rappar Loc: Kingston Ontario

I would like to start a blog on Wordpress.com as it is free by my understanding. This blog would be in response to friends who have enjoyed my posts about travels and photography. In the past, I have used Pages (Mac) to create a document of these travels and pictures. I then turn the Pages doc. into a PDF and send it to them. This is getting to be a bit of a pain and labour intensive job.

I think I have a decent understanding of how WordPress.com works having run a blog about my Teardrop Travels in the past.

What I really need is some information on THE best free theme to use with the blog. It needs to contain pictures as well as permit me to add text not only to the pictures but to expand on my travels. I really do not have to add text 'to' the picture but just be able to give some indication of the what, where and why of the picture.

While I will add pictures, I labour under no delusion of grandure with respect to my pictures, they would be there to supplement the words, not to sell.

Is there a free theme I should consider?

Thanks,
Ron

blackest Loc: Ireland

Um yes.
Wordpress is a system for managing content.

A theme takes care of a pages layout the font the font size the weight of the text, where the pictures appear how they are bordered how they are captioned ect. This is like a house style for a magazine or newspaper.

The thing is your content is yours, your title is your title no matter if it is centered justified right aligned 48 pt or 24 bold italic comic san-serif.

The theme makes your titles all look the same on your site. it takes care of the entire look of the site.

Because styling is separate from content it is easy to download a theme and try it on for size, then try another and another and there are lots of them many free. So I can't say use this theme or that theme, how can I know what floats your boat. Some themes claim at being better at some types of content than others. So try till you find something that suits.

You could change your site theme every day even every hour. It is that easy to change, but really hard to find one that agrees with you. I guess there may be some better themes you can pay for , also some bad ones.
At some point you will find one that suits you even if it takes a year but in one click the whole site will be using your one true theme.

rjaywallace Loc: Wisconsin

Rappar - Not entirely sure what you mean by a "free" theme. Does WordPress also offer specialized or custom themes for a fee? What's in it for WordPress to give this blogging service away? Be careful, remember the TANSTAFL principal (there ain't no such thing as free lunch). Can you post a link to WordPress so we can get a better idea of what you are asking us? Willing to help if I can.

blackest Loc: Ireland

well wordpress at its core is free, but people make add ons for a premium too, see http://www.labnol.org/internet/blogging/how-wordpress-makes-money/7576/

The thing about open source is anyone can contribute. If you contribute your paying in and you can take out as well. You don't have to put in of course but it is good karma if you do.

Perhaps this site is a good example, there is a great thread on going titled beyond the use of thirds (or something similar) which is full of useful information.

That is free, and I am learning a lot, i can't really contribute there but i can on other threads, I could just read and write nothing so it would indeed be a free lunch.

I guess the admin may make a little if we click on ads but i doubt he is living in a pent house.

mtbear

You might want to look at a theme that supports sliders and/or portfolios out of the box. For example on the theme page search for sliders and a whole list of themes will come up. sliders are nice eye catchers but any theme will allow insertion of static images. I use a plugin called "No Right Click" to deter casual downloading of my images. Personally I've been using self hosting from day two and I don't remember what the WP site policies on plugins is. While there are several CMS engines available you'll find WP to be an excellent platform for personal sized web sites.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

Wordpress has thousands of free themes. Wordpress is is an Open Source project, which means there are hundreds of people all over the world working on it. So while I understand your skepticism, it is one of many open-source softwares available. The OP is going in the right direction. There are however, many third-party themes that do cost money.

I have two websites that use Wordpress as the base.

Reinaldokool Loc: San Rafael, CA

:thumbup: :thumbup:

In addition to which, the basic software that makes possible this forum and others is a similar open source project.