Best WordPress Photography Themes for Beginners

“You’re a photographer? Can I see some of your work?”

Whether photography is just a passion project or a full-time profession of yours, one thing is certain: you need a proper platform to showcase your work. 

Our recommendation? A WordPress website, of course. Powering nearly 30% of all websites on the Internet, WordPress is a simple platform that allows you to create a professional presence online.

Once you’ve got your WordPress website (and a Managed WordPress host to lessen the technical load!), now’s the time to take advantage of the plethora of free and paid WordPress photography themes.

That’s why we’ve narrowed down this ever-expanding list to our top five for beginners like you.

Our Top Five Theme Picks

1. Vega

Clean and contemporary, Vega puts you in the design control seat. Here you can choose from one of their many pre-designed templates or get creative with multiple layouts thanks to their handy drag-and-drop content builder. The choice is yours. 

With filterable portfolio functionality and a fully-responsive website layout to ensure your work looks great across all devices, Vega also supports WooCommerce, just in case you want to start selling some of your photos. We’re big fans of the ELEX WooCommerce Google Shopping Plugin, which not only makes a strong impression with Google but also helps your WooCommerce store rank even higher.

Looking to create a private gallery for a potential customer so they can see and review your work? Vega makes it easy to set one up via their admin panel. SEO-friendly, Vega is built using HTML code and CSS, which allows search engines like Google to crawl and index your pages with ease. 

The cost? Licenses start at $59. 

2. Lens

Are you a blogger, who also dabbles in photography? Look no further than Lens, a photo-oriented theme that’s ideal for those of you who like to tell stories with photos. 

With a homepage that displays photos to correspond with your latest blog posts, users can click on each photo, which links to that particular blog post. While Lens is praised by bloggers and writers alike, Lens is equally suited to photographers and artists to showcase their work.

Although the default homepage features a navigation menu on the left side with a mosaic-style gallery, feel free to play around with the slider functionality and take advantage of the theme’s built-in animated transitions. Basically this means that when a user (or potential customer) is browsing your website, instead of seeing a white screen when they click a link, they see a visually-appealing transition. 

Lens is also WooCommerce-friendly and supports the use of customized fonts through the Google Fonts library (600+ to be exact!). This can all be done through “Theme Options,” located in Lens’ easy-to-use dashboard. 

The cost? Licenses start at $75.

3. OShine

Whether a simple portfolio or a dedicated e-commerce shop, Oshine is an elegant-looking theme that lets any type of photographer build their desired website—no coding required.

With 27 distinct design demos to choose from, all it takes is one click of your mouse to import your preferred demo and start using. Unlimited portfolio and grid designs, as well as a variety of header and menu styles, allow for further customization.

Premium slider plugins, such as Slider Revolution and Master Slider, are also included with Oshine so you’re looking at some pretty sleek animations on your website. It’s WooCommerce-friendly, too, if you’re so inclined to sell. 

The cost? Licenses start at $59. 

4. Photocrati

Created by Imagely, the leading provider of WordPress products and services for photographers, Photocrati is an incredibly impressive theme.

Offering 60+ built-in designs, Photocrati also features a gallery management system that lets you upload, manage, and display an unlimited number of your photo galleries. 

Equipped with five customization areas: global, header, footer, body, and sidebar, Photocrati is designed to support full-width and one-column homepages with various features (think background and media adding, logo creation, menu options, footer widget placement, etc.). Right-click protection also means you have the option to disable right-click options in order to protect your images from downloading. 

Fully responsive across any device, Photocrati includes the hugely-popular NextGEN Pro Gallery plugin. Praised by users from all around the world, NextGEN is considered the easiest WordPress gallery plugin to use, sort, re-style, and organize photos. 

The cost? Although the price is a bit steep ($99 for a license), your initial payment gives you lifetime rights to theme itself. This means you can cancel anytime and continue to use the theme forever, albeit without access to updates and customer support. 

5. Freedom

If you’re on a budget and can’t afford a paid theme, look no further than Freedom. 

Super simple and easy to use, Freedom is a free WordPress theme that provides photographers and photobloggers with a sleek photo-sharing template. Avoiding those unnecessary features and elements that beginners might ordinarily shy away from, Freedom loads incredibly fast. Now, even a non-coding photographer can easily start a website.

The photo-blogging view is incredibly popular, which shows the featured image of your blog posts. This allows you to showcase your photography along with a brief text about the photographs themselves. 

Fully-responsive, Freedom not only supports social media icons but also customized fonts through the 600+ Google Fonts library.

The cost? It’s available both in a free and paid ($69) version. 

Key Takeaways

At some point while reading you might have asked yourself the question: Why do I need a photography theme when I have social media? 

Sure, Facebook, Instagram, and Flickr may be great for photo sharing but they don’t provide enough ways to establish yourself as a serious photographer. Meaning? You can’t exactly build your own independent identity if you’re using a branded platform already. 

Although social media platforms are great for supporting your photography passion, a full-fledged photography website is what you need for establishing it. And, with our curated list of the best WordPress photography themes, we hope it makes this selection process a little easier, giving you the opportunity to present your work and grow your business. 

Looking to simplify things with your photography website? Check out EasyWP Managed WordPress Hosting. Blazingly fast and hassle-free, we make WordPress websites easy, accessible, and affordable to everyone with plans starting at just $1/month, for the first month.

So, do you agree with our list? Do you have ones you wish we’d share? Let us know in the comments below!