A website for your photography business
A photographer's website is mostly large images, which makes weight a business problem rather than a technical one. The second problem is subtler: showing everything you can shoot is what stops people believing you're the right person for the thing they need.
What a photography business’s website actually needs
Five things, in the order they matter. The first one is most of the job.
The work has to load or it may as well not exist
A portfolio is a lot of very large files, and a gallery that takes several seconds over a phone connection loses the visitor before they have seen a single photograph. On a photography site, image weight is the difference between a portfolio and a blank screen.
Show one style, not your whole range
A portfolio mixing weddings, newborns, product shots and corporate headshots reads as availability rather than expertise. Leading with the work you want more of is how you get more of it — the rest can live deeper in the site.
Ask for the date first
For weddings and events, availability is the only question that matters, and everything else is wasted until it's answered. An enquiry that starts with the date saves both of you a conversation that was never going to happen.
Publish a starting price
Enquiries from people who were never going to be able to afford you cost you both time and end awkwardly. A clear starting figure does the filtering kindly and up front, and the people who continue are already comfortable with the number.
Set delivery expectations in writing
How many edited images, how long until they arrive, how they're delivered, and what the client is allowed to do with them. Every one of these becomes an uncomfortable email later if it wasn't on the page earlier.
None of that is a to-do list for you.
Four of your team are working today. Each one owns a stage, and each stage happens for your photography business specifically — not for a category you picked off a menu.
Atlas
Asks what your photography business actually does — what you specialise in, who calls you, and what you want more of.
Orion
Turns that into a plan you read before anything is built — including which of the five above your page leads with.
Forge
Builds the whole site: the pages, the words, the imagery and the way people get in touch. You can watch or close the tab.
Compass
Puts it live on your own domain, and wires up booking and payments when you’re ready to take money through it.
Echo markets and Ledger counts. Neither has shipped, so neither is on your team yet — we would rather show you the empty chairs.
We haven’t built a photography business yet.
So we’re not going to show you one. These are three real, published Helm builds in other trades — same conversation, same builder. Two of them have a guide of their own if you want to see how the advice changed for a different business.
Common questions
Can clients book and pay a deposit through the site?
Yes — booking and Stripe payments can be connected when you go live, which is how most photographers handle a date-holding deposit.
Can I use my own photographs?
Yes, and on a photography site you obviously should. Helm builds the galleries as part of the site and you add your own work to them afterwards.
I shoot several genres — should they all be on one site?
They can be, but lead with one. Tell Helm which work you want more of and the plan puts that first, with the others available rather than competing for the same attention.
Tell Helm about your photography business.
A few minutes of conversation, then a plan you read and approve before anything gets built.
Start a planFree to start — you see exactly what Helm produces for your photography business before you decide anything.