For a photographer looking to create a website cheaply, wordpress presents itself as one of the best options.

• It’s free
• It allows you to look professional
• You can set it up yourself

Unfortunately, looking through all of the free themes available out there is a time consuming process. Lucky for you, I’ve looked through the complete wordpress theme directory and found these 7 to be the best.

I’m only looking at free themes in this post. Premium themes offer much more in terms of design and funtionality, and it would definitely be worth considering some premium themes when you’re creating your blog.

The themes I’ve chosen aren’t necessarily photo blogs – blogs that feature a photo each day. Those blogs are great, but what we’re looking for here are themes that are suited for a website to promote a small photography business. The themes here all include a place to list and show off your different services – wedding photography, portrait photography, etc.

Without any further ado, let’s dig in.

Studiopress Black

Simplistic and sharp. Great room for a large image that showcases your work. I like how the pages are featured along the top, so you can easily create a page for each of your services.

Studiopress black

More info and download from http://www.geckoandfly.com/2008/05/10/studiopress-black-photography-wordpress-theme/

Station

Another dark theme. Again, pages are prominently featured so galleries and information can be added to the site in the traditional way.

Station professional photographer wordpress theme

More info and download: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/station

Tune

Another simple theme. This one isn’t so universal. Most photographers like black or dark themes because pretty much any picture works on a dark background. If you’ve got branding that matches this teal colour, Tune is definitely worth a look.

Tune photographer wordpress theme

More info and download: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/wptune

Dark Relief

A striking theme that will suit those that want a bit of extra flair.

Dark relief professional photography theme

More info and download: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/dark-relief

Autumn

If you can change the photo at the top left to a striking photo of your own, this is a fantastic looking theme for a photographer’s website and blog.

autumn professional photographer wordpress theme

More info and download: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/seasons-theme-autumn

Dark Smoke

Simple and clean.

Dark smoke professional photographer wordpress theme

More info and download: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/dark-smoke

Charcoal

A change from all the dark themes. This theme has a white background and looks quite stylish.

Charcoal wordpress theme

More info and download: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/charcoal

Once you have your website setup, take a look at our report on online photo sales. Find out a bit more about what’s involved in selling your photos online.

Wedding photographers can increase sales of wedding photographs by enabling wedding guests to view and purchase selected photographs.

The Problem

The problem is that increasingly wedding guests travel from far and wide to attend a wedding.  Meaning that they can not attend your studio or even the lucky couples house to view the photographs.

This inability to view the photographs means lost sales

Solution

The solution is consists of two parts:

1.     Let the guests view, select and purchase photographs online in a secure area; and

2.    Secondly be able to do it with the minimum of costs and effort to you, the wedding photographer.

Photography Orders enables you to do this, providing a secure area to view, select and sell photos, whilst enabling you to provide this service with the minimum of effort.

Additional Benefits

Photography Orders software can be easily linked to your website. Providing clients with a secure log in link directly from your website.

Then let your married couple and their immediate family promote the site and link to their friends and family!

This means you can promote your website to wedding guests as the landing point to log in to view photographs. This delivers two benefits:

1.     Increased web traffic to your site – always good to help search engine rankings, and
2.     Opportunity to promote yourself to the wedding guests, a starting point for word of mouth marketing.

There’s an old saying that “Less is more”.

The phrase is often associated with the architect and furniture designer Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe (1886-1969), one of the founders of modern architecture and a proponent of simplicity of style.

In software, the mantra is the same. Simplicity and clarity lead to good design.

“Less is more” is a part of every aspect of the way we do things. Here’s some examples of how less is more when it comes to Photography Orders.

Less clicks to get things done

In Photography Orders, it takes 6 mouse clicks for a photographer to create a client, create a gallery, and resize and upload all of the photos in a gallery; within 6 clicks, you’re ready for the client to login and place an order.

For your clients to login, find a photo, add it to their cart and be sent off to process payment, it takes 5 clicks.

Simplicity and clarity lead to good design.

There is absolutely no mucking around with post producing photos in Photoshop first. No ftp uploads. No special photo uploader programs like some competitors use. Photography Orders is completely browser based, super fast, and super straight forward. We’ve optimised the flow – javascript/ajax is used wherever possible to speed things up and remove unnecessary page loads.

Less clutter

Everything on every screen is there because it absolutely has to be. Not only can you get everywhere extremely quickly, it’s extremely easy to know what to do.

Less clutter means you don’t need a manual to figure out what you need to do. Throughout the application, you’ll find instructions are in plain English, not techno babble.

Simplicity and clarity lead to good design.

Less cost

Photography Orders has no monthly costs and no commissions. The price is small, and it’s a one off cost. Our theory – Why pay more for clutter?

When it comes to time, clutter and cost, we hope you’ll agree with us that less is, most definitely, more.

Want to find out all about Photography Orders in under 3 minutes? Here’s a video that shows you what it’s all about.