Ayup! A few folks have recently asked about my photography portfolio website. The discussion has been around platforms, templates and tools. Here’s my current tech stack / set up, which I’ll update as it changes or evolves.
Following a quick departure to Squarespace for a couple of weeks, I’ve moved both my personal and business websites back to WordPress.
As a result, the benefits are drastically improved loading times, being able to choose your own web host and increased customisation.
Let’s dive into what hosting, theme, settings and plugins I’m using to achieve this. It’s a moderately technical process, but can all be achieved without needing much/any additional code. 99% of everything on the site is controlled through settings. Happy days!
WordPress Portfolio
Having tinkered with most website building platforms, none offer the full control and precision of WordPress. Yes, they’ll get you so far, but there often comes a point where you want to change something that you can’t. This, as you can imagine, quickly becomes frustrating.
If you’re new to WordPress, however, prepare yourself. I think it’s fair to say that some things are a little more complicated than they need to be. This starts with the confusion of wordpress.org vs wordpress.com.
The .org version is WordPress itself. Free (although you still need to pay for hosting) and open-source software, available to download and use as you please. The .com version is a hosting provider with WordPress built in.
Most folks (including me) use the .org version. If, however, you want a simpler set up, the .com version could be a practical option. Either way, everything on this list (other than the hosting part) will remain the same.
20i – Web Hosting & Domain
When you’re using the .org version of WordPress, it’s important to use a fast, reliable web host. 20i is my go-to provider here. Managed WordPress plans start at only £9.99 per month, and it’s relatively easy to get everything set up.
- Easy one-click WordPress install
- Built in performance/optimisation settings
- Incredible support
- Powered by green, renewable energy
- Buy and manage your domains
If, like me, you want everything (or, as much as possible, at least) in one place, 20i lets you manage both your hosting and domain name from your control panel.
It takes a bit of getting used to, but once you know your way around, it’s a joy to use. The built-in performance and optimisation settings basically do everything that WP Rocket does. That’s an instant saving of $59 per year, and one of the key ingredients in getting an image-heavy website to load instantly.
After months of tracking uptime statistics and server performance metrics, I have discovered that 20i hosting delivers fast website loading speeds, consistent server uptime, amazing customer support and affordable pricing that’s ideal for small businesses.
Default WordPress Theme (free)
Next up, let’s take a look at the WordPress theme I’m using. Again, things can get a little confusing in this department, due to the number of different options.
- Block themes
- Hybrid themes
- Classic themes
Block themes are fast, lightweight and don’t weigh your site down with additional bloat/code. Hybrid themes are basically classic themes that you can still use with the block editor. Classic themes bypass the tools that are already built into WordPress, adding their own.
I use the default WordPress theme, Twenty Twenty-Five. This is a block theme that keeps your experience about as close to working purely with WordPress as possible.
It’s lightning-fast, fully customisable and (once you’ve figured it all out) pretty fun to use. That said, allow a little curiosity and patience if you’ve not used block themes or the block editor before.
Take your time, watch plenty of tutorials and keep playing around with it. After a few days, you’ll have the basics, and can quickly build on this.
A block theme is a theme that uses blocks for all parts of a site, including navigation menus, header, content, and site footer. These themes are built for the newest features coming to WordPress that allow you to edit and customize all parts of your site. This allows you to switch up key parts of your theme without ever needing to change themes.
Kadence Advanced Gallery Block (free)
One of the most important sections of a portfolio website, is, of course, how you display your images. WordPress comes with a gallery block already built in, but it’s not overly useable unless all of your images are the same aspect ratio.
If, like most photographers, you have a mix of landscape, portrait and possibly even square, the Advanced Gallery Block from Kadence is well worth a look.
This lets you quickly and easily set up a gorgeous masonry grid, fitting all of your images together in a Pinterest style grid.
Each gallery style includes settings for image filters, border-radius, box shadows, and more! You can make each image a custom link to another page or website, or you can easily enable a built-in lightbox. Plus, you can select which image size to use for your thumbnail and lightbox images for ultimate performance.
Other Plugins
Lastly, here are the other plugins I use. Each photographer will have their own specific requirements, but some of these might come in handy. All of the plugins in this list are free, with most of them offering paid upgrades, should you need the additional settings.
- Twentig (animations and extra functionality)
- Darkify (enables a dark mode toggle)
- Koko Analytics – (privacy-friendly visitor tracking)
- SureRank (simple, easy to use SEO plugin)
- Wordfence (recommended security plugin)
- Head, Footer and Post Injections (add code to head)
If you use 20i hosting, this comes with plenty of security features for your WordPress website. I always install Wordfence as an addition, which also lets you set up 2FA. Super important!
Building a Photography Portfolio with WordPress
A self-hosted WordPress portfolio can get a little technical, but It’s well worth persevering with. Ultimately, you end up with a faster loading site with full control over customisation.
WordPress, isn’t an obvious choice for photographers. The likes of Wix and Squarespace have infinitely bigger marketing budgets. Admittedly, they offer a streamlined service that anyone can use, but this comes with a sacrifice. If you like everything to look exactly how you want it to look, down to the minute details, WordPress remains the ideal solution.
In my next post, we’ll dive into optimising your website and photos. Image-heavy websites can be notoriously slow, meaning they need certain settings and best-practices applied to keep things nippy.