Like designers and other artists as well, photographers should have beautiful online portfolio websites! A good portfolio will attract more clients for your business. Photography portfolio website templates usually have minimalist designs and an emphasis on visual graphics, but keep in mind that a portfolio is not just a compilation of your best work. How to present the material can easily make the difference between acceptance and dismissal. Having a professionally-designed portfolio to share marks you as a skilled professional. Prospective clients, who tend to be professionals themselves, prefer to work with professionals, and not amateurs or hobbyists.
Today, we selected 20 gorgeous free and premium photography website templates for talented photographers. These works made our list because we believe that they feature truly unique, nonconforming and interactive designs. All of these examples are meant to spark your creativity and inspire you to create a more beautiful and different design portfolio. These website templates can be used by artists or designers as well. Enjoy!
Into the World
This is a free website template for a talented photographer. The user can add a large full-screen photo which will look great with the way this website combines different sizes of white typography. The transparent overlayed menu bar blends in perfectly with the chosen design layout. This template can be a great source of inspiration and a great theme for a photographer.
Street Life
If you are looking for some inspiration or a website template that would fit an urban photographer perfectly you may have just found the perfect example. Street Life proposes a minimalist design with a large photo in right under the minimalist menu bar. Check it out and see if this is what you had in mind.
Volta – Creative Photo WordPress Theme
Matt Whitby Photography
This template uses a dark background and a slider to showcase amazing photographies. It has a minimalist design and it is definitely perfect for black and white photos. This could be the template you have been looking for or your next source of inspiration!
Alejandro Photography
This website template uses huge typography in its header, overlayed on a light blue horizontal band. The same color can be seen in this template’s logo. Keep scrolling to see an amazing large thumbnail gallery which would showcase your photographies in a modern and minimalist way. This example is definitely unique and worth following. Check it out!
Phototastic – Portfolio Photography Theme
Phototastic contains a couple of useful page templates for photography and business pages. You can use Phototastic to display your beautiful portfolio or use it on your business website.
Sarah Lane
This free template is yet another good example of a photographer’s website template that uses a minimalist design to make photographies stand out. The menu bar comprises all the categories and also the artist’s name. All in all, this example looks great and the photos are showcased nicely.
Shutter Zone
The Shutter Zone template has an elegant and modern design, with a horizontal band on which users can place their best photos, white typography in its header followed by a large thumbnail gallery. The background is grey.
Shutter – Photography & Art WordPress Theme
Shutter gives you back a simple and classic way of using your page templates as albums. All you have to do is add your images, titles, specify their category and hit the publish button! The theme was specially created to present photography and artwork.
WEDDINGS & EVENTS PHOTOGRAPHY
Wedding and Events Photography is a free template that also uses a large representative photography as the first thing a visitor sees. Continue scrolling to see an amazing grid-gallery with thumbnails of different sizes, which could be a great way to present your work. This example is definitely worth following. Check it out!
Urban Photography
This is yet another good example for an urban photographer’s website. Keep surfing this example and see that impressive full-screen grid-gallery which is perfect for urban photography.
Stellar Responsive Creative and Photography Theme
This theme has a clean and elegant design that can be easily used to create a portfolio website or one that promotes a business. It also has a responsive design which adapts to mobile devices.
Food Photography
If you are a food photographer and you want your own website, this example could be a great starting point. Check out this example and see if this is what you had in mind.
Wedding Photography
This is yet another good example of a wedding and events photographer’s website. Check out this example’s minimalist design that focuses on showcasing beautiful photographies.
DIAMOND – Photography WordPress Theme
This theme has many great features such as a full-screen stylish design, custom and plenty unique page templates, a drag and drop GT3 page builder plugin, a responsive design which is also retina ready, HTML5 and CSS Code, and more.
Slim – A Fresh Photography WordPress Theme
The theme will look great on any retina ready device. This theme contains a 360° responsive image viewer for presenting artwork or photography and can be used to offer a very realistic experience to your website’s visitors.
DIVA – Fabulous Photography WP Theme
DIVA is a fabulous WordPress portfolio theme which was specially designed for photographers and any other people interested in this domain. The theme will make your life much easier when you will have to build your website.
Bleecker – Responsive Retina-Ready WP Portfolio
Bleecker is a responsive and retina-ready WordPress theme which will make your website look great on any device. It is also packed with a grid system layout. It is mobile touch optimized.
Santino – Photography WordPress Theme
If you liked the previous examples you will definitely like Santino. This example is excellent for portfolios, articles, photographies, creative industries, and the list can go on.
Family Photography
Last but not least, this example is perfect for a family photographer. This template uses a grid gallery on a light gray background. It has a modern and minimalist design.
Want some ideas on how to best create a portfolio website? Use these ideas to gain inspiration, learn about different techniques, design methods and styles, color and pattern combinations, and much more. Then you can work on further revolutionizing the classic online photography portfolio by taking it one step further and proving that there are countless alternative ways to feature designs and ideas.
Things that you need to take into account when you choose a photography website template/portfolio:
- A great portfolio is a rock-solid portfolio. It gives a prospective customer or client the ability to assess both the quality of your work and your range of skills. Too few portfolio items could make you look like an amateur. Too many might overwhelm the viewer. As a rule of thumb, 15 to 20 examples of quality work is about right.
- Don’t include average or mediocre photos in an effort to bulk up your portfolio. Just one example of substandard work could show viewers an example of what they don’t want to see from you.
- Categorize your portfolio. If you help a potential client easily find what he or she is seeking, that client may well assume that ease of navigation is a common theme in your UX designs.
- Include several of the best testimonials you have received.
- And, keep the portfolio layout simple.
What do Clients Look for on a Photography Portfolio?
Know your audience. Take into account how your portfolio content will be interpreted.
- Make your content tell a story. To some clients, “This is how I did this” is more important than “This is what I did”.
- Put extra focus on presenting key elements. Ask yourself this: If a viewer only spends one minute looking through my portfolio, what do I want that viewer to see, and how do I make sure he or she will see it?
- Focus on detail. Viewers are more appreciative of examples that show great attention to detail.
