Key facts
- £1 a day + VAT: annual at £365 + VAT or monthly at £35 + VAT
- Images cached at the edge through Cloudflare
- Responsive image sizes and WebP output via your CMS or plugins
- Password-protected client and proofing galleries
- Hotlink protection to stop other sites using your bandwidth
- Daily backups of your portfolio and site
Image weight is the whole game
A photography site lives or dies on how fast the pictures appear. The most common mistake is uploading full-resolution exports, 8 to 20 MB each, straight into a gallery. A page of 30 of those can be hundreds of megabytes on a phone. Fixes that make the biggest difference:
- Export for web: long edge around 2000 to 2500 pixels for full-screen views is usually plenty.
- Serve modern formats: WebP, and AVIF where supported, are much smaller than JPEG at similar quality.
- Responsive sizes: let the browser pick a smaller file for phones using srcset. WordPress does this automatically for properly sized uploads.
- Lazy loading: load images as the visitor scrolls, not all at once.
- Edge caching: Cloudflare serves cached images from locations near the visitor.
Client galleries and proofing
Many photographers deliver to clients through a specialist gallery service, which is a sensible choice for big weddings. Others prefer galleries on their own site. If you do that, use password-protected pages or a proofing plugin, keep galleries out of search engines with noindex, and set an expiry so old galleries don't pile up on the server. Original RAW files and full-resolution deliveries are better sent through dedicated file transfer or cloud storage than kept on the web server.
Protecting your work
- Hotlink protection: stops other websites embedding your images directly and using your bandwidth. We can enable this in Cloudflare.
- Metadata: keep copyright and creator details in your IPTC data, but strip GPS location from images of people's homes or children.
- Watermarks: a judgement call. Subtle marks on proofs are common; on portfolio images they can put off clients.
- Backups: your website is not your archive, but losing a portfolio site is still painful. We back it up daily. See website backups.
Platforms we host
Most photographers we work with use WordPress with a gallery plugin or photography theme. We also host static portfolio sites, which are extremely fast. See WordPress hosting and static website hosting. Moving from a website builder because of storage or gallery limits? See website builder alternative.
Getting started
Order dijitul Complete Hosting at clients.dijitul.uk/order. Migration is free, and while we move your site we'll check for oversized images and tell you where the quick wins are. If you have a very large archive or video library, ask us for a quote first.
Frequently asked questions
What size should photos be for a photography website?
For full-screen viewing, around 2000 to 2500 pixels on the long edge is usually plenty, saved as high-quality JPEG or WebP. Let your CMS create smaller sizes for phones. Never upload full-resolution camera exports straight into galleries.
Why is my photography website so slow?
Usually oversized images, too many loading at once, and no caching. Resize and compress exports, serve WebP, enable lazy loading and cache images through a CDN. dijitul hosts photography sites behind Cloudflare for £1 a day + VAT.
What is the best hosting for a photographer's website?
A host that caches images at the edge, backs up daily and gives you control of image formats and gallery settings. dijitul hosts photographer websites for £1 a day + VAT, with Cloudflare, SSL, a domain and free migration included.
How do I stop people using my photos on other websites?
You can't stop screenshots, but hotlink protection stops other sites embedding your image files and using your bandwidth. Keep copyright details in metadata, register important work, and use reverse image search to find copies.
Should I deliver client photos through my website?
For small proofing sets, password-protected galleries on your site work well. For large weddings or full-resolution files, a dedicated client gallery or file transfer service is usually better than storing everything on web hosting.
Should I remove location data from my photos?
Yes, for images showing people's homes, children or private locations. Phones and many cameras embed GPS coordinates. Strip location on export but keep your copyright and creator details.
Related
Set it up and forget about it
Managed hosting, Plesk, Cloudflare DNS, daily backups and your domain for £1 a day + VAT. We move your site for you.