Building websites for photographers – sounds easy, right? You just throw a bunch of photographs up, add some contact details, make it look cool, and Bob’s your uncle.
Especially when there are services like LiveBooks, APhotoFolio, and software like Evrium’s Fluid Gallery to help. There are even plug-ins for WordPress that promise to knock out a gallery site in no time. And sites like Photoshelter or Smugmug will even handle print sales for you.
The problem is, as Juan Pons so accurately pointed out in his good post recently, that none of the options right now offer all the functionality photographers need to display, market, manage and sell their images effectively. Especially in an arena where search engine optimization and social media are so important.
I’m going to look at the current state of play with Photoshelter, as it’s the service I’m most familiar with, and which seems to me to offer the best framework for building a fully comprehensive photographer’s site. I’ll also make suggestions for how it could improve further.