Photography is becoming an increasingly popular choice of hobby and profession. When you go online, you will come across a range of platforms where the public can have access to photography done by amateur as well as professional photographers around the world. These websites have turned into marketing platforms for photographers and been attributed to the rise in celebrity photographers.
A freelance photographer should take note of these websites because they greatly help in the expansion of one’s portfolio, encourages publicity and draws in more work. However, not every website on the Internet is credible and failure to observe diligence can cause you loss. So, before you sign up on any website, you must exercise due caution.
If you are looking for a few leads, then you are in the right place. We have compiled a list of 10 websites which can greatly boost a photographer’s freelancing career. So, let us take at them.
1. 500px
One of the biggest communities of photographers in the online world is that of 500px. The amazingness of this website lies in its feature that allows photographers to secure a customized home page for the exposition of their work. You can also write blogs over there to give more expression to your work.
By publicising your work over here, you can gather a huge number of followers—many of which might bring you good work.
2. SmugMug
What should a photography website ideally offer? Well, for starters, it should enable photographers to create and publicise their portfolios in a creative manner. That is exactly how SmugMug works.
Here, you are given freedom to personalize several of the website’s styles to present your webpage the way you want it to be. If you want to give more expression to your portfolio, then you can attach media or write text on your webpage for better presentation.
Moreover, the privacy controls let you determine the viewership of the content. There are options to add passwords, etc to your images to secure tighter protection.
3. Strobist
Lighting is a key aspect of photography. It sounds very simple, but when it comes to the determination of various of its elements for taking a picture, things can become really tricky. In fact, even the most experienced photographers find lighting a tedious one.
Strobist is a website dedicated to guiding photographers out there on how to determine aspects concerning lighting. It, particularly, deals with the technique of using off-camera flash in DSLR. It runs a free-to-access course called Lighting 101 which commences from the beginner level and gradually advances to higher levels.
4. Zenfolio
All you need to do is create an account and customize your portfolio. Zenfolio is a website that lets you personalize your home feed by giving access to many interesting features such as a welcome message. There is a lot of discretion in the hands of a user to design his page the way he wants.
Here, you will come across a number of subscription options such as password secured controls, the creation of slideshows with background music among many other things. There is also an array of add-on facilities such as an exclusive membership to BorrowLenses.
5. Photoshelter
Anyone who cannot compromise with the organization of portfolio will appreciate the giveaways of Photoshelter. Here, on this website, you will come across more than a hundred such tools which help photographers to systematically arrange and share their portfolios with the world at large.
The website has been designed to support the business interests of photographers. It lets users use its high storage cloud capacity to save photographs and access them from anywhere in the world. Moreover, it allows absolute customization of portfolios as per the needs of the user.
6. Format
The format is one entry on this list with some of the most powerful tools for photographers to organize, showcase, and share their portfolios with the world. Here, you will find a huge range of personalized themes. It runs a “Drag-and-drop” feature which lets you add media and text into the webpage.
Of all the things, the greatest achievement of Format is inarguably in its excellent mobile formatting and integration with Adobe’s Creative Suite. Moreover, it offers a strong publishing plugin that enables effective management of galleries.
7. The Photo Argus
The Photo Argus is more than just a portfolio management and publication website; it is more of a resource tool which provides a myriad of services pertaining to informative articles, techniques, and other objects of inspiration for photographers out there.
The website has been designed to save time and let users search through various categories under which discussions on relevant topics can be found. On its homepage, you will be kept apprised of the latest and the most popular posts on the website.
8. PhotoDeck
If you are among those who like to keep it simple, then you should certainly try out PhotoDeck. Moreover, the website has been constructed to cater to the needs of photographers as well as videographers. The interface of the website is such that it is reportedly among the fastest-performing photography websites.
The website does not believe in complicating things by adding layers to layers in portfolio development. Here the features are as simple as allowing video clips and images together; nevertheless, the efficacy of this website is as good as any other’s.
9. Digital Photography School
As a photographer, you are expected to exploit every feature of your camera to the best possible extent. To help you accomplish this, Darren Rowse has come up with Digital Photography School.
On the website, there are resourceful articles on gears, post-processing and other essential aspects of digital photography. The interface of the website is simple and organized—and all you need to do is get started with it.
10. Squarespace
Squarespace is a beautiful platform for photographers to get the best out of their portfolios. It is among the top choices among photographers and continues to grow stronger and more popular with time.
The website provides a wide range of themes for personalization, access to high-resolution stock photography from the popular source, Getty Images, upon payment of a simple fee, the creation of a complimentary suite for designing logos, and whatnot. However, it is not free to host your portfolio on this platform and hence, you are required to shell out some amount for accessing its features.
For photographers to establish a successful freelance career, it is imperative to make their presence feel on various photography websites that offer reasonable features for hosting portfolio. While there are many platforms which claim to offer all that, only a few have actually kept their promises. We have listed them down in our list, and we hope that it helps our readers.
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