Bullfrog Bill Loc: CT

My photography club has a fairly attractive website that was designed and build by a technologically sophisticated member 10-15 years ago. Unfortunately, only the designer knows the structure well enough to make upgrades and he is stretched for time. Is anyone familiar with commercially available website models or templates that fit a photo club and easily managed by non-tech people. I use Zenfolio for my personal site and that works well for my needs but we need a club oriented platform.

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

Having a link to the site would be helpful.

Bullfrog Bill Loc: CT

Thanks, but I am not looking for comments on our existing site. Rather, I am asking for others' experience with their club website platforms.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

At times I think it is against UHH rules to go to the trouble to give links to things we comment on!! Big guy... tell me I am wrong that we should give links!! But,Bullfrog Bill did it not occur to you that we may want to see the club site you have belonged to for so long?? Or is it a secreted hand shake club? Mine is : www.mytbcc.com

Or how bout the link to https://en.zenfolio.com/

Your title and question and discussion reference these sites and you want to get information from us but we do not have a frame of reference, that is why we needed the sites... simple as that. And No I do not have any information about club templates.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

You're probably using a web host, so see if they offer an easy way to build a new site. You can also look for a new web host.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2424725,00.asp

elee950021 Loc: New York, NY

Big-guy! We had a similar problem a few years ago and our club, Park West Camera Club in New York City, wanted our members to enter info and upload their own images and have their own private areas. We decided to use Visual Pursuits, see: <www.visualpursuits.com>. The site is template based but there is still the ability to individualize your website. Also good for competitions. Our website for your viewing: <www.parkwestcameraclub.org>. We are celebrating our 80th Anniversary!

mainshipper Loc: Hernando, Florida

If it's 10 to 15 years old it certainly needs a refresh. I created and maintained a very custom built site for the club I belonged to for several years but withdrew my support due to a lack of content that they were willing to provide me. It had a digital competition portal, galleries, calendar, educational materials, etc. but mostly depended on my efforts to keep the content fresh. Today they are piggy backing off of the website of the parent organization they belong to.

I have built many websites as a hobby for both commercial and non-commercial entities. Some have been scratch built but many using WordPress as a foundation. It's free and you can find many pre-built "themes/templates" that are for photo oriented activities.

RichardSM Loc: Back in Texas

Your sites are not working on my smartphone? It tells me the sites are not found!

mackphotos Loc: Washington, DC

I would suggest WordPress. It's open-source which means its built and maintained by a community of developers and it's free.

Here's a link to a collection of photography themes I have used for my photography clients:
https://gt3themes.com/wpcat/photography-wordpress-themes/

If you need help getting a new site setup PM me I do this for a living.

elee950021 Loc: New York, NY

Sorry about that! The blue highlighted keyboard character > messed up the link. The correct links are: www.visualpursuits.com and www.parkwestcameraclub.org Ed

mainshipper Loc: Hernando, Florida

It appears that many folks who have chimed in are pitching some fee based solutions to your website needs. Unless you are willing to learn how yourself or find a website "guy" in your club you should probably look at one of those solutions. The most complex component of a camera club site, IMHO, is the management of competition activities which includes submission, judging, and presentation on the site or in front of a group. I'm only referring to digital competition as it is difficult to submit prints on a website. In my club we require those who "insist" on submitting prints to also submit a companion digital copy so that they can be projected in front of the club during competition meetings.

In most cases you will never find a perfect solution "out of the box" but those that have a competition component built in will go a long way towards meeting your objectives. I looked at the ones being offered up here and think that www.visualpursuits.com would be a good start. We looked at a several sites that offer this type of functionality in our club but I decided to create something custom as I had the skill and interest in doing so.

big-guy Loc: Peterborough Ontario Canada

Hmm, Not sure of the rules and I can see the pros and cons of it. If the rule is in play to curtail shameless self promotion or linking to undesirable locations then I'm all for it. If it helps in the answering of questions regarding photography based issues then they should be allowed. I know the guardians of the realm will move posts to another forum or even delete a post as they see fit so I can't see a reason we can't include links in a post if it "directly" helps with the original intent of the post. In this case the op states how technologically advanced the web site is but he has no frame of reference to make such a claim. Those that do, would benefit from seeing the site and can then make a more informed response.

That said, the op did state he is just looking for a template based web site which he could have simply Googled the term. As it stands he can expect all responses to be a glowing testimonial of the service each res-ponder subscribes to which, sorry to say, gives him no real answer, just a lot of suggestions.

SharpShooter Loc: NorCal

Bill, why don't you look into your club converting to a Photographic Society of America(PSA) club.
The mother-ship offers website templates for clubs to use.
Yes, you would then have to pay dues, or at least the PSA membership. Maybe look into it. Here's a link, give them a call and talk about it!
Good luck
SS
https://psa-photo.org/

RichardSM Loc: Back in Texas

Thank you

JohnTxNC

SmugMug.com

It provides a fully functional photography website that can easily be linked to your clubs domain name.

Storage and size of the images is Unlimited! (no RAW files though)

You can customize the look and feel and access of the website from being totally Open & Accessible to the Public to partially accessible to fully restricted to only those w a password.

You can create multiple Folders, with Multiple Galleries within. Folders & SubFolders & Galleries 7 layers deep (I think).

You can sell images/downloads and prints and worthless stuff like a custom phone case ... You can set the profit levels of those purchases, which are sold in a self service manner.

You can allow designated Assistants to have limited control of the website... i.e. Uploading images.... You can also add a "Visitor Upload Link and Password" to every Gallery. You can have text pages and more.

Live Chat customer service during the day and responsive email support 24 hrs a day / 7 days a week.

Just something to consider