[I]f this blog title caught your eye and you thought, ‘Hell yeah, I’ve got a great collection of commercially viable images just lying around on my hard drive doing nothing, when they could be making me some money’, then this quick start guide to creating a commercial photography website could be the push you need.

But don’t let me talk you into it if you’re not ready for it or don’t need one. Setting up a dedicated or separate commercial photography website can be quick and easy, but it still takes organization and the right portfolio.

YOU NEED A COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE IF:

You are a niche photographer and it shows.

For example, you mostly shoot only one thing – weddings, newborn, boudoir, for example – and your main website is clearly dedicated to doing that one thing well. You can’t be all things to all people and a picture editor or image agency won’t be interested in hunting down the tiny tucked-away section of your website which mentions your commercial photography. They want someone who clearly values their own commercial photography instead of trying to hide it.

Your commercial style is completely different from other types of photography you do.

The contrast in styles cuts both ways. Your prospective bride is unlikely to be comfortable with seeing your still life nature photography and fashion nudes mixed in with your wedding image galleries. If you are concerned about discouraging your usual clients, then a separate site is for you.

You specialise in just one sort of commercial photography

If so, you’re definitely in the market for a dedicated site. Rocking a niche is awesome – so shout about it. Marketing to a niche with a strong portfolio in one genre, puts you straight into the expert category. People LOVE experts.

Well-known wedding photographer, Lisa Devlin, also has a secret double life as a successful food photographer. She used our Artisan design to put together the frankly delicious-looking Cake For Dinner, to showcase her portfolio. Lisa says “I’ve noticed a jump in the kind of food photography bookings that suit my style, because potential clients can clearly see what they’re going to get.”

YOU DON’T NEED A COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY WEBSITE IF:

You haven’t done any dedicated commercial shoots.

Yes, we’ve all got some nice images we’ve taken of flowers, of our kids, of some killer details shots from weddings, but be honest and ask yourself if it’s enough to pull together a commercial portfolio.

You’re not actively seeking commercial work.

If you’re not actively seeking commercial work because you’re shooting weddings every weekend of the spring and summer, but you know you’ve got a few saleable images in your back catalogue, you don’t need a separate website. However, you might want to consider registering with some stock image sites.

They’re not all cheesy. One of the most innovative image sites I’ve seen is Image Brief, which posts briefs on behalf of clients, agencies and media buyers. Photographers can submit specific images to the briefs they think they can fill. Even if you don’t have any suitable images on file, it will give you a good idea of the kind of commercial photography that’s in demand. You might even use some of the briefs to inspire you to create images that could go into a commercial portfolio.

It’s also common for Flikr users to be approached by owners, Getty Images, for inclusion in their listings. That’s truly the ‘do-nothing’ approach to commercial photography and at the very least, you’ll have a gallery of commercial images in one place, that you can easily link to.

HOW IS A COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHY SITE DIFFERENT?

So what do you need to differently when creating a commercial photography website, as opposed to say, a wedding photography website?

1. KEEP IT SIMPLE

I know you’ve probably spent hours, days, weeks even, agonising over your logo and honing your brand elements. But I’m afraid that where wedding or lifestyle websites can be all about memorable branding, when it comes to commercial photography, the objective is to allow potentional clients to imagine their brand working with your images. You don’t need to tell a story, or take them on a journey. You need to give your images room to breathe and let them do all the work.

Make sure they can get to all of your image galleries with just one click from either the menu or the home page. In the course of choosing a commercial photographer, they will return to your site again and again, to reference your work with colleagues and potential clients. Don’t make them work to hard to find it.

In the course of researching this article, I spoke to a couple of picture editors who all preferred to see commercial sites with white backgrounds and little or no colour. You can’t go wrong with black and white or grey and white. Keep fonts to an absolute minimum and choose readable classics.

Our new design, Analog for ProPhoto5, ticks all of the above boxes. Clean and minimalist with plenty of white space, simple type treatments and an easy-to-navigate home page. The portfolio is front and centre and the featured blog posts keep the home page fresh. (By the way, if you already have a copy of ProPhoto, you can use your license on a second site for free.)

 

2. KEEP IT BRIEF

Do you remember when we talked about creating a killer About Me page? We talked about NOT being the person who is a boring CV lister. In this scenario, I’m going to give you my full blessing to list your awesome commercial achievements. Been published somewhere relevant? Won some awards for your commercial photography? Go for it! But keep it brief. Lists are fine – there is no room for whimsical emotion. Save that for your wedding and lifestyle website.

It might even be beneficial, *whispers it*, to mention some specialist equipment that you use, if it’s appropriate. For example, some editors like to know you can shoot tethered in studio situations.

3. MAKE SURE IT’S TECHNICALLY FLAWLESS

Not that this shouldn’t be a given for any website, but in this case, you need to make sure that your galleries work perfectly on every device. Whilst a potential lifestyle customer might be happy to sit back and watch a slideshow of newborn babies at a leisurely pace, a commercial client will be scrutinizing your images for both technique and tone. The picture editors I spoke too all wanted to be able to control the speed of a slideshow and wanted thumbnails, lightbox style galleries and the option to view images at full screen. Make sure your images are optimized to load as fast as possible. Even after exporting my images for web usage, I like to run them through JPEG Mini, which reduces file size by up to three times, without compromising on quality. Whilst you can use the free online version, the $19.99 app is a steal as you can batch re-size images right in their folders, without uploading, moving or re-downloading them.

Are you inspired? We’d love to see some of your commercial sites and / or sites that you love. Link to them in the comments.

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