WordPress Themes for Kickass Photography and Photoblogs (Part 1 of 3)

Choosing your WordPress Theme is pretty tough becasue there are so many free templates out on the market.  No doubt that you can create a blog and/or photoblog with a free template. You may spend huge amounts of time clicking through pages upon pages of themes.  I wanted to set up a simple 3 part series of some premium themes that you may not have seen before or just remind you of some themes on the internet to be used for photoblogging.   These could also be used for a blog based on photography content as well.   Over the 3 parts, I am not going to bombard you with 80 themes.  If I did that, I’d be just like browsing through those other websites.  I’ve decided to do some browsing for you and picked out some options for you to consider.  I’ve gone through the process of Free templates, to premium and it’s hard to go back to “free” due to lack of support – unless you’ve got a very dedicated designer.  I’ll include a free template that you could consider in each of the parts to this series.   I hope you find it useful and you get to see some themes that enhance your photoblogging websites.

First, before selecting a theme, go browse some of your favorite photography/photoblogs on the internet.  Take a look and make a list of what you like about them or what you would want different.  Quick issues to consider:

• What size photographs do you want to show on your photoblog?
• Do plan on writing content beyond just speaking through your Photographs?
• Do you plan to earn an income from your Photoblog?
• Is your Photoblog meant to act as a portfolio?

These are some important issues to consider because they will impact your layout.   Don’t get upset if you don’t figure it out on your first try.  You may have to experiment or try different themes for your Photoblog.  There are other solutions that don’t involve WordPress as well.  I love WordPress as a platform though.  Anyways, let’s kick this off with some themes from Graph Paper Press.

Graph Paper Press

These guys have some pretty rad wordpress themes that are built towards artists, photographers, designers, and illustrators.  Photoblogs are all about putting your Photographs in large format.   I’ve used a couple in the past for “Urban HDR – HDR for the Soul Photoblog.”  Customization can tend to be a little more difficult with Graphpaper Themes but if you’re willing to give it a shot because you love they way it looks, I say go for it.  They do have Theme support and they will do their best to help you out.   It’s not as established as something like Woothemes but if you’re patient it will be looked into for you.  If you’re not planning to do much customization, you’ll probably be fine. These guys have more themes available than what I am showing here too.  Modslider is pretty rad and Modularity.  Graph Paper Press is big on portfolio and magazine style themes for WordPress.

Fullscreen

This looks like a pretty rad theme for photography.  The homepage shows some thumbnails and has a fun feel as your run the cursor overtop of the images.   If you click on an image, it takes you to the posting and you see the photograph in fullsize.  It would really show off your work.  I’m actually pretty temped to try this theme out on a website in the future.  This is where some of your initial photoblog questions come into play though. For example, on the homepage of images you’re getting a bunch of images. This requires the viewer to click. I know it’s a simple action, but observe the way you view photoblogs or websites in general. If you decided that you want the homepage to be the latest image you’ve posted and in a large size, you’re not going to get that with this theme. I think this theme may be better used for photography project. If you decided it’s a non-issue, than go for it as a photoblog. I am trying to help you discover making the best choice as soon as possible.

Work-A-Holic

This theme by GraphPaper Press reminds me of Chris Wallace’s Gallery Theme.  It’s a blog and portfolio type design for WordPress.  It’s pretty cool because it shows your images in thumbnail form on the main page, and when you hover over them,  it gives you some details.  An awesome feature as a Photography Portfolio and Blog is that it has a separate section for the “Blog” part of your site.  This may allow you to put your portfolio front and center, and try to monetize through there.  Using this type of theme really gets you to think about your plans for your site.  If you are planning a simple Photoblog, you may want to look at some of these other WP Themes. It’s a bit busy for a simple photoblog.

F8 Remixed

This is more of a Photoblog Theme. I used it for some time on my own photoblog – Urban HDR. It cleans up the look and gives you a front and centre viewspace for your photographs. These theme will also help you show off previous posts/images below in small thumbnails. If you click the little more button above the large picture, the images drops down and more information is revealed behind the photo. If anything, I’d expect a photoblogger to be more interested in this than the other 2. But if your plans are to write content, post more portrait orientated images, or try to do more with your photography site, I’d look to some other options.

If you want to see the next part to the series, it focuses on amazing photoblog themes by WooThemes – Click now if you are ready for Part 2