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Service

Photographer website development

For wedding, portrait, commercial and event photographers who need a portfolio, enquiry and client gallery system designed around their shoot types and delivery promises rather than a template site bolted onto a file-sharing link.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A working photographer runs on dates.

  • An enquiry arrives by email or social message asking whether the second Saturday in June is free; the photographer checks a personal calendar, replies with a brochure attachment and pencils the date in.
  • Two more couples ask about the same Saturday that week.
  • Whoever pays the deposit first gets it, but the deposit is taken by bank transfer and confirmed by hand, so for several days three bookings believe they hold one date.
  • The questionnaire that gathers timings, addresses and the names of the people who must be in the group shots goes out as a document and comes back half completed.

Where it gets harder

After the shoot, proofs are uploaded to a consumer gallery service that has nothing to do with the website.

  • The client picks favourites by sending a list of filenames in a message, often from a phone, often with typos.
  • Print orders are totted up in a spreadsheet and placed with the lab manually.
  • Model releases for commercial work live in a folder of scanned PDFs that nobody can search when a stock licence query arrives two years later.
  • The portfolio itself is updated twice a year because adding a case study means resizing forty images by hand.
  • The photographer is good at the work and spends evenings on the administration around it.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom photographer build normally covers the whole shoot lifecycle. Shoot types are defined by you with their packages, durations, travel radius and what is included, with any prices entered by you and shown only where you choose. Enquiries capture the date and shoot type and place a date hold that expires if the deposit is not paid, so one Saturday is never promised twice. Booking confirmation, deposit, balance reminders and the pre-shoot questionnaire are stages of one record. After the shoot, a private gallery with password and expiry carries proofing, favourites and a selection that the client submits once, and print or digital download orders are placed from that gallery and passed to your lab. Contracts and model releases are stored against the shoot as recorded documents, with e-signature as a named integration where you want it. Delivery tracking shows which shoots are shot, edited, proofed, selected and delivered.

The portfolio side uses structured case studies: brief, approach and outcome written by you, with image permissions recorded so a wedding gallery is only published once the couple has agreed. Media processing produces the responsive image sets so a case study is built from the master files, not resized copies.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Photo editing and culling tools, which stay in your desktop software
  • Lab production and fulfilment, which stay with your lab, with the platform sending the order
  • Accounting beyond exporting deposits and balances

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A two-photographer studio shooting weddings and commercial work wants shared availability across both shooters, second-shooter assignment per booking, galleries that carry per-image usage rights for commercial clients, and a separate commercial enquiry route with purchase-order references. That is a different build from a solo portrait photographer with three packages, and the scope document says which parts apply.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from walking through one wedding or commission from first enquiry to final delivery
  • A written scope document naming each shoot stage and what is left out
  • Designs of the portfolio case study, the enquiry and date-hold flow and the client gallery on phone and desktop
  • The build, including galleries and print ordering where in scope, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Import of past galleries and client records where the source files allow it, with redirects for existing portfolio URLs
  • Training for the photographer and any assistant, with a short written guide for the gallery workflow
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code, your images and your client data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access to the current site, the gallery service in use, the lab you order from and a sample of past bookings and contracts.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the photographer and anyone who helps with admin; shoot types, deposit rules, gallery expiry and rights handling go into the scope document.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    The case study template, enquiry flow and client gallery are designed around your images and the devices your clients actually use to pick favourites.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in layers: portfolio and media processing, then enquiries, date holds and deposits, then galleries, selection and orders, then documents and delivery tracking.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    You run one real booking through the system in parallel with your current method and report what does not match how you work.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Changes from the review are made and re-checked against the scope document.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Past galleries imported, deposit payments tested against your own card, redirects checked, launch checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    New enquiries and galleries run on the platform; hosting and maintenance continue under their own agreement if taken.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Card payment providers for deposits, balances and print orders
  • Print labs that accept orders by file or API
  • E-signature services for contracts and model releases
  • Large-file transfer services for delivering full-resolution masters
  • Calendar feeds so availability matches your personal diary
  • Email and SMS providers for confirmations, questionnaire chasers and gallery links
  • Accounting software for deposit and balance export

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A two-photographer studio with shared Saturdays

The situation

A studio of two photographers shoots weddings together on some dates and separately on others, and also takes commercial commissions with usage-rights terms.

Why it is a custom build

The custom route is needed because the two shooters are sometimes one resource and sometimes two, which is exactly the assumption most photographer templates cannot express.

The scope we would propose

  • One availability calendar where a wedding booking consumes one or both shooters according to the package chosen
  • A date hold that lapses automatically when the deposit window passes
  • A second-shooter field on each booking that drives the call time in the questionnaire, galleries that record per-image usage terms for commercial clients
  • A commercial enquiry route that asks for a purchase-order reference instead of a wedding date

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Number of photographers sharing availability and whether second shooters are assigned
  • Shoot types, packages and whether deposits and balances are taken online
  • Gallery volume, image counts per shoot and how long galleries stay live
  • Print and download sales and the lab or fulfilment route involved
  • Contracts and model releases and whether e-signature is connected
  • Past galleries and client records to import and the state of the source files
  • Commercial usage-rights tracking per image
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Photographer portfolio package

Portfolio case studies, shoot enquiries with date holds and deposits, private proofing galleries with print orders and delivery tracking for independent photographers.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

When is the package enough and when do we need a custom build?

If you are one photographer with a handful of shoot types, standard deposits and galleries that follow one pattern, the photographer portfolio package usually fits through configuration. Shared availability between several shooters, per-image usage rights or an unusual lab route point to the custom route, and we say which during discovery.

Can clients pay a deposit and sign the contract online?

Deposits run through a card payment provider connected during the build, and the booking only confirms once the deposit has cleared. Contracts and model releases are stored against the shoot as documents; signing them online is done through an e-signature service we connect where you want it.

How do you handle image permissions on the portfolio?

Each case study records whether the client has agreed to publication and in what form, and a case study cannot be published until that record is set. The permission stays with the case study so you can answer a later query without searching email.

Can you bring across our old galleries?

Usually yes, where the master files and client details still exist. We import galleries with their client, shoot date and selection where that data is available, and agree a realistic cut-off for older shoots that only exist as exported folders.

Who owns the system and the images afterwards?

You do. The source code, your images, galleries and client records are handed over at delivery and can be exported at any time. Hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed.

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Answer a few questions about your business, your current systems and what should change. We reply with a clear, competitive proposal.

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