custom gallery websites for professional photographers
FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)
How easy is it to add photos and update content?
How well does your gallery program work with web searches?
I've been looking at some Flash gallery templates. How do your gallery sites compare?
How does your software perform? Will my site be slow?
What if I need some new features that your gallery program doesn't have?
Do you provide support after the site is built?
Do you ever make upgrades to the software?
Can I do the design work myself and just have you do the programming?
Can I open the code and make changes by myself?
Can I distribute the code to other people?
What about web hosting? Will the gallery program work on my current server?
I am not a photographer, I'm an artist of another medium. Will your program still work for me?
I want to hire you. What is the process for getting this done? How long will it take to finish?
How much will it cost?
We don't charge licensing fees for the gallery program, but rather a one-time build fee. Please see the Pricing page for information about packages and pricing.
How easy is it to add photos and update content?
It's very easy! The admin control panel has detailed instructions on how to get started, as well as thorough help documentation that explains the finer points. Once you start using the admin you will quickly get the hang of it. The more you use it, the more you will realize just how powerful and flexible the program is. We are always glad to offer guidance and support should you have any questions.
How well does your gallery program work with web searches?
Extremely well! Jack built the program from the ground up with search-engine-compatibility as a top priority. For example when you add a photo or a gallery, you enter keywords for that photo/gallery which get strategically placed throughout the page, including the page title, meta tags, and alt tags. You can also set general site-wide keywords which get repeated on every page of the site.
We've built the infrastructure for highly strategic keyword placement; but it is up to you to pick out your own keywords. If you put some thought into it you can really do well in the search engines. Of course no matter how search-engine-friendly your site is, it still takes time and quality content to rank high in the search engines. Having lots of similar content, lots of words for the search engines to read, and lots of similar external links to your site are all good ways to improve your site ranking.
Why should I pay hundreds of dollars for your gallery program when there are plenty of free or cheap gallery template programs available?
We are professional web developers, and we are offering our personal services along with the robust gallery program that Jack has developed. Our gallery program is not a generic template or simple plugin; it requires extensive custom integration, and we will handle the entire project for you from start to finish, so that you end up with exactly what you want.
Many of the leading gallery programs that are available for free require confusing installation and limited customization. These programs usually come with lots of features that you probably don't want or need, and lack other features that you do. Oftentimes the unsuspecting photographer who has a fair amount of web experience will try to build his or her own site using these types of templates, and often find themself in a never ending rabbit hole of web development, never quite able to achieve exactly what they envisioned. They spend hours of frustration at the computer when they should be out shooting more photos.
Since Jack developed our gallery program specifically for the needs of professional photographers, it has the features you want and none of the bloated code, confusing interfaces, and unnecessary features. We designed the interface to be as streamlined and self-explanatory as possible, which means it's easy for you to administer you're own site.
Additionally, some gallery website companies charge less up front, but they may charge steep annual fees, they may take a percentage of every sale, or they may charge extra for additional features or specifications. We just charge a one-time fee for the website build, and all our website "packages" come with the same robust functionality.
Why should I pay hundreds of dollars for your gallery program if I can already manage my own site with Dreamweaver, FrontPage, or another drag-and-drop HTML editor?
So you can focus on your photography instead of wasting time at the computer. Manually creating new pages every time you add a photo is a pain and can quickly spiral out of control. You'll realize what a total waste of time it was once you experience the ease of an admin-controlled database-driven gallery site.
Additionally, many of the Dreamweaver/FrontPage creations we've seen consist of horribly bloated code, which leads to slower loading, search-engine-unfriendly websites which are prone to malfunctions in various browsers.
If you only have a small collection of photos to display, you can probably get away with manually creating your own pages; however, if you have lots of photos and like to add more often, our gallery program will quickly pay for itself and give you back your time previously spent slaving at the computer.
I've been looking at some Flash gallery templates. How do your gallery sites compare?
Most importantly, Flash sites are for the most part invisible to search engines; our sites are incredibly search engine friendly. Jack loves programming in Flash, and his own site used to be entirely Flash; however he finally decided that all the unique interfaces and fancy transitions were just not worth the search engine sacrifice. Since he switched over to the more traditional PHP/HTML pages, his search engine traffic has soared.
Flash sites can be a beautiful thing if done properly; however, it is recommended to have a PHP/HTML version of your site to begin with, and add a Flash version as an option - for the best of both worlds.
How does your software perform? Will my site be slow?
Our sites utilize PHP code to interact with a MySQL database. These are both very fast server-side languages. The code we write is also very streamlined; there is no superfluous code to bog things down.
Unlike JavaScript or Flash, no special software is needed on the viewers' browsers; all the code processing is done on your server and pages are served up just like normal static html pages.
We test all the sites we build in numerous browsers on Mac and PC operating systems, to ensure consistent performance for all viewers.
What if I need some new features that your gallery program doesn't have?
We would be happy to build them into the admin program. We can pretty much do whatever you want for your website for a reasonable price. We will give you a quote for how much each extra feature will cost, if there is an extra cost.
Do you provide support after the site is built?
Yes we do provide support. We are always happy to answer questions and offer advice free of charge. If you want some additional web work after the site is completed, we will charge our hourly rate, unless it's a major site addition, in which case we'll give you a flat rate bid for the project.
Do you ever make upgrades to the software?
Yes Jack does make ugrades to the admin program from time to time. You can see the history of the admin feature upgrades here. Sometimes it's a seamless upgrade that he can just add to your site quickly for free; other times it's a major upgrade that requires modifications to the front-end website. Because of the latter reason, and because we do not charge monthly licensing fees for the software, we cannot guarantee free upgrades into the future. In the event that in the future we make a major upgrade that you really would like to have, we can give you a quote for how much it would cost to upgrade. The cost is usually very reasonable.
Can I do the design work myself and just have you do the programming?
Sure. This would be the equivalent of package #3 as explained on the Pricing page. Creating your own designs reduces our workload and therefore the total price too. There are certain limitations to the designs that will work, and we will let you know if something won't fly. If this is the route you want to take, you'd create your own photoshop files and we would take those and program the site with your graphics.
Can I open the code and make changes by myself?
Yes, you can. If you're proficient with CSS, you can alter many of the colors, fonts, borders, etc without touching the html code. If you're really a computer geek you can dive into the PHP code and do whatever you want with it. However, please be aware that we disavow any responsibility if things break because of your alterations, and we will charge our hourly rate to fix things.
It's probably must easier, safer, and quicker to have us make the changes for you.
Can I distribute the code to other people?
Absolutely not!!! Jack has spent countless hours developing and refining his gallery program; it is not open source. Sharing this code with others is copyright infringement, no matter how much you modify the code.
What about web hosting? Will the gallery program work on my current server?
We currently require our new clients to use our hosting services. We lease dedicated servers from a reputable high-performance datacenter based in Virginia, and the servers are already set up with all the proper settings to run our program. The hosting fee is $240/year. We will set up your account and emails for you, and will take care of any issues that may arise.
If we MUST use your current server, there is a chance that our program will not function properly. In this case, you will have to switch over to our servers; switching servers is simple, and we can help. Please contact us for more details.
I am not a photographer, I'm an artist of another medium. Will your program still work for me?
Though most of our clients are photographers, our gallery program is easily adaptable and will work great for any kind of visual artist, as long as you have digital images of your work.
We have built websites for painters (Ron DuHamel and The Newsoms), for a jeweler (Lyn Gaylord), and for an illustrators agent (Bookmakers LTD).
Also, while most of our clients so far have tended to be landscape/nature photographers, the program will certainly work just as well for any type of photographer who wants to display their work online.
I want to hire you. What is the process for getting this done? How long will it take to finish?
The first step is to figure out which website package you'd like, as explained on the Pricing page. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
After emailing and/or talking with you on the phone about the details of the project, we will email you a simple contract. We require the signed contract and a 1/2 payment deposit to schedule the project. The remaining 1/2 is due upon completion of the project.
If we are creating new designs for your site, we will create several "mockups", or initial design ideas, in photoshop. These are pictures of how the website would look. The first round of mockups could be considered rough drafts, and based on your feedback we will change and refine those designs. The more feedback you provide, the more info we have to create a design that you will be happy with. This process repeats until we've nailed down the design. At this point, we will start programming and cannot go back and make major design changes.
At the same time that we're working on the website, we will install your admin program so that you can start creating your gallery structure and uploading your photos. Once we're done programming the site and testing it on numerous browsers and computers, we will launch it live whenever you're ready.
The whole process usually takes about a month, but a lot depends on how quickly you can provide feedback during the different stages of development.
Please note that we schedule website projects on a first-come basis, and often have a schedule backup of about a month or so, so if you are interested please contact us sooner than later.