Building a website - most basic noob question

[wgerrard]

Unless the OP is a developer who already knows PHP or Ruby or another language, I can't recommend diving into any tool that requires understanding and tweaking code. HTML and CSS are hurdles enough to jump if someone goes the DIY route. A product like Dreamweaver generates its own HTML/CSS and allows someone with minimal technical expertise to build a site. If someone wants however, a site that enables daily updates, user comments, etc., then he's look at blogging software.

Smugmug and similar sites are useful to someone who wants a small place to show off his photos. You can alter the appearance of your site, use your own domain name, without getting your hands dirty with code. The next step up is to pay someone to design, build, and install your site. Ideally, pay someone to administer the site, too. Other available approaches will require getting into the weeds to one degree or another.

 

[peripatetic]

Wordpress is very easy to use, and most hosting sites come with it as an easy-to-install option.

Choosing and configuring a decent theme is not too difficult.

I program by day, but photography is a hobby. I really didn't want to spend a lot of time on the website.

http://www.peri.org.uk

Using a theme from Graph Paper Press. (www.graphpaperpress.com)Took me less than 10 hours in total to set up.

www.Photocrati.com also do some pretty good Wordpress themes at a reasonable price.

If your aim is to present your work in a reasonably professional manner with the minimum effort and cost on your part I strongly recommend this sort of route.

 

[250swb]

Can I suggest the OP try Clikpic

http://www.clikpic.com/

where for a small fee you can get stylish templates (not the usual free crap), plus your .com address, you don't need to understand any code, it is easily updatable any time you like and the whole package is based around photographers and artists who want a slick looking product.

Steve

 

[aizan]

anybody remember the heyday of a list apart and webstandards.org? those were the good old days...

 

[wgerrard]

Can I suggest the OP try Clikpic

http://www.clikpic.com/

where for a small fee you can get stylish templates (not the usual free crap), plus your .com address, you don't need to understand any code, it is easily updatable any time you like and the whole package is based around photographers and artists who want a slick looking product.

Steve

I've seen a number of Clikpic sites I like. Their prices seem competitive with the annual cost of shared hosting at a reputable provider.

Before you put photos on anyone's server, give a moment's thought to how you might retrieve them should the need arise.

 

[Sonnar2]

Maybe you should just clean your flickr archive.

I dont see a point in designing, programming and maintaining an "own" website as a photographer, when services like flickr do most of what you could want for free. In the end, it´s the images. You can also link to slideshows or folders within your images to pass to anyone who´s interested.

Dito. There is no reason to spend time and money to develop what already exists (and probably, work better)

I just saw a great B&W slightshow on flickr. The link is somewhere in the "digital without soul?" thread.

 

[aniMal]

Dreamweaver is not a bad point to start from, but you will have no real control until you learn some CSS/HTML.

I would suggest that you start using dreamweaver, and at the same time try to go through the tutorials at http://www.w3schools.com

There are lots of tutorials around, but these are the clearest and a good starting point.

When you get into specific hurdles, just google them. When I work with code I use google constantly, and find solutions to most problems.

Good luck, getting web-page literate is never a bad thing these days! 🙂

 

[jamesj]

i dont know if this is something you could use. I have seen some good pages designed using this.

I know i wanted to make something using this. But am still not sure on how to use it.


http://www.indexhibit.org/

-james

 

[sara]

james, PM me, i do web-design + can recommend sites et

 

[nightfly]

If you are displaying photos, don't build a static site with Dreamweaver. It doesn't make sense. You want a database to hold the photos (actually pointers to the photos) and a template for the galleries and individual photo pages. Instead of hundreds of pages of code each pretty much the same you can have a homepage, a gallery template and an individual photo template.

To set something like this up you need some simple hosting with a database backend. Almost any host will provide this. I have clients on Dreamhost, MediaTemple and even GoDaddy. Look for the Linux hosting package with PHP and MySQL. Most have one click installs for packages like Wordpress.

You can use Wordpress or one of the more photo oriented solutions to do this or code it yourself depending on how ambitious you are. The web world today is a combination of HTML, CSS, Javascript (or one of the javascript libraries like JQuery) and often a backend language like PHP and a database like MySQL. Wordpress and other gallery solutions encompass all these.

But I think the key is thinking that it's not a bunch of web pages but a small number of templates and a database. If you ever need to change the look of the site or adapt to new technologies, it's much easier to update 3 pages and have all your photos intact than to update hundreds of pages of photos.

I'm a web developer and my photo site is here:

http://www.robertgruber.com


Feel free to PM with any questions.

 

[Fujitsu]

Also, your own domain name makes it look as if you're a bit more serious than Flickr.

You can have your own domain name and still use flickr to host images.

I dont see what´s not serious about flickr. If you dont want comments or notes on your photos simply disable community features.

 

[climbing_vine]

You can have your own domain name and still use flickr to host images.

I dont see what´s not serious about flickr. If you dont want comments or notes on your photos simply disable community features.

People can say all they want that there's nothing "unserious" about flickr, that you can use it for a professional portfolio, etc.

And they're right.

But it doesn't matter. It misses the human nature factor. You get judged by the company you keep, and most people think of flickr as the place where people post their vacation, cat, and drunk pictures. Fighting it is tilting at a windmill.

Which obviously isn't to say that it can't work for you, of course it can. But if you're looking to impress people you need to evaluate whether the pluses are worth turning off, who knows, maybe 10% (maybe more) of your potential contacts/clients/suitors/whatever.

 

[wgerrard]

I know I've said this before, but if someone wants only to host photos on a website, there are a number of offerings, free and otherwise, serving that purpose.

Going the DIY route does offer the greatest flexibility and the greatest outlet for creativity and personality. The learning curve, however, is not trivial. In addition, taking on the long-term maintenance of a site and a server may a commitment many people don't want to make. E.g., on some hosting providers, customers are responsible for applying security patches to their servers. If someone doesn't know what a security patch is, how one learns about new ones, and how to install it on a server that maybe thousands of miles away, perhaps admin'ing a server is something best avoided.

Alternatively, one can pay someone else to do all of the design, build, and admin work.

Suggestion: Go to wordpress.com. Read about it. See what they offer for free and what they offer for extra cost. Search their site for photoblogs. If you find one you like, scroll to the bottom and see what theme it is using.

 

[climbing_vine]

I know I've said this before, but if someone wants only to host photos on a website, there are a number of offerings, free and otherwise, serving that purpose.

Going the DIY route does offer the greatest flexibility and the greatest outlet for creativity and personality. The learning curve, however, is not trivial. In addition, taking on the long-term maintenance of a site and a server may a commitment many people don't want to make. E.g., on some hosting providers, customers are responsible for applying security patches to their servers. If someone doesn't know what a security patch is, how one learns about new ones, and how to install it on a server that maybe thousands of miles away, perhaps admin'ing a server is something best avoided.

Alternatively, one can pay someone else to do all of the design, build, and admin work.

Suggestion: Go to wordpress.com. Read about it. See what they offer for free and what they offer for extra cost. Search their site for photoblogs. If you find one you like, scroll to the bottom and see what theme it is using.

Seconded. All of it.

 

[sar-photo]

I've just finished revamping my website. I built it using Dreamweaver and (shock, horror) Flash. The Flash component I use is Slideshow Pro and along with Slideshow Pro Director makes building a website relatively easy. My site is visible to Google and other search engines as the Flash component is only one part of the page and all metatags etc are coded outside of the Flash (I may not have explained that very well but I know what I mean 😀 ).

Anyway - have a look if you like and let me know what you think.

Cheers

 

[nightfly]

Don't worry about server admin. With so many low cost options for hosting, no need to worry about maintaining a server unless you are a serious geek.

 

[nightfly]

Since most sites now are really just templates for dynamic content, I don't think Dreamweaver would be useful for anything BUT prototyping.

For the amateur user Dreamweaver seems over complicated and for the professional it seems too limited for the mix of technologies that go into a web page now.

My general method is to hand code the initial design from Photoshop as a comp and then back in the dynamic content.

For an amateur user, it seems like choosing a pre-built system like Wordpress and then tweaking the template would be a far better use of their time. Or using one of the tools from Flickr to display your Flickr photos in your own template on a domain of your own choosing effecitvely using Flickr as the backend to your website.

 

[braver]

Or using one of the tools from Flickr to display your Flickr photos in your own template on a domain of your own choosing effecitvely using Flickr as the backend to your website.

Just as a tip (and shameless self-promotion 😉 ), I just completed a mayor overhaul of my site, and that's exactly what I did.

I reworked some code from the Satellite project, that takes the images from flickr and places them in your site in good looking and easy to use galleries. I have limited experience with PHP an javascript/jquery, but was able to make it work just the way I wanted.

It's not much but it is mine 🙂 Except for the complicated stuff I grabbed 'off the shelve': http://koenlageveen.nl

Dreamweaver is cool as long as you don't use the WYSIWYG part. I work at a web-development company and our graphic designer writes the HTML and CSS in DW, by hand, and it's flawless. You could have just downloaded Notepad++ though 😉

 

[Phantomas]

Nice, a of of really good comments, I appreciate them, everything mentioned is definitely something to consider.
I'm not able to reply to all comments, but in summary - I agree with the sensibility of the solution of using an existing database and feeding it into a template host, even an existing one. I will have to look into that but of course that will be part of the learning process. At the moment I have literally just started messing around in Dreamweaver (and expecting a big fat book to arrive). Ideally, and I'm getting ahead of myself here without any knowledge, I'll look into building a "shell" and looking into various plug-in resources to manage the contents presentation style (slideshow, etc).

About Flickr - no problem with it, hell, I love it! And of course it can be managed and at the end of the day, let's be honest, will probably generate a lot more traffic than my site ever would. However, my idea is really to create my own site - is that so hard to comprehend? 🙂 All this talk about investment and resources etc is like I'm punishing myself. I'll actually enjoy learning and creating next to still learning and creating and messing with photos. And I might just end feeding Flickr as a raw slideshow, as long as it's on my terms and on my own design and esthetic terms.

I'm checking all the links in this thread, very informative.

 

[wgerrard]

Don't worry about server admin. With so many low cost options for hosting, no need to worry about maintaining a server unless you are a serious geek.

Everything is a trade off. You can spend $20-$25 a month for some space on a shared server. You won't be able to admin much of anything at all because the provider almost certainly won't give you admin access to the server. You're just renting a slice of drive space on a machine used by a bunch of other similar customers. The provider should handle all the necessary admin. However, if something breaks on your site, you're on our own.

But, using a shared host is not turn-it-on-and-forget about it experience, either.

I've setup and run my own servers, as well as sites on shared hosts. I don't do that anymore because it became more hassle than I want to take on. Hence, my recommendation: Unless someone really wants to learn about designing, building, hosting and maintaining web sites, their interest in creating a small-to-moderate sized photo site can be more happily met by using an existing canned offering.