If you missed Michelle's announcement about the launch of WordPress.com/portfolios, or Cheri's round-up of WP.com Painters with Portfolios, you might still be in the dark about the range of portfolio themes we have on offer for visual artists and bloggers.
Today I want to take a look at a small handful of the hundreds of amazing photographers using WordPress.com, and the design choices they've made to best show off their talent:
artborghi is the home of Italian-abroad, freelance photographer Lorenzo Borghi's work, which has appeared in the likes of National Geographic Traveller, among other places. Leafing through his portfolio, it's easy to see why. Lorenzo makes use of the premium Photography theme for his site, showcasing some of his most beautiful work right on the theme's custom home page carousel (learn how to achieve the same effect here):
Digging deeper into his portfolio, we find a classic grid layout, gathering Lorenzo's photographs thematically, and giving the visitor to his site the chance to explore his various photo series. Choosing one of these in turn takes us to Photography theme's showcase feature, a lightbox style slide show that allows the user to browse intuitively through a selection of photographs, size-optimized for the screen you're viewing on:
More portfolios using the Photography theme
The following portfolios, which all make varied use of the Photography theme, are well worth your time, too:
- Wild Places makes great use of the simplicity of the theme's grid layout and slideshow features to show off a truly incredible range of unmissable travel and landscape photography.
- James Duong's work spans from beautiful, street level photo-journalism, to glossy, studio-lit fashion and lingerie work, and the Photography theme gives the new arrival a nice, simple grid from which to explore his various photo sets.
- Gustavo Semeghini makes great use of Photography's alternate light color scheme to complement his beautiful wedding and even photography.
- Gerganara also uses the theme's lighter color scheme to share some beautiful, candid, artful photography with the world.
Kasia Marcinkiewicz is a Polish professional photographer, specializing in pictures of children, families, reportage, and portrait photography. Letting the work speak for itself right from the start (but for great use of a custom header to brand the portfolio), Kasia puts the clean lines, crisp grid layout, and infinite scrolling of the free Hatch theme to work. The result is that we're instantly in touch with the photographs, free to explore those that attract our eye. It's a wholeheartedly visual experience that allows the photography to draw the site visitor in, rather than trying to sell the idea with lengthy paragraphs of text:
Those interested can then dig in deeper, via the custom menu, to see specific subcategories of Kasia's portfolio, previous clients, or information (in Polish) about the various photographic sessions and services on offer. It speaks to the ability to build your entire photography business here on WordPress.com -- you don't need to draw the line at just showing off your work. The addition of a contact page, blog section, or pages of information about the work you're offering clients, can help you run the whole show right from one site.
More portfolios using the Hatch theme
The photographers among you seem to really get on well with the Hatch theme. Here are some more sites you might want to check out that make use of the theme in showcasing a really nice range of photographic subjects and styles:
- Imagination Photography use Hatch to beautifully minimalist effect to showcase a nice selection of light, romantic professional portraiture.
- Pramudiya brings a fresh twist to the clean, simple good looks of Hatch with a beautiful custom header, a great introduction to a diverse body of work.
- Mr Beady marries the stark simplicity of Hatch with that of his evocative photography of abandoned buildings in the North of England.
- Anne's Imagery demonstrates how something as simple as a change of background color and the use of a custom font can create an entirely different mood, in this beautiful portfolio of professional, creative photography.
- Clare Cecilia Photo, on the other hand, lets the sans-serif and grid get out of the way to let her powerful travel, wedding, and commercial photography shine.
While there are plenty of themes that show off your photos in a grid or carousel for new visitors to check out, another approach is to make use of good, old-fashioned infinite scrolling and a theme that gets out of the way of your work. Zac & Kaitlin Photography makes use of the premium Portfolio theme to this effect, and the results are both beautiful and personal thanks to some bold blog branding. This results in a portfolio that puts the work center stage, while also leaving you in no doubt as to whose portfolio you've landed on throughout the experience of checking out their work:
When you land on the site, you're taken to the classic reverse-chronological blog layout, so that you can see the latest work that Zac & Kaitlin have worked on. If you're then interested in digging in to a particular type of photo, the custom menu will take you to individual, per-topic pages which make great use of linked images as a custom visual "menu" system:
It makes for a really personal visual design that further compounds the beautiful, but simple, visual branding of the logo up top. Again, thanks to Portfolio theme the photography is stage-center, but the little details remind us where we are and what whose work we're enjoying.
More themes!
If you're looking for a great way to showcase your photos and one of the themes mentioned above didn't grab you, bear in mind that WordPress.com has no less than thirty free and premium themes that were born to make photos look awesome. Whether you're all about colour-responsive backgrounds, dark or light showcases, or gridtacular layouts, you'll likely find one that you can customize to make your own among the selection on offer.
More photographers!
Want more photo inspiration? Jump in to the tagged topics for wedding photography, street photography, landscape photography, portrait photography, or, you know, just plain old photography right in your WordPress.com Reader. And if you have or know of a beautiful photo portfolio you'd like to share, let us know about it in the comments.
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