What I’m about to say may offend some people.  I promise my intentions are good; however, there is an epidemic occurring within photography and photographers websites.  Photography WordPress Themes are often overlooked for one illustrious theme. The best way to illustrate the issue is a cartoon I noticed while reading Evil Plans by Hugh MacLeod – even though it does not specifically refer to the Pro Photo Blogs WordPress Theme for photographers.  Before I start on the offensive, I want you to take a look at this image of the drawing.  You’ll probably get it right away.

Normally you’ll probably read all about how a WordPress theme is ah-mazing and every photographer needs to get it.  However, there will become a time when something good becomes bad. Right now there is an epidemic happening within photographers websites: ProPhoto-itis. The ProPhoto WordPress Theme is spreading like cancer and I can’t stand it anymore.  Much like the Cartoon above, the trouble with a photographers website is that every one of them is using the same source code.

I’ve never used ProPhoto Blogs for any of my photography WordPress websites, but I do understand why photographers gravitate towards it.  I can’t but wonder why photographers want their website to look exactly like every other photographers website.  Before I go over some quick positive aspects of the Pro Photo Theme, I want to ask you:  When creating your business cards for a conference, say WPPI as it’s going on now, do you want your photography business cards to look exactly like everyone elses? You don’t want your photography to look like every other photographers too (okay some do), now do you?

What is it that makes photographers forget about unique presentation when it comes to their online presence, website design, and message they are sending viewers?  I commend NetRiver Inc at their ability to market a professional photographers theme for WordPress as it’s obviously worked.  Remember though, too much of a good thing turns into a really bad thing.

Pro Photo WordPress Theme Positives

ProPhoto WordPress Theme Negatives

A lot of Options Out There

When it comes WordPress, there are so many great themes for photographers.  I’ve shared a number of great options that in the past and I’ve found many many more recently.

A few weeks ago, I caught wind of some photographers I follow talking about WordPress themes.  These photographers currently use ProPhoto Blogs and were trying to find something new for WordPress or go with a completely different CMS.  I was so happy to read their expressed dissatisfaction with PPB after long use.  You’ve got to differentiate yourself with your photography, so why not with your website presentation too?  Check what Brian Matiash said:

…am also leaving PPB template. Getting played out hard core.

This same thing happened with the DIY Themes Thesis Theme but with every blogging niche out there. Great themes, but it sucks not being able to fully customize it like the companies promise.

My biggest concern is that the PPB theme does not differentiate photographers from the next. If a photographer is looking to convert viewers into clients, the photography is very important; however, being able to convey your personality as a photographer is very important. Even in my city, there are so many photographers using this theme! It’s like one copying the other copying the other. No wonder photography is moving in the direction of a commodity – it’s being presented that way to people.

Just like the image at the start of this post, photographers are all using the same source code.

Remember: my intentions are good. The ProPhoto Blog themes do provide elegant, simple looking WordPress websites for photographers but I believe there isn’t near enough ability to customize or Brian Matiash would not be in the market for a change. Instead, he would just spend a little bit of time customizing further and creating a new look with the same theme.

Beware of the marketing hype that plays on a lack of experience. Of course they can say the theme is cheaper than a custom design from a designer/developer but still pretty good. Definitely overpriced still compared to almost all other themes. It’s another website that is far from innovative beyond it’s galleries and slideshows that probably are not optimized for mobile (iPhone or iPad).

Take this article for what it’s worth. I’m clearly not a fan of the ProPhoto Blogs and much prefer a theme company like WooThemes and WPBundle. If you want to follow all the other photographers today, grab ProPhoto! I won’t stop you.

The Nuwomb love for Instagrm continues as we’ve discovered a got to have WordPress plugin: Instagram for WordPress.  Yup! Instagram junkies can now integrate their last 20 instagram iphone photos into their blog sidebar.

The Instagram API isn’t public yet and I’m not sure if Instagram could ask this WordPress Plugin to be removed until the API is public.  An unpublic API is probably not going to be as stable because Instagram would be performing tweaks and changes for a public API.

As I write this, the plugin has less than 600 downloads and it’s been out for a week.  I was curious to check it out because I would have expected the plugin to be more popular (given the popularity of Instagram).

What does Instagram for WordPress Do?

Using the Instagram unPublic API, the WordPress plugin pulls the last 20 instagram images of yours (or an Instagram ID that you know).  If you don’t know your Instagram ID, you simply enter the link of one of your Instagram photos and the widget will find your ID for you.

In essence, you can now place your lastest 20 images as rotating gallery into any widgetized area on your WordPress Blog and you don’t have to worry about any strict image sizing issues.

The plugin gives you 3 options to size your Instagram images for the sidebar:

If these options don’t work with your sidebar or footer widget width, you also have the option to enter a custom size.  I custom sized the Instagram images seen in the sidebar to the right as 290px by 290px.

It couldn’t be easier to  add this feature into your WordPress Blog.

Will It Be the Only Instagram Plugin for WordPress?

No way.  As mentioned, the API isn’t public yet.  Once it’s public, many more developers will release their creations.  I wish that I knew more on the subject but we’ll have to wait and see what comes.  We’re going to use the plugin here on Nuwomb for a little while to see how it goes and to see what else comes into play.

I can see some users not liking the rotating jQuery slide show and wanting a widget similar to the Flickr Widget.  The widget may simply add more clutter to blog sidebars.  For now, it will be here so that viewers can see it in action while reading the article.

What do you think? Is it too distracting or will you find it useful for sharing your Instagram photos on your WordPress site?  Let us know.

If you are liking it, download it here. Or go into your WordPress admin and install it from there.

Remember the Thesis Theme from DIY Themes? I know – I almost totally forgot about that massive popular WordPress Theme too. Interestingly enough, I noticed a few people finding Nuwomb based on those popular posts about WordPress Themes for Photographers via search. In one of the posts, I mentioned the possibility of using Thesis because you could create a one column layout and have full width photographs. Long ago, maybe Thesis was a decent possibility for a number of different types of blogs; however,  I feel it quickly got left in the dust of other WordPress theme developers.  At the same time, Thesis got left in the dust by many of its long time supporters due to the actions of it’s owner and developer.

The theme could have been something awesome but it was seriously held back by it’s core and only developer – Chris Pearson. Back in July 2010, there was a massive blow up in the WordPress realm due to license of Thesis – It didn’t follow the licensing of WordPress GPL. This was totally opposite the entire belief system and why WordPress even existed for Pearson to build Thesis for users.  The event showed the true colors of people and I adored following the entire thing. I wrote about it a number of times on Embryo because the debate was proof that people are attracted to why you do things instead of what you do.  Essentially people realized that DIY themes had no interest in advancing the WordPress community, no interest in promoting developers to create on top of the Thesis Theme Framework, and no interest outside of Chris Pearson’s bank account.   Many people opted to find another WordPress theme and company that aligned with their values, beliefs, and purpose.  Atleast that’s why I’ve always been loyal to Woothemes for 98% of my WordPress photography websites.

I was pretty shocked to find people are still searching for the Thesis Theme and Thesis Child Themes for Photographers though.  I understand those searching for the child themes because they’ve spent money on a website theme template that was so highly promoted in the entire blogosphere. These people may have not been aware of the GPL Debate of 2010.  I did a quick search of my own to see what kind of Thesis child themes I would find for photographers, but came up pretty short.

After doing a quick search, I really couldn’t find any specific results that would allow me to check out a great Thesis child theme option for a photographer to use or buy.  I did find a pretty cool article that compared 5 WordPress Theme Frameworks, but Thesis only got a small mention at the end.  WooThemes Canvas Theme was one of the big 5 compared but it had very little information on it and some of it’s biggest benefits were not noted.  I’m not about to turn this post a comparison post, but I like there isn’t a flood of information yet on the Canvas Theme.

Here is what the One Designs blog said about Thesis:

An evil theme having a way of it’s own of being a framework. Child themes are not supported, at least not the way they should. It also comes with a license and price tag that make you feel like an iPhone user. However, it has an options page that could cover most of anyone’s needs and is known to offer great support.

What One Designs blog said about the support is true.  DIY Themes Thesis is known for this great support forum.  I think the great support forum is cool, but it’s not something I would use to highlight the Thesis Theme – especially today.  The information you go to get in the support forum is information that theme users don’t even need to know because other themes do 99% of it from the admin options, using short codes, via integrated theme widgets, or something easier.   Sure the support is great if you need to spend all your time trying to learn something that other WordPress themes solve with a click…that’s cool.  Your photography will suffer.

The final Nail in the Coffin for Thesis

No, the final nail in the coffin for thesis as a great wordpress theme solution for photographers isn’t the fact that Thesis hasn’t been updated in a LONG time or that their homepage video advertises version 1.6 instead of the latest version’s brutal updates.

The final nail isn’t that the blog associated with DIY Themes sucks and opts to not include any post dates – we’ll never know how active the blog actually is.

I don’t even think the final nail in the coffin was when Brian Clark, Chris Brogan, and Darren Rowse (to name a few) totally abandoned the Theme.

Yesterday, WooThemes put out the latest comic in their WooVille series titled Where’s Woo?  The comic, which is also a poster, shows a pretty interesting representation of the current WordPress theming community.  Instantly, I wondered where DIY themes was located and if it was even included.  Once I located the DIY tower, I howled in laughter at the outstanding representation.

Think about this image for a few moments.  This image fell perfectly in line with writing this article for photographers and website design (I started writing the article in January).  Is Thesis from DIY Themes a great WordPress theme solution for photographers? You tell me.  Do you want the theme company developing your WordPress theme to be crumbling at the seams or do you want the theming company to be innovating, creating more value for your photography website, or inspiring your photography business to adapt and change with the times?

I cannot recommend DIY Themes to anyone looking to have a solid website these days – I would certainly never recommend it to a photographer looking for a new website template.

What Do I recommend for Photographers Websites?

Look around and see which WordPress theme companies are truly innovating and look at why they are doing what they do within the WordPress community.

I could make good list but in reality I’m going to let you know that I say to look at WooThemes and their connection with WPBundle now too.  I’ve talked about the Canvas Theme a number of times as an outstanding theme for photographers, but there are many more that come beautifully designed out of the box.  WPBundle has a few themes specifically for photographers and others can be modified to work amazing for photography blogs.

Block Thesis as a WP theme out of your mind. Photographers deserve sexy and innovative websites that lean into the interesting places their businesses are going today.  Don’t be held back by a crumbling theme before it’s  too late and your website looks and feels like it’s on Blogger.

If you’re currently aware of WordPress, an open-source content management solution for websites, you’re probably aware of a company named WooThemes and their WordPress theme known as Canvas.  If you’re a photographer that isn’t aware of such photography website template solutions, you’re in for something awesome.

First off, Nuwomb is running WooThemes Canvas and I just updated WordPress to version 3.0.5 with no issues as expected. This post isn’t to try and show you how amazing the WordPress platform is for photographers websites, but it is to show photographers that there are some amazing photographer website templates for WordPress that can make your online life so much better.  I’ve been running the Canvas template for a while on a number of websites and it’s so simple to get your own customized feel without having to start learning how to code, what to code, and more.

While I can’t play the first video in the Canvas customization series, you can easily go over and view it on the WooVideos. The first video looks at styling the header and a number of other features. I could just link to the video but I wanted to share my view on the theme as well – sharing WHY I feel it important for you to even bother with your time.

The WooThemes website templates have been so foward thinking that some themes, only recently added some of the customizable functionality to their templates.  Canvas has customizable features that can’t be found elsewhere and this is why I believe in it as a photography website solution for photographers that just want something they can use and understand right away.

I would have never become a WooThemes affiliate or a WooNinja (to help others customize their WooThemes) if I didn’t adore their company, brand, or culture. There are some really specific web-based companies that I really identify with because of that culture and playfulness all the while kicking ass in business.  It’s an inspiration to be able to work and be associated with WooThemes just by using their products.

This video is a result of their ingenuity as a business.  Oddly enough I was creating screencasts on Friday for Canvas because I wanted to show it as a photography website option to get photographers off of those terrible Flash-based websites. Secretly I want photographers to ditch the Pro Photo Theme too and get something much more awesome.

My video would have been uploaded on Friday, but I realized that I used some music in the background that I clearly don’t have the rights for. Maybe if Rihanna was my other wife (and Marika was cool with that) I could have got permission directly from Rihanna.  Hence, I would have needed to re-create the screencast but the Superbowl got in the way.

Just watch the video and see how easily this could Canvas for WordPress could become your new photography website template. Just say No to Flash.

Look Outside the Photography Website Arena

As photographers, we can become sucked into using website templates that are specifically “for photographers,” but in reality these websites for photography are just being marketed that way and insanely overpriced. Don’t think so? Look at the Pro Photo Theme.

Photographers websites can use themes that are not geared towards photography but offer so much more.  WooThemes Canvas theme is exactly that.  In fact, I was talking with Sara Collaton – one of my favorite photographers in Toronto that I’ve  never met yet (I think she avoided meeting me because I’m so cool) – mentioned casually that Pro Photo Theme didn’t really lend well to blogging more than the images. Having the ability to easily blog great photography is important for a website template, but just posting photos of client sessions is not enough in my opinion.  Remember, those posts are really only interesting to the clients and their family.

Having a greater flexibility through a website solution like Canvas for WordPress will give photographers a way to have a photography website that encompasses business growth.  Over the next few days, I’ll get into all of this a bit more but for now I hope you have been able to check out this outstanding option for evolving your photography website!

Oh and remember, once your photography website looks awesome – be sure to promote it and get more exposure on MegaPixeld!