![]() ![]() Here are some of the most significant obstacles that I see photographers face: Without going into too much technical detail, photographers need to do a lot of customization (and work around a number of issues) in order to use WordPress. Yet despite that, there are still many rough edges and missing features that keep WordPress from being the first choice for a photographer that needs to publish a beautiful portfolio of their work, put their image catalog/archive online, or showcase a photo editorial/project. Over the years, WordPress Core developers have done a tremendous job delivering “media” features such as the media library, galleries, and responsive images just to name a few. It’s clearly part of the project’s mission to democratize publishing, but publishing images is different enough from publishing words that it requires its own focus and features. To be fair, publishing photography is not the main focus of WordPress. Looking back on it now, a book wasn’t the answer. My hope for the book was that it would lessen the learning curve for photographers that wanted to adopt WordPress. That feedback led me to write a book titled “ WordPress for Photographers” which was a hands-on guide to using WordPress to build photography websites and workflows. I presented at photography conferences/gatherings and quickly learned that many photographers were interested in using WordPress but didn’t know how or where to start. After a while, I became so frustrated with the state of bloated photography themes that I was forced to declared “theme bankruptcy” and create my own from scratch.īy this time I had learned a lot about WordPress that I wanted to share with the photography community. ![]() I trialed and modified a lot of premium “photography” themes in an attempt to find ones that fit the needs of pro photographers. Along the way, I created my own set of plugins and hacks to work around feature gaps that I encountered. I became intimately familiar with how to use WordPress to publish photography portfolios, make searchable stock photo catalogs, run a fine art print shop, and deliver proofs to my clients. Back then I was mostly interested in blogging but soon began using WordPress to build (and re-build) multiple websites for my own photography business. I first began using WordPress back in 2004 (v1.2.x). ![]() WordPress Should Be Easier For PhotographersĪs far as WordPress has come, it is at risk of losing an entire generation of photographers to photo website services such as Photoshelter, SmugMug, Squarespace, and PhotoFolio.įor much of the last decade I’ve had a front row seat to how professional and amateur photographers use WordPress to publish their photography online. I’ve helped and watched many photographers build beautiful WordPress websites, but I’ve also seen my fair share of professionals and amateurs abandon WordPress because it was too difficult, too expensive, or time consuming to make it work for their use cases.Īs a professional photographer and long time WordPress developer this has been a painful trend to watch. Before I dive into where I see photographers struggling, it might be helpful to understand a bit about my own journey with WordPress… ![]()
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