Gallery Website - Best tool for the job?

[JimByrne]

Hi All,

I'm what's probably best described as a keen amateur at best but am wanting to start taking my photography a little more seriously, or at least get better photos and more of them.

I'm looking to create an online presence now, a gallery or portfolio if you will to show of my better shots. I've got a domain and hosting package but am wondering what advice people could offer in terms of the best way to create my site? Are there tools out there that are great for this kind of thing? Tried and tested ways or tools for this kind of thing?

Cheers in advance for any tips or recommendations you guys can provide!

JB.

[pernod]

Wordpress is one of the best, and you should be able to find plenty of pre-made themes suitable for galleries etc. Pretty easy to install as well from memory.

[JimByrne]

I'm familiar with Wordpress and have used it a few times before but thought it was more for blogs and general sites, I never had it pegged as being any good at functioning as a decent gallery? Are there any plugins/themes you can recommend for this purpose?

I had originally thought more along the lines of a jAlbum or similar style tool but despite hours of trawling through templates etc. I couldn't ever find anything that looked half decent? That said, it has been some time since i looked, perhaps things have improved?

Cheers for the input

Anyone got any other suggestions or recommendations?

[RobDickinson]

My sites wordpress and ts not so great as a gallery, i'm using a wordpress plugin for a gallery at the moment but its not great, still looking for something that can run under wp and work well as a gallery.

[Diabolik]

Could have a look at wix.com, not used it myself though I've seen it being used in the past.

[chris.mapey]

Menalto Gallery - I've used this in the past, it's great.

[xrrr]

If you don't want to host yourself then you can look at a photo hosting company.

I use the 'basic' plan from Photoshelter.
http://www.photoshelter.com/plans

The more expensive 'standard' plan allows for custom themes and domain parking.

I also looked at smugmug.com and clikpic.com

Smugmug looked alright, does similar things to photoshelter but had things in its cheapo package that I didn't want and photoshelter basic had a more appropriate feature selection for me.

Loads of people use clikpic. I really really didn't like it though. The website was basic, it had really annoying photo size policy and it did not read the meta data of the files uploaded so I had to type them in again.

All 3 do a free trial.

[JABB]

Mac or PC?
My Mac has a good free website maker.

[Yellabelly]

Try clikpic, easy set up and a number of standard templates for us non-techies. It can be modded by those who understand such stuff!

http://www.clikpic.com/

Here's my rather ordinary site

http://www.foto-rebel.co.uk

or one from clikpic that really stands out

http://www.ambientlife.co.uk/index.html


HTH
YB