The Internet offers excellent advertising and presentation opportunities for photographers. They can introduce themselves personally in a business card, put selected photos online and make targeted customer acquisitions. But which of the many possibilities is actually useful? What about the rights to your own image when using the various platforms? Is an own homepage not the better alternative? Indeed, it is - not only because of securing the rights to your recordings, but also because of the freedom of design. The costs can also be kept within limits here.
The homepage construction kit or other variant?
As a photographer you have of course the possibility to use free platforms like FacebookPicasa or Instagram. However, the insufficient clarification of the rights of use is problematic. While the copyright always remains with you and you can therefore easily publish or sell your recordings under your name for advertising purposes, service providers such as Facebook grant themselves their own rights of use in the terms and conditions. Official explanations state that this only refers to the right to publish on your own platform, which you decide on yourself when you upload, but theoretically other uses would also be possible. So you can not safely exclude that a use is made against your interest.
If, on the other hand, you decide to use a homepage construction kit, this risk does not exist. Here the provider provides you Webspace which you can use freely - as long as you do not violate applicable law, of course. On the one hand, this applies to the visual design, on the other hand, in addition to the copyright, all other rights to texts and images undoubtedly remain with you. You don't even have to point this out explicitly, but of course you have the possibility to do so at your own discretion. Furthermore, you can write your own terms and conditions and define processing modalities if you offer images for sale. The use of WordPress on your own hosting account is similarly secure and flexible.
Professional possibilities also for laymen
Maybe you have profound know-how in web design and are quite capable of creating a professional and appealing homepage using HTML, CMS, PHP and other programming languages. But you don't have to - after all, the main focus of a photographer is creative work and your website is a means to an end. Therefore, if you fall back on a homepage construction kit or WordPress, you can devote yourself entirely to your passion and present your works without much effort: WordPress has an automatic installation routine and numerous themes, any configuration is done with a few clicks in the administration area and pictures and texts can be uploaded via an input mask, similar to a word processing program. The use of a construction kit is about as convenient. The software is already installed by the supplier, you only have to choose a design and take care of the content.
Versatile and flexible
The appealing presentation of your images is probably the focus of your interest. This can be done as a gallery, as a slideshow or also in the form of individual presentations. If required, clear categories can be created with a homepage construction kit as well as with WordPress and any relevant information can be put online. Usually this is some static content, and of course the integration of a blog is also possible. With WordPress this is possible anyway, but depending on the provider, a corresponding feature is also available with a modular system.
According to the motto "the eye eats with you", besides content and structure, especially the design is important - visitors should feel immediately addressed and invited to stay. If you decide for your own hosting account with WordPress, you can choose from thousands of themes, among which there are many excellent designs suitable for photographers. At Homepage construction kits it is usually not quite as lavish, but you can still choose a suitable one from a variety of layouts. Since adjustments are also possible in both cases, there is sufficient creative leeway for an appearance individually tailored to your purposes.
The options are similarly versatile in terms of functionality. With a homepage construction kit useful features are available by default, depending on the provider, further tools can be integrated. WordPress as a CMS with the standard installation offers practical plug-ins, which are useful for your presentation. As with the themes, there is a generous selection of further modules for subsequent installation for any purpose.
Reasonable price-performance ratio
WordPress itself is available free of charge. Here you have to calculate the costs for hosting. These include the domain, the provision of the server-side technical requirements, own storage space, e-mail accounts and, if necessary, other services and benefits. For this you can expect an average of 30 Euro per year. The actual costs depend on the provider and the chosen tariff. Whether further financial expenses are incurred depends on your decision for a theme and the extension with plug-ins: Many themes are free of charge, others can be used without restriction for a one-time fee. Plug-ins may also be subject to fees, although many other functions are free of charge. Depending on the usage, however, these are one-time costs that are unlikely to exceed 100 Euros, but of course they can be lower.
If you choose a homepage construction kit, you are faced with the same decision: you can fall back on a free variant, but you can also use a package that is linked to a monthly fee. In the case of free systems, check whether commercial use is permitted, whether suitable designs and functions are available for your purposes, and whether advertising is displayed. Paid kits often offer more professional options and a fee is charged for their provision. Depending on the scope of services, this can amount to around five to 15 euros per month.
Now it's up to you. What should your homepage offer? Which functions do you want to use? Compare the possibilities and choose the variant that meets your requirements, you are not far from your unique, attractive and effective figurehead on the Internet.
