Nowadays, with all the advancements in camera equipment and techniques, we have seen a sudden influx of new photographers, all wanting to show off their work in the best way possible. This has created a higher demand for high quality websites, and it has had a positive effect on the world of WordPress photography themes. The number of themes has increased considerably, and they keep developing into more beautiful and functional ways of showcasing one’s work, be it as an amateur photographer, or as a professional.
The advantages of using WP for your photography website are endless. Above all it provides a combination of being a photography website and a blog, enabling you to show off your work, while giving you the ability to discuss your ideas, all in one central location. You’re also working with a proven framework that is easy to use and maintain, while offering a high level of flexibility.
Below are some of the best premium themes available, be it for a simple website to showcase your new passion for photography, or a sleek website to promote your work.
Glare
Making use of a simple, sleek design, the Glare theme is an ideal responsive theme for any models or photographers wanting to showcase their work. It offers either a blog layout, or a full screen slider for your main portfolio, which can also feature a video, plus an inner page gallery slider for individual posts. It also offers flexibility in the number of columns you’d like for your listings, and the ability to modify your contact page as you like.
More Details | Price: $39
Deep Focus
The Deep Focus theme from elegant themes provides a 100% responsive design, combining all the normal features of a blog with a fully functional online photo gallery. It utilises elegant themes’ shortcodes to make it fully customisable, and also features LightBox effects that enhance the user experience from the first visit. The addition of a CMS style section below the slider also allows you to organise your content into individual, elegant blurbs.
More Details | Price: $69
Focal
Created as an ideal way to get your photos online quickly and easily, Focal offers a fully responsive design for all devices. It is also intelligently optimised to change the size of the images according to the size of your device, making the site load quicker. It also offers various gallery layouts, and supports both Youtube & Vimeo videos. Being built with SEO best practices, it’s designed to perform well in search rankings, helping you get your site out there faster.
More Details | Price: $43
ePix
ePix is a fullscreen photography theme ideal for those photographers who are looking for a professional way to showcase their work. It is packed with lots of unique features, including being retina ready, a host of highly customisable galleries, custom widgets, an advanced live Skin Editor, and even a client login that allows you to password protect certain galleries that your client can log into to view their photos. An overall stunning theme.
More Details | Price: $58
Photocrati
Used by over 18,000 photographers and visual artists, Photocrati is a uniquely powerful theme offering over 40 designs to start with! It offers built-in galleries and e-commerce, mobile compatibility, blogging options, great SEO, and an endless amount of customisations. If you’re looking for a great looking, complete website that you can set up in just a few minutes without having any knowledge of coding or design, you’ve found it.
More Details | Price: $89
Invictus
A 100% responsive theme offering an extensive amount of options, Invictus is one of the most extensive photography themes out there. Being continuously developed and improved, it is customisable in almost every way, even including the complete Google Font library and support for embedding videos.
More Details | Price: $48
PhotoArtist
PhotoArtist is a theme created to fit the needs of any photographer wishing to showcase their work, comprising a full screen slider on the main page. It creates a very easy to use website that is also easily customisable from the WordPress admin area. It offers built in page layouts for different purposes, from About Me to Pricing, and also has an auto slide feature on the main page slider.
More Details | Price: $55
Agera
A beautiful portfolio. Agera offers an easy to setup website that is attractive and functional for any photographer. Being fully responsive and completely fullscreen, it shows off your work in the best way possible. Offering a custom admin panel, it allows you to modify the colour of each element, and even provides a shortcode wizard with a live preview, making adding shortcodes extremely easy.
More Details | Price: $43
Eleven
A responsive one page design with parallax effect. With its popularity growing ever more, parallax design is used to good effect in the Eleven theme. When purchasing this theme, you also get a license for the LayerSlider WordPress plugin, allowing you to create beautiful slides for your content. Offering various customisation options, from Google Fonts and unlimited colours to shortcodes and custom CSS, it’s easy to modify this theme as you wish without any programming knowledge.
More Details | Price: $43
Keres
Loved by all those that use it, Keres offers a great looking layout across all devices. It provides you with 10 different gallery templates and 3 portfolio templates. also incorporating Google Fonts and the AddThis plugin – a one-click social media sharing feature. An advanced theme admin area adds value to this theme, providing you with the ability to make modifications to almost every section of your website, without the knowledge of any coding.
More Details | Price: $48
Tripod
A completely customisable theme, Tripod offers you a drag and drop template builder for each and every page on your website. With its multiple layouts, sidebars and widgets, this social media ready theme is ideal for photography bloggers looking to showcase their work in their own personal style. A powerful back-end compliments its beautiful looks, allowing you to control all site options with ease.
More Details | Price: $58
James 2.0
A flamboyant portfoilio theme that really does speak for itself. James2.0 offers a stunning full screen showcase of your photography work, whether you just want to show it off, or sell it. The variety of features available is endless, ranging from a swipe navigation for tablets and video embedding from Youtube and Vimeo, to SEO optimised code and the incorporation of WooCommerce 2.0.
More Details | Price: $59
Photolux
Powered by Pexeto Panel, Photolux offers creative photographers countless ways to modify their website as they desire while still keeping it looking elegant and professional. Easy to use for both beginners as well as the more experienced developer, this theme comes with a flexible and unique AJAX gallery, letting you use some impressive jQuery animations and effects. A powerful theme for anyone wanting to showcase their photography work online.
More Details | Price: $48
Essenza
“A perfectly responsive and beautiful WordPress grid portfolio with premium options” ~ a perfect description by themeforest. Essenza really does have it all – a minimal design with an extensive admin panel, giving you tons of ways to tailor-make the website you require. Using a drag and drop page builder, lots of shortcodes, custom sliders and icons, various blog layouts and post formats, this media powerhouse of a theme gives you limitless options to create a dazzling portfolio.
More Details | Price: $48
King Size
With over 13,000 users, King Size confirms itself as a top theme for photographers and bloggers alike. A fullscreen slider or video option, together with 5 different gallery types and many customising options will only make your website more appealing to any visitors. Being widget and sidebar ready, the blogging options are not so vast, but its ability to showcase your content in such an extravagant manner makes this theme ideal for anyone who believes the saying that “bigger is always better”.
More Details | Price: $53
DK For Photography
A creative portfolio design, DK For Photography is a beautiful theme that displays your photos or video as a fullscreen background. It comes packed with features ranging from different page templates, social media incorporation, numerous shortcodes, and blog templates and contact pages that are simple, yet refined.
More Details | Price: $48
Get the DK For Photography Theme
Village
Village is another theme whose elements seem to come together in just the right way. It feature side menus that are not only functional, but sleek, and unique modules that allow you to choose between having an interactive jQuery wall or a floating slideshow navigation with automatic scroll. The custom widgets and various templates available in Village make it just the right theme to showcase your portfolio in the easiest and best way possible.
More Details | Price: $48
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6 Responses
Beautiful Collection, Thank you for sharing..
Awesome collection! I’ve worked with the DK theme, highly recommend it for any photographers out there.
1000+ galleries is a lot. I’ve never personally come across a website or theme with anywhere near that many galleries in use to be honest. Perhaps you could check out Wpshower’s Portfolium Theme (https://wpshower.com/demo/?preview_theme=portfolium) or Viewfinder (https://themeforest.net/item/viewfinder-photography-wordpress-theme/237527). I haven’t really tested them out so I’d suggest taking a close look at them before you purchase. Goodluck.
I know it’s a lot, but I’ve got a collection party pictures over almost 12 years and this archive is still searched by people to create something for friends who get married or something. The whole website is about 12 GB in size. I guess the hardest part is to find a way to manage this archive with WordPress. The looks should then be the easy part.
Do you also know a theme suitable for very large photo galleries? At the moment 200000+ photos divided over 1000+ galleries? The current (more than 10 year old) website is http://www.partypeoplecrew.nl. The photos can be found via the link “Uitgaansfoto’s”. Site is in dutch.
ice collection, thanks for sharing