It’s finally here! How to Create Your Own Photography Portfolio Website in 10 Minutes or Less

January 17, 2012 46 Comments

I have been working to find the ideal photography portfolio website for years, and I think I have finally found the perfect solution for me.  In this video, I share with you the 9 Deadly Sins of Photography Portfolio Websites, and a step-by-step solution for creating a stunningly beautiful photography website of your own!  To see the website I created, go to Jim Harmer photography (still under some construction).  To learn about what makes a great photography portfolio site, and to see how to create one of your own, watch the video below!

Further Reading:

Business of Photography

About Jim Harmer

Landscape photographer, author of six photography instructional books, writer of daily photography tips at Improve Photography, and all around geek. follow me on Google Plus and check out my About Me page.
View all posts by Jim Harmer →

46 Responses to “It’s finally here! How to Create Your Own Photography Portfolio Website in 10 Minutes or Less”

  1. Sandy February 8, 2012 at 10:49 PM

    I have been using Zenfolio and it works great. With the pro version you get a complete online store front and they take care of everything. The only draw back is they don’t have a great selection of labs to order prints from, just Mpix and Mpix pro, which are okay, but I prefer some of the other pro labs over these.

  2. Niki February 13, 2012 at 7:53 AM

    Hi.

    Please can you tell me what size and resolution I should save my jpegs to for the website.

    Thanks

  3. Lynn Cummings February 13, 2012 at 9:59 AM

    Jim, as a professional web developer for 16 years, I must commend you on the advice given in this video. Hostmonster offers the best shared hosting & support for the money, WordPress is my recommended CMS software choice for all photographers, and no one should be using Flash for a web site for reasons too numerous to name.

    While I would argue that there is so much more to SEO and web dev in general and it is always preferable to hire a professional with years of experience, I realize that many photographers just getting started do not have the money available to do that. And if that’s the case, watch this video because it’s the best advice I’ve seen if you’re going to DIY.

  4. Angie K February 21, 2012 at 8:02 AM

    QUESTIONS
    Hello! I am watching the video again and I also have some questions as those above.

    “Any idea if this theme works for a clients password protected area – say for portrait clients to view their individual galleries?”
    And

    “Do I need to have a pro account on wordpress to install a custom theme?”
    Thanks for all the great information.
    Looking forward to part 2.

  5. Nicole BW April 13, 2012 at 2:15 PM

    Hi Jim,
    I have a question similar to that posted above. I followed the video and set up a site yesterday. I need a password protected area for my clients to see their personal portraits. Do you know how to go about doing that?
    Many thanks for the work that you do!

  6. a3945771 April 15, 2012 at 8:44 AM

    I’ve said that least 3945771 times. SCK was here

  7. Rosalind April 17, 2012 at 10:10 PM

    YES, you can have only photos on a website and still have good SEO and page rank. ;)

    With most people using CMS software for their websites (WordPress, etc), with SEO plugins – or built-in SEO functionality – “automagically” doing all the work, people are forgetting about (or never realizing) the original way SEO used to be done – creating a Meta section in the header section (between the HTML code tags) of the HTML document and listing all relevant keywords separated by a comma.

    You could’ve saved $75, especially if SEO keywords were the main reason you joined WooThemes. But, they do have some really neat themes and you do get unlimited access to them, so that’s hard to beat. Glad you found a solution that worked for you.

  8. Sherine May 18, 2012 at 6:05 AM

    Does this allow for a client proofing gallery? (password protected)

  9. Nathan June 5, 2012 at 3:18 PM

    Is anyone getting any responses for your questions here? I was thinking about using this for my website but there are a lot of concerning questions above that I am not seeing any answers too.

  10. raheel nawaz August 4, 2012 at 4:35 AM

    Cake walk method to make a picture portfolio ===>www.lens.ph :) ) I loved this…hope you will also like this…Cheers!

  11. Brandon February 1, 2013 at 9:33 PM

    While the video is great and easy to follow it would be much easier to look back on if there was some text to go with this for reference.
    I’ve got the theme all finally set up and now I am at a place where I can’t listen.

  12. Jody Coss February 2, 2013 at 5:33 PM

    One of my resolutions this year was to start a blog. While I’ve been a photographer for many years, have a website, I am determined that I should get a blog going. It seems like a daunting task. So, I followed your video today, step by step. First, I culd not find the link to host monster to give you credit. Not sure if that can be called in to them but I feel bad that you’re not getting the credit. We did have to call Host Monster and their customer service was great. I still have lots of questions. Can’t get the sample pictures that I uploaded and such but I feel great that I’ve made the first step. Can I contact you if I need more help? Also what should I do about having you get your “cut”. Thanks. Look forward to your email.

« Older Comments