifically for photograpers... your thoughts?

ErosP

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Hello friends!

A bit of a cross-post from the DPUG site, bit I am trying to get as much feedback as possible. Apologies if this is OT or in the wrong forum.

Websites are simply a 24/7 online gallery of our work that we can show off anytime of day or night to the whole world. I am doing some crowdsourcing and need community feedback. Yours truly is looking to develop a hosted website theme specifically aimed at the photographic community, and make it super simple to edit content with little coding experience needed. Yes there are some solutions out there, but I find them too general and not created truly with a photographer in mind.

What would you want for a website - portfolio, about me page, galleries, blog, e-commerce capabilities, what?

Also, what would you expect to pay for a website hosting service per month?

Tell me your thoughts, I'm all ears, the more comments (add in lots of details!), the merrier.

Regards,
Eros
 

EdSawyer

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Pay? Nothing. Too many free services already, to make this a viable niche, I'd say.
 

jp80874

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I am interested. You may know that Facebook frequently loses pictures for people. That has happened to me. I just discovered that all the ones I had up are gone, again! A simple web site might be the cure.

John Powers
 

chriscrawfordphoto

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People pay me to design such sites, but I never, ever use generic templates, I custom design the site from scratch. If someone is designing a generic theme and trying to sell it, no one will buy.As others have said, there's a lot of free services that offer that, and those willing to pay want something that is unique to them, not the same design a million others are using.
 
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ErosP

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Thanks for the thoughts so far...

The content management system/website I am envisioning would have some customize-ability to it - something you wouldn't have to know much coding for. You would be able to change images, colors and add your own typed content. I'm trying to create a solution that would help out the non techie people out there who need a site but don't know much about coding or domains and email setup.

I realize that there are free sites out there, but they are usually littered with advertisements and are generally rather clunky looking. As far as templates on their own, when I am done with an individual template, it would be the building block of what someone else may use to create their space on the web.

Simply stated, give me your thoughts on what you think a photography website should have. The more information I have, the better I can serve others. Let me do the coding and let the market decide.

Humble regards,
Eros
 

winger

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A lot like iWeb, but with more options for backgrounds and how to organize the images. I wanted to have images on the front page that would lead to a page of similar images when clicked (iWeb doesn't do that). I wanted more choices of background color - like take the basic schemes available, but choose my own color (iWeb has a color chosen for each that I couldn't find a way to change). I wanted to have galleries within galleries (iWeb doesn't do that). I also want to have drag and drop ability, but in arrangements that I choose. The way I did my site was to start with a blank page and add them, dragging the corners to make them the same heights - that was a pain, imo. I want it more simple than that. What I want is sorta a combo of iWeb and jAlbum, I guess. My site was built through iWeb and it's ok, but it's not quite what really want. I also wish I could make the menu of different pages bigger (it's kinda small and I can't make it different unless I change the style, then the background changes, too).
The free ones I've found have not been that customizable or easy to use. I don't know how to code at all, so that colors my perception of the free ones, too.
 

polyglot

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Given all the other excellent options out there that span the gamut from apps to hosted solutions (gallery2, jalbum, wordpress, redbubble, etc), I don't think there is a market at all for bespoke gallery development. As for commercial websites, again there are so many templates etc to choose from that practically anyone who can succeed in a semi-technical field like photography can successfully build a website. They vary in their quality but then so do commercial web developers.

I don't think specialising in "photographer websites" is a useful niche if you're a web developer.
 
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