WebSite Creation

[panchromatic]

I have a few questions regarding the creation of websites.

First i'll have to give you a little background so you can see my situation. First and foremost I am 20 years old, and I a passion or sickness for photography. Its something that has always caught my eye and within the past two years I've gone spiraling head first into it (i started with an old beat up SLR and now I have over 2K in camera equipment and darkroom stuff) Photography is a hobby and a hobby only, not a career (thats why I am going to business school) Anyway, I've always wanted to put my work into shows, and just get my stuff out there for people to see. (whats the point of having love for something and not sharing it, its selfish) anyway to the meat and potatoes... I want to create a website for my photography and have a way to order prints (I don't expect a lot, but its a nice though) I have very good ideas on how I want it to look and feel. Since I'm a business major and not a computer programmer or whatnot I do not have the ability to actually do it myself.

*what should I expect to pay for webhosting, and what do I need?
*how much should I expect to pay to have someone create a site for me?
*can anyone recommend people/companies for the previous two questions?

I'm considering a launch time of around fall, so I'm not in a qiant rush for it (i am going away for a month in the summer to study art history in florence)

Thank you in advance!

 

[Jeremy]

whats the point of having love for something and not sharing it, its selfish

No, it's cathartic.

 

[Robert Hall]

*what should I expect to pay for webhosting, and what do I need?
*how much should I expect to pay to have someone create a site for me?
*can anyone recommend people/companies for the previous two questions?

1. about 10-20 a month
2. $300 to $2500
3. SatinSnow (Apug Member) , Apug web hoster (talk to our illustrias leader, Sean).

 

[Sean]

There are some prebuilt systems out there that can do what you need out of the box such as litecommerce, oscommerce or some of the stock photo sales applications (you're not selling stock photos, but the framework isn't all that different).

I have very good ideas on how I want it to look and feel.

That's probably where most of your expense will end up. If you use an out of the box application with pre-built templates you can get by very cheap, but once you start tweaking the look and feel that can get tedious and expensive.

One option is to post your requirements on http://www.scriptlance.com and have web designers bid on the job, I've used them a few times and it's a great way to get some work done.

 

[Steve Sherman]

My web site is presently being redone and is only a few weeks away from completion. Web site will have 88 photographs broken into various pages with differing themes. I live in COnnecticut and have contracted with www.wired-web.com The cost of $1500.00 was modest in consideration for the size and amount of work he did. All image transfer and correspondence was done through e mail.
Hope this helps. Steve Sherman

 

[omalley]

My web hosting costs $7.95 a month, with 99% guaranteed uptime. Here's what I suggest, and what I did. Scan the prints yourself, and compress the images for the web. This is easy to learn if you don't know how. Download yourself a free program like Coffeecup (or just simply use notepad to write the code) go onto Google and type in "basic html tutorial". My site is simple html code and a javascript for copyright protection. I can send you code that you can cut and paste if you like. Html is not hard to learn.
Take a look at my site, www.jmomalley.com. I don't have a shopping cart on there (which you can easily get through paypal) because that's not how I've been able to sell work.
Save yourself that $1500 (!) and get some professional quality slides shot of your work. Slides are difficult to shoot of b&w work. Use the money for the expensive postage and materials costs that you will have when sending work out.
I'm happy to help you with information about any of these things if you need, just pm me.

 

[Dave Parker]

Websites are not difficult to create,there are several WYSWIG editors available for download or a modest cost at the local stores, yes html is very easy to learn, but getting an editor can really short cut the learning process, many of us that do websites for a living use editors to shortcut the creation time, as far as webhosting, there is a gambit of choises out there, just make sure when you choose a company, that your not going to be bothered with pop up ad's and pop under ad's that can really detract from your website, and will turn the visitor off. one of the biggest things in websites now, is making sure somehow someway your getting seen, you can build the best website in the world and if no one visits, then it is wasted time.

Sean's apugwebhosting.com is a good source for hosting simple websites, he offers a good value for the dollar, if you need more services such as custom programing or shopping carts, our company is also able to help.

Have fun with bringing your vision to life.

Dave Parker