Being in the industry for years now, we have seen and worked on almost every WordPress theme designed for photographers. Also, when one gets started with WordPress, it gets overwhelming to figure out the right theme for the website as there are a plethora of photography themes available.
There is no denying that choosing a specific theme for your photography needs is the ideal solution. While evaluating all the available options, you will be looking for design and typography that flatters rather than overpowers your images. Along with slider features aplenty, you also want a myriad of customization options.
Making the selecting process easier for you, we have highlighted the 5 best WordPress themes for photographers. Go through each of the options, review them thoroughly, and choose the right platform suitable for you.
Divi
Divi is one of the multipurpose powerful option in WordPress themes for photographers that is a perfect pick to create any website, offering an amazing built-in page builder to customize a site. It is perfectly compatible with the WooCommerce plugin, enabling online merchants to create e-commerce stores and sell products online easily. The theme includes multiple layout packs for specific business niches and ready-made page templates so you can get started easily. Using its tons of customization options, you can add parallax effects, animations, colors, Google Fonts, and more. Divi is powered by the drag-and-drop page builder plugin with several optional page elements, creating an environment where you can build any website with minimum fuss. The demos include unique graphics and fonts with various modules, such as forms, testimonials, call to action, and store elements that you can use as per your requirements.
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Divi’s 100s of layout packs and a 1-click demo content importer make it easier for professionals to launch their photography websites. You can also use several beautiful content elements, such as a gallery, slider, portfolio, etc. in the plugin to build your photography site. Its visual builder almost feels like using graphic design software. From dropping shadows and rotating elements on three axes to customizing dividers and borders and adding filters, you can do much more.
Astra
You must have probably heard of Astra, an exceptionally popular WordPress theme known for its customization, eye-catching demos, and easy-to-set-up features. It comes with plenty of design and layout options to showcase products and allows you to add content blocks wherever you want them to be. It supports third-party WordPress themes as well so you can add more features without hassle. Its compatibility with Beaver Builder, Elementor, Gutenberg Blocks, Brizy Builder enables you to use any tool that you are comfortable with. Also, select from hundreds of page elements, custom backgrounds, demo design, and color choices to create a site that aligns with your brand and business niche. Its templates look and feel professional yet can be installed in no time and modified without a single line of code.
Astra also includes drag-and-drop page builders and works seamlessly with LearnDash, Yoast, WooCommerce, Toolset, and other WordPress plugins. Moreover, Astra is optimized for WordPress SEO so that users can find it in Google search easily. Even affiliates can use pre-existing demo marketing website templates or build a site from the ground up using page builders to incorporate all their requirements. Speed is the biggest USP of Astra and we are not only talking about the speed to set up or launch a website but also the speed at which a page loads. Astra uses less than 50 KB of resources without render blocking jQuery so your pages can load at a super-fast speed with added SEO and user benefits. Just choose one of the available ready-built themes, add unique content, and you are all set to go.
Integrated with the powerful Elementor page builder plugin, Astra allows you to design creative pages for a variety of photography websites.
Ultra
Ultra is a multipurpose WordPress theme with a modern design and dozens of built-in templates and layouts. It offers a wide range of demos, from e-commerce to weddings and everything else in between. Hence, this versatile and retina-ready solution is well appreciated by SEO experts. You can install the template in one click, including demos, and once completed, you can replace the pre-existing content with your own. Ultra is packed with excellent features including Google Maps, parallax scrolling, color schemes, animations, image sliders, counters, and many more. Its integrated page builder helps you create custom website page layouts quickly, be it multiple header designs, blog layouts, sidebars, or page templates. Also, you can use Themify Builder to edit those layouts in a point-and-click and easy-to-use format. Its addons are pricing tables, countdown timers, and more.
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Ultra surely deserves a place in the list because of its flexibility. You can use its pre-built layouts as a starting point to build photography or any other website. Furthermore, when it comes to offering choices, Ultra surely takes the game up a notch. You can select from 5 post layouts, 15 headers, 6 footers, and a complete suite of other options. It also comes with its pricing table, contact form, progress bar apps, image highlighters, countdown, WooCommerce tool, etc., that you can use to boost sales.
Elementor
If you want complete control that you can through a theme builder, there is one perfect option for you- Elementor. It is a leading plugin that you can use with any theme to customize the look and every aspect of your website and make it stand out from competitors. If you are creating a site from scratch, use Hello Elementor, a lightweight theme designed to be used with the Elementor page builder. Download this plugin and use it for free but it has a limited number of features. You can make some edits to page layouts and designs but won’t get access to the complete theme builder unless you upgrade to one of the paid plans. Thanks to its popular drag-and-drop page builders, Elementor has earned a strong reputation for being easy to use with a comparatively small learning curve. This is great for beginners as they don’t have to invest weeks to create a new site. Although simple, Elementor is quite a powerful plugin. It is constantly evolving and introducing advanced features for users. Global colors and fonts and a visual theme builder make it easier for you to understand how all the elements of your website are put together.
Elementor has a huge selection of pre-designed templates, including options for portfolio and photography websites. Thus, you can set up a website and get it running quickly using one of these templates. Also, Elementor offers widgets that make it extremely easy to build a site. You can find widgets for almost all kinds of things, including galleries, portfolios, image carousels, price lists, social icons, and much more. Once you add one of the widgets to a page or post, you will be able to customize the design as well. You can also get help of best graphic design software for better options.
Elementor is undoubtedly one of the most comprehensive solutions available today. With its impressive collection of a ton of gallery layouts, you can create the perfect portfolio or showcase your work to the world in the most amazing way possible.
Imagely
Imagely comprises a WordPress theme along with a few plugins that are created to exclusively meet the needs of photography websites. It includes 19 different designs that you can choose from and get exactly what you want. Also, you can use the customizer for the fine details of a site and meet your unique requirements. There is the default WordPress block editor so you have complete control over the site layout and design. Although the solution specifically focuses on photographers, it also offers themes that are based on Genesis, taking care of Gutenberg and WordPress best practices. Imagely has a plethora of features that are quite popular among photographers, which include image protection by disabling right-click so that visitors can’t save or copy any photos.
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Imagely also includes the NextGEN Gallery plugin, which is the most powerful and versatile plugin ever made for photographers. Now, you can add watermarks and manage all your photos using this gallery plugin. It also has a Pro version with e-commerce functionality to sell photos easily on a website and it also has automatic fulfillment. This amazing feature can alone prove to be a game-changer for photographers who sell prints. With its White House Custom Colour (WHCC) integration, you can print and ship customer orders directly to them, a feature that you will not find in any other WordPress themes for photographers.
If you want your photographs and images to be the focal point of your photography website, then Imagely is surely the theme you should consider. Select from a number of pricing plans with each version offering a different set of features.
Conclusion
While selecting the best WordPress theme for a photography website, your only focus should be quality, templates, features, and honest reviews. We have listed the best 5 WordPress themes for photographers, each with its pros and cons. Of course, there are many other options that are working in its own right and offering great opportunities for creative photographers. However, it’s up to you to choose the best theme and leverage its true potential to build an excellent website.