Steven Mills , Sep 19, 2008; 07:03 a.m.
I recently took shots at an anniversary party for a friend's parents. It went well and I actually got paid for my
work (woohoo!). This was a first for me, so bolstered with confidence I'd now like to take on a few other small
projects and hopefully make a few quid along the way.
So I'm looking to build my own (very basic) website showcasing some of my photos,
I've already created a flash gallery using the free software Autoviewer and this looks really great.
I'd now I'like to feature it in a pretty basic site.
I'm keen on the style of something like this:
www.mawsonsnet.co.uk
It uses the Autoviewer too, and is very simple and clean-looking.
At this stage I don't need so many pages- it's more the look and feel I'm after.
Can anyone advise me how to create a site like this?
Preferably in as simple (non-technical) language as possible! And preferably using free tools if that's possible.
Without Dreamweaver/Front Page etc. can this be done? Excuse my ignorance!
Alternatively what about creating a blog page in something like Wordpress? Could their templates be adapted to
look 'professional' enough? Would I need to be a rocket scientist to incorporate an Autoviewer gallery in it?
All help greatly appreciated.
Ellis Vener 
, Sep 19, 2008; 08:20 a.m.
Do you have Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2? You could create the flash website in the web module.
Jen Lambert , Sep 19, 2008; 10:39 a.m.
With some basic knowledge of html, you can create a simple website and embed your flash gallery into it. On our site, that is what I did. I used coffee cup html editor (free) and a gallery generated in lightroom. You could come very close to a style similar to the website you mentioned going this route. Coffee Cup is good for people who have learned the basics of html (I mean basics- you can learn online in a few hours).
I know you don't want to go technical, but a little time spent learning html can give you more control. Here is a link to my website:
www.geneboaz.net
Go to a gallery and right click, then view source to see what the code actually looks like.
I'm sure others can comment on less technical alternatives.
Lindsay Branscombe , Sep 21, 2008; 09:10 p.m.
Do you have a web host yet?/
if you dont, i know of a great host that acutally has one click installs of scripts that could really be of use to someone who is new at html and doesnt want to go through a lot of work to install certain things. let me know and i wil give you a link.
Also, when you choose a host, think of the future too. Remember that you MAY one day want to sell pictures from your site, not all hosts support this. You want to have php and mysql, and other features that are usefull for ecommerce.
Just plan in advance.. i didnt and ended up loosing money because the portfolio site needed to sell pictures and my host COULD have done it, but i didnt trust them to.
David Pratt , Sep 22, 2008; 01:14 a.m.
You can download a trial of Dreamweaver for a month and familiarize yourself with it and build a really good looking simple website.
Harry Joseph 
, Sep 22, 2008; 12:50 p.m.
Personally, I would stay away from flash. You might not have any problems with photo editors who scan these type of sites for pictures, but some offices don't allow Flash on their computer sysyem because it slows down the bandwith significantly. Another problem is the constant downloading of new versions of Flash to the point where it gets really annoying. This may be a turn-off for many viewers.
Lindsay Branscombe , Sep 22, 2008; 03:29 p.m.
I agree with staying away frm flash. i know its the most commonly used script for creating photography sites, but it really just annoys me. It never looks good on a computer unless the user has a nice, new, fast computer. Most people leave the site before it finished loading..
that, again, is just my optinion.. You can still use it, and it will look nice, but not everyone will be able to see it.. It would be a goood idea to have a splash page with a flash and non-flash website to give people a choice.
