Fashion Photographers - Have You Seen Your Website?

I wanted to talk about website's this week. There's so much floating about online about how to build the best website, and I think its so easy to fall into the trap of thinking that your website needs to be really fancy, and full of stuff.

I used to have a website that had a cool “intro” page, then there was a long, elaborate home page with loads of text, buttons to press, interactive things. It was pretty! But was it really doing what I needed it to do?

Actually, as a fashion photographer, your website should just be kept really simple. Your website is meant to do three things: help people to find you through a Google search, showcase your work, and make it easy for people to contact you.

You might come from wedding and portrait photography backgrounds, where the purpose of your site is totally different. It's meant to do all of the things mentioned above, but it's also meant to sell a lifestyle, be interactive, show off more of your personality, and get people really engaged.

You might think that your fashion portfolio should do the same things, but really, you're just creating distraction.

If you head to ANY big agency website, or the website of any major photographers in the industry, all of their websites are simple and clean. They showcase their very best work, have a small about page and a contact page. That's usually it.

So this weekend, I'm going to encourage you to take a look at your website and ask yourself: is there too much going on? Could this be simplified? What is the experience like for a busy art director, or brand owner?

If the answers to the above questions are: it's quite hectic, and takes a long time to get to your work, then you have some editing to do!

Simple will always be best.