As photographers we need to show our work. That is why we shoot. The advent of the internet has changed things for photographers. Photographic websites where we house our portfolios and generate contacts and sales are easy to set up and can be seen world-wide. About a year ago I embarked on a journey to discover what web solution suites my needs. Here are the criteria I wanted fulfilled:

          1. Easy to setup and maintain; without the need for me to learn HTML or computer code.

          2. Integration of my photo site and blog site. I did not want two different solutions as so many other photographers are using. Why pay twice?

          3. Clean professional look yet with power to customize with ease. I did not want a site that was branded by the provider's brand. I did not want a site with one template where thousands of photographers' websites all look the same. It needed to be mine.

          4. Integration of both sales and fulfillment. I wanted a one stop shop where people can enjoy my work and buy images and products if they so which. Many sites offer this but then send the photographer a note once a sale is made so that the photographer can print the image and ship it. I run a busy life and just do not have time to run a photographic sales business. I wanted the website solution to handle everything. The only thing I want to deal with is my royalty check. Their fulfillment needed to be done by top notch photographic labs and it needed to happen seamlessly and automatically; I just did not want to be involved in any part of it.

          5. Ability to sell stock images. My images are sold world-wide by a major macro stock agency called Alamy. Stock agencies take a major slice of the pie; I mean MAJOR. More and more commercial sales however are happening by people searching Google for images rather than going to a stock agency. So I wanted the ability to sell my own files through my website in an attempt to get sales that bypass the agency.

          6. Automatic scaling and watermarking. I just wanted to site to manage everything including the pesky watermarks. Yes, they are needed as people steal images.

          7. Lastly, although I was willing to pay for the service it should not eat up all the money one makes through sales.

          There are many sites which, to some extent, offer what I was looking for. I looked into Smugmug, Foliolink, Photoshelter, and many others. In the end of the day I selected http://www.Zenfolio.com. It has now almost been a year and I must say I am very happy with this company. Their support is really good and fast. They are photographers themselves and understand the business. They do everything I wanted to be done in a photographic website. Their pricing is very reasonable. Have you thought of opening a photographic website? If so check out Zenfolio.

          For a 10% discount on already very reasonable pricing use this code: 3FA-ENZ-SHG