Please HELP!

[planetx]

As a lot of you know I am in transition from leaving the Army to make a go of it out in the big wide world ( scary thoughts)

We have mad a real boo boo with our website, it was fairly obvious from the start that we needed a place for people to go to, see some of our work and view password protected galleries with the option to purchase online.

I really didn't understand the whole flash issue before we purchased this crap Blu Domain template ( say no more)

Rather than go the full hog and spend £2k on a custom built site, we are looking for help in choosing a good photographic template based NON FLASH based design.

I really like Dan's site, but would like a few more text based pages to explain more on us as a company.

to summarise our needs:

*3 individual gallery pages
*4 Text pages
*A secure online gallery page with the option to purchase prints within
*links to our Blog (blogspot)
*Contact us page
*Testimonials page

get your thinking caps on and post your fav sites and reasons why.


one we have looked at is Click Pic??? opinions welcome

 

[MattT]

I would probably still suggest Wordpress tbh. There's loads of themes very similar to Dan's - you can add as many text pages as you like.

Another consideration could be SmugMug - http://www.smugmug.com/ - they offer the buy prints service built-in, which would take a little more fiddling to add to Wordpress.

 

[Millsy]

www.yvettecraigphotography.co.uk

Steve, my other half works with Yvette and its a good site for the most part. Check her online galleries out, there is also password protected galleries as well.

imagicam is the company she uses for the protected galleries and to order prints from memory.

Hopefully give you some ideas.

Nick

 

[planetx]

never knew she worked for Yvette?

Yvette seems to be doing well, probably the most well known wedding photographer in Kent.

Her site is ok, But I want more emphasis on our photography and not too word heavy.....people lose interest pretty quick.

anyone have any experience with click pic?

www.ambientlife.co.uk is done with click pic

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

I could add loads of text pages to my existing site, I just don't need to, so I think you would be fine there.
I'm pretty sure you can have password protected pages/galleries too, if it's not standard, there is more than likely a plugin that will enable it.

Wordpress give you SOOOOO much flexibility, and you can edit it from anywhere. You just need to login online, easy!

And of course, you could import your blogspot stuff into a proper wordpress blog too. All in one site, with the www.xxxxx.com/blog URL.

 

[planetx]

Hi Dan....hope you are well, sorry for not catching up recently....life is pretty hectic.


did you pay for your wordpress Dan?

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

No worries mate, it's rare we are both in the country at the same time lol!

Yeh I did, only £23 ish though. A bargain I thought! Obviously it isn't exclusive, but still for that price it's good enough for me.

Themeforest.net is a good place to look.

 

[planetx]

what wordpress theme have you used?

 

[dunganick]

Wordpress themes are the answer. There are hundreds out there, some rather nice ones from Graph paper press, which can be intrigrated with a photoshelter account for sales. (this is what my site uses - albeit my site is basic given the high percentage of the media that are morons and anything flashy would be too much for them)

Have a look.

Photoshelter :: http://www.photoshelter.com/website-examples

Graph Paper Press :: http://graphpaperpress.com/themes/

Photoshelter offers pretty much the best image archiving and sales package i have found, its a tad clunky to administrate, but its being developed very fast and there are lots of plug ins for LR/Aperture to upload directly. You can also integrate it seemlessly into a site using Cnames - cant be bothered personally. So the customer wouldn't even be aware your being taken outside of your domain.

My only gripe with the graph paper press/photoshelter combo is that my google keywords are screwed. However i think this is wordpress related/me believing i am a CSS genius.

If you decide to try PS - drop me a PM as i will give you my referral code

 

[Millsy]

never knew she worked for Yvette?

Yvette seems to be doing well, probably the most well known wedding photographer in Kent.

Her site is ok, But I want more emphasis on our photography and not too word heavy.....people lose interest pretty quick.

anyone have any experience with click pic?

www.ambientlife.co.uk is done with click pic

Yeah she's been working with her for about 3-4 years now.

I know what you mean about it being word heavy.

Hopefully someone can suggest something else

 

[capturedbyjames]

How about this theme http://themeforest.net/item/king-size-fullscreen-background-wordpress-theme/166299 in wordpress?

I use the non-wordpress version on my site http://www.capturedbyjames.co.uk/ - pretty easy to use...

 

[planetx]

just a little update to all of those that have inputted to the thread.

we have started to build a wordpress site using elegant themes CHAMELEON template.

our main problem is to have the secure login client proofing section as we did before, I know someone mentioned photoshelter? so we might see how that will work out.

www.cap2ure.com

once built we will transfer over cap2ure.me

thanks for all of the help.

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

Looking good Steve.

One thing you can do, change the permalink settings. So your page URL will be xxx.com/contact rather than some random letters/numbers

 

[Adam.]

That text is sore on the eyes :dapprove:

 

[planetx]

only came online this morning mate, hopefully no one will visit it this week and think we are empty?
once we sort out what images to go online, we will switch over .me ad do all permalink settings then.

hoping to having it fully built in two weeks.

had a good wedding yesterday with some pretty images............remember i told you this site is aimed at the girlies lol

 

[planetx]

That text is sore on the eyes :dapprove:

get yourself a Mac......things will look clearer, aiding you in the prevention of sore eyes.

 

[Revels]

Have you got someone doing it all for you?

Sorry to say mate but it looks awful as it is.

 

[planetx]

^^^thats as it arrived, minus the cheesy comment which was inputed from a phone as a tests and the badge badge(logo)

its the chameleon template.

we are only going to have 3 menus up top, the blog and a client proofing area.

 

[Adam.]

get yourself a Mac......things will look clearer, aiding you in the prevention of sore eyes.

O rly?

 

[planetx]

grooooooooowl

....thanks for the free advertising too lol

perhaps we should reconsider our approach....ariel 11 or impact bold mixed up with Times new Roman?


good job its women we are attracting in our marketing strategy.

 

[Millsy]

Wouldn't bother with Times New Roman, ever! it looks awful!

Arial may look better as its much easier to read and good for clarity.