Hi...Please answer this question only if you have a background in web
design, or are otherwise knowledgeable on this topic.

I'm a photographer and need to get a website up and running.  I would
like a professional, modern, and stylishly simple design (like the
templates available bludomain.com or foliolink.com) that contains the
following pages: home, galleries, about, news, and contact. I will
need between 5-7 sub-categories on the gallery page with about 10-15
photos on each of these. I do not require the use of Flash.  Most
important to me, is that I can add/remove photographs and add/remove
text to the news page myself, so I guess I would need some kind of
user friendly database to accomplish this ("user friendly" as I know
nothing about web design and maintenance).

As mentioned above, I like the templates and services available at
foliolink.com, and bludomain.com (and some others), but these sites
are too expensive for me.  I would like to accomplish the project
within my budget of approximately $500. And again, I need a pro site
with style...nothing cheesy looking...I'm very design oriented.

So, with that said, I'm open to using templates, or doing it myself
with a relatively easy to use software program (accessible to the
novice), or having a designer do it for me.  Please remember that it's
important to me to be able to maintain the photos and news page
myself.  Any ideas anybody?

I look forward to hearing your answer.

I´m a webdesigner and I?ve had the very same problem with publishing
photos in a simple way.
Some months ago I came across an excellent freeware solution for
making gallery pages. The solution (called JoJoThumb) has the
following features:

"JoJoThumb is a utility that allows to create thumbnails from images
of the imagetypes  BMP, EMF, JPG, PCD, PCX, PNG, PSD, TGA, TIF and
WMF.
Additionally JoJoThumb builds a complete HTML-based gallery with an
index-page, thumbnail-pages and image-pages.

Determinig the range of the conversion
It is possible to use filters for filenames, image-dimensions,
image-types or a directory-depth.

Cloning images with a unique dimension
JoJoThumb can copy images to a clone-directory and convert the
different image-types to JPG with unique dimensions.

Text and Imagestamps
There is the ability to insert Text and/or Imagestamps into the cloned image. 

Thumbnailgenerator
JoJoThumb supports images of the image-types BMP, EMF, JPG, PCD, PCX,
PNG, PSD, TGA, TIF and WMF.

Creating a HTML-based gallery
Based on the images and their thumbnails it is possible to generate a HTML-Gallery.
It contains an index-page, one or more thumbnail-pages and optionally
a html-page for each image.
Many options allows to define the appearance of the conversion. "
from:
JoJoThumb
( http://www.jojosoftware.de/jojothumb/english/default.htm )
 
Some example pages done with JoJOThumb:
( http://www.jojosoftware.de/jojothumb/beispiele/html_frames_vertikal/start.html )
( http://www.jojosoftware.de/jojothumb/beispiele/html_slideshow/bilder.html )
(click any picture to start the slideshow)
( http://www.jojosoftware.de/jojothumb/beispiele/html_zoom/bilder.html )
you can zoom the photos in this example!
( http://www.jojosoftware.de/jojothumb/beispiele/html_dimmen/bilder-1.html )
nice mouse over effect
( http://www.jojosoftware.de/jojothumb/beispiele/html_rahmen/bilder-1.html )


These example pages have German texts but I?m sure you will be able to
follow. The software is provided in an English version as well.
You can download the program at:
( http://www.jojosoftware.de/downloads/JoJoThumb-Full-EN.exe )


Updating the news section can be done using a simple web based
database. There?s another free solution available. Please visit:
( http://www.baseportal.com/ )

"Whether news system, message board or product database - create your
own web database in a few minutes - for free!"
from:
( http://www.baseportal.com/ )

and have a look at the "Easy Start" section. You will be guided
through the rather simple procedure to create you own database. The
system does not require download of any software as it is maintained
using your webbrowser.


All you need now is a nice, professional design for your pages. 
The examples you gave (at bludomain.com) are made in flash however.
In my opinion a good webpage does NOT require the use of flash. Many
search engines won?t find any content when the pages are made in
flash, a big disadvantage.

You should be able to find a webdesigner that could take over the job for $ 500.
If not you could post more questions (with the subject: webpage) and
direct them to me (just say: for till-ga in the subject of the
questions). I´d be vary happy to make a nice design for you (and
include the gallery and news page).

If you?d want me to do that for you please have a look at the 
Google Answers FAQ 
( http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html#cost )
to find out how to price these questions so I get an appropriate
payment for the design work.


I hope this helps to solve your problem. If anything should still be
unclear please post a Clarification Request before you rate my answer.

till-ga

---

Request for Answer Clarification by nerv-ga on 14 Apr 2004 10:07 PDT

Thanks for the tip on JoJO....sounds like it might be a good solution.
 As for website design, I'd be interested in seeing some of your work.
 Could you provide some links to sites that you created?  Also, could
you provide me with a rough estimate for what you would normally
charge for a site with the features I mentioned?

Thanks!

---

Clarification of Answer by till-ga on 14 Apr 2004 11:13 PDT

Some of the pages I made in the last years:

Fiat, Alfa-Romeo and Lancia car dealer
( http://www.auto-conen.de/ )

Citroen car dealer
( http://www.citroen-conen.de/ )

Fire fighting training site
( http://www.loeschtraining.de/ )

Fire extinguisher and safes
( http://www.feuerloescher-tresore.de/ )

Engineers Website
( http://www.fipa-elektrotechnik.de/ )

Portal page for a region in south germany
( http://www.3regio.de/ )

Fanclub webpage (non commercial BIG projekt)
( http://www.guildo-online.com/ )

All these pages are in german. And the layouts have been developed in
cooperation with customer. (Except the last one which is a private
project)

I could live with the budget you mentioned in your question.

till-ga

I just want to make one clarification. The FolioLink service has a
Turn Key account which costs under your stated budget of $500. You can
find a pricing page on the FolioLink web site,
http://www.FolioLink.com/.

Good luck with your site.

May I suggest http://www.BigBlackBag.com, a great online portfolio
website service that is quite similar to FolioLink and costs less than
$200. Unlimited images and galleries plus a lot of cool features that
are great for running a creative business.

I'd like to suggest http://www.Qfolio.com.  They are full service, the
do all the building of the site (no tools to learn) and do all those
full service things like submit your site to search engines etc.

I do think that bludomain.com does do a very good job for what you are looking for 
you had stated "I need a pro site with style...nothing cheesy
looking...I'm very design oriented." and they can offer you that for
just a little over your budget (around 800). With cheaper solutions
you might not get the look that you want.
If you want to see a sample check out http://www.wedclix.com , this
was designed by bludomain.

If you do want something cheaper (even though you won't get as good of
a site compared to someone like bludomain) there are some template
sites available if you know basic HTML you can modify to fit your
needs.  Some companies are:
www.templatemonster.com
http://www.atemplate.com/
there are many others you can find from doing a google search.