5 best photography WordPress themes

We decided to ask our community to help us curate a list of the 5 best photography WordPress themes and share what works about them.

Here’s our selection curated with the help of @Aether-Themes.

Read the more detailed version of this list here.


Clean Photo – Photography Portfolio WordPress Theme | by wphunters

](http://landing.wphunters.com/cleanphoto/)


SOHO – Fullscreen Photo & Video WordPress Theme | by GT3themes

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## TwoFold Photography – Fullscreen Photography Theme | by fuelthemes

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Bluebird – Design for Professional Photographers | by Colormelon

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Fusion – Responsive Photography & Portfolio WordPress Theme | by CleverSoft

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You can find a more detailed version of this list on the Envato Community Blog, follow Aether-Themes on ThemeForest and check out our other author curated lists below.

Thanks to each and every community member who contributed! :smiley:

2 Likes

Hey Dom,
You can quickly narrow that list - you can just pop open the Photography category on themeforest. You’ll get the list down to 266. - Searching for Photography is going to return themes that just have the keyword Photography somewhere in there, and a lot of those themes aren’t that good for real Photographers.

When curating a list for Photographers, keep in mind - 98% of them aren’t web designers, developers, dev-ops, graphic designers. They have no idea which fonts should they choose, which colors should they use, what spacing should they have between elements, and even how should they structure their site. However, multi-purpose ( best selling ) themes are great for small agencies that work for a lot of clients.

Small agencies can quickly buy a multipurpose theme, customize it to the clients liking and ship it off to the world, and get the next client. For people with experience - multipurpose might be a good thing. For Photographers who have their first interaction with WordPress - I don’t think so. If you want to put out quality information for Photographers that will improve upon their lives - help them get up and running in an eye blink and pick themes that are easy to use, simple to set up.

My plea is this - please, please don’t consider multi-purpose themes as “Photography” themes. I’m seeing this happen all over the internet, but I strongly believe it hurts real Photographers, and in the long-run - the whole WordPress themes community.

Norris.

5 Likes

Quick question - if you want photographers to post their favorites - why not ask for 1-2 themes, instead of a list of 10 ? Agencies can easily give you a list of 10, I think. Most photographers who only ever built their own portfolio, and maybe one for their friend, they won’t even know more than a few. At the moment I’m inclined to call myself a Photographer ( I am a hobbyist after all ) and post 9 of our themes here and 1 form PixelGrade :smiley:

Norris

1 Like

Hey @ThemeVillage (Norris :slight_smile: ),

Thanks for the interest and advice in this topic.

We ultimately want to make this thread and the eventual published list as useful to photographers as possible. But my hope is we’ll get contributions not only from photographers who favor particular themes, but the authors that make them and have opinions on what makes the best themes for photographers.

We’ll see how we go (fingers crossed).

I’m open to the suggestion of lowering the list count if you think that will be more useful for photographers reading this. Although maybe more than 2. Maybe 5?

  • Dom

I think if the article is for Photographers, you really need to ask Photographers. Lowering the “minimum amount” to 2, and setting the “recommended” to 5 would really open the conversation up to real people, not just authors and agencies.

3 Likes

Great suggestion.

What do other people think?

I have a question,

Which elements that you think a Photography theme needs?

My list has one theme :stuck_out_tongue:

My picks:

Outdoor - Creative Photography/Portfolio WP Theme by @cththemes

This is a feature rich theme with a striking design. There are home page variations to choose from, video support and an interesting portfolio section with horizontal scrolling. The theme would definitely accommodate most of the requirements a photographer may have for his site and whats more it doesn’t look like a cookie cutter theme in any way.


Bluebird - Design for Professional Photographers by @ThemeVillage

A super modern theme, it gets to the point quickly with the beautiful horizontal slider. Showcasing your work doesn’t get easier than this. Captivating transitions all around the site create an immersive experience - and that’s what a photography site is all about, creating an experience for the customer not just serving him with the images.


LENS - An Enjoyable Photography WordPress Theme by @pixelgrade

A theme that incorporates so many important & small details into it’s design that make it truly a photographer’s dream web site. Interesting ideas for the navigation as well as the layout as a whole make the theme stand out. It’s approach to these make this a professional’s theme, rather than a hobbyist one.


Core Minimalist Photography Portfolio by @ThemeGoods

This is a theme that can set your website apart. It achieves this by incorporating some unique elements to it’s design such as the home page slider. It is truly a minimalist theme and the spotlight is on on your photography with this one.


SOHO - Fullscreen Photo & Video WordPress Theme by @GT3themes

This is an instant classic. A truly immersive full-screen theme with a smooth slideshow and a variety of options for how you want to showcase your portfolio. You can take the traditional road with this one and let your photography speak for itself. The option of giving a more detailed description for your photography is a welcome one. And the seamless integration with social networks will have you sharing your photos on facebook in no time :slight_smile:


Legrand - Creative Photography Portfolio Theme by @ClaPat

A minimal theme that gets straight to the point in an instant. It has an intelligent design that lets you browse around with just the flick of the mouse. The simplicity and thoughtful design make this a theme that doesn’t stand in the way of your photography, but quite the opposite, it gets out of the way and takes your work center stage. That’s what minimalism is all about and this theme achieves it flawlessly.


Clean Photo - Photography Portfolio WordPress Theme by @wphunters

This one is targeted at the traveling photographer or the photography blogger. It achieves the difficult task of combining both a beautiful photography showcase with space for other content, such as your journal. The name of the theme speaks for itself it’s a really clean design that compels you to look around the site and see what it has to offer.


Fusion - Responsive Photography & Portfolio WordPress Theme by @CleverSoft

This one I’d put under the category of portfolio theme for photography studios. It is great for the freelance photographer but where it shines the most is with the studios. It has a layout built to showcase project-based photography and it does this well. Really versatile options for the project descriptions and comprehensive about pages that would fit a photography studio perfectly, makes this theme perfect at showing not only your work but your business as well.


TwoFold - Premium Photography Theme by @fuelthemes

This theme certainly has the premium feel. It’s ultra-modern design and attention to detail is what sets this one apart. It has thoughtful features, such as the password protected content, and striking visuals to make your work as a photographer pop. Many features for showcasing your work are available and the only issue I have with this is that all of them are so cool it would be difficult to chose which one to use :slight_smile:


Valeria - Photography WordPress Theme by @BioButterfly

A minimal theme that combines excellent layout with smooth transitions of the elements to make your portfolio feel engaging. This one is for the photographer that doesn’t have so many projects under his belt and creating your site with this theme will be a breeze. As for the end-user - navigating your site will be a breeze too.

Thanks,
Nick

2 Likes

Most importantly - focus on the Photographer and their needs. An ideal theme should allow the photographer to quickly publish the content they want, without having to worry about knobs and dials. Many, many themes have tons of sliders, galleries, etc. - not so many focus on ease of use. Photographers shouldn’t become expert designers overnight, they should be able to spend a few hours on their website and be done with it.

As for specific elements - I think when you browse the list that’s going to be produced by this topic, you’ll see a repetition of a few features, like: large full-sized images, non-cropped portfolio entries, focus on photography and clean interface, galleries, about and contact pages. The rest is debatable and based on preferences and goals of the user creating the site :wink:

2 Likes

Hey everyone,

Thanks for your submissions so far.

FYI, I’m just changing the rules up slightly to make it list of up to 10 rather than exclusively 10.

I think this allows you to be more deliberate, focusing on the amount of themes you think have the essentials a photographer needs.

Thanks!

  • Dom
1 Like

My pick:

Best Portfolio, Photography WordPress Template by @plexdesigns

Smarty is an ace for showcasing portfolio and photography as its unique trending structure is designed to bring the best out of your art. It is highly customizable to suit your needs with its single and multi-page versions available in both light and dark variants.

1 Like

Well I guess I’ll plug my own theme. I have a stock photography theme named Stocky.

Really, why not? :joy: :joy:

Vienna – our brand new Photography WordPress Theme. It is easy to use and offers the minimum necessary of features for creative professional to highlight their work in front of prospective clients.

Looks like we’re posting shameless plugs here, sure, why not :blush:

We’re developing themes exclusively for Photographers. So, really, all our portfolio are great themes for Photographers. 3 most popular themes are:

  • Bluebird - Elegant theme for Photographers


  • Aster - As one of our customers put it - a romantic theme. Especially popular with wedding photographers.


  • Kameron is one of our best selling themes of all time. It has endured the sands of time, and a very solid theme.

Hey everyone!

Thanks for the contributions to this thread so far.

After looking at the responses we’ve gotten and chatting to a couple of you I’m going to change the rules up a little.

It’s looking like the magic number for quality curated suggestions of themes is 2-3, so that’s what we’re going to go with from now on.

So, pick 2-3 WordPress themes you think are the best for photography and remember to:

  • Provide a link
  • A screenshot
  • A 2 sentence description of each item
  • Include at least 2 items from other authors
  • (@) tag those authors

Thanks everyone!

Happy curating!!

  • Dom

Here is our top 4 for photography best themes.

Shutter - Photography & Art WordPress Theme by @StonedThemes

This is one of our theme it is very easy to use just add photos quickly and display them in different styles.

Valerie - Photography Wordpress Theme by @UmbrellaStudios

Valerie is a simple and easy to use theme for building your portfolio photography website.

Photography - Responsive Photography Theme by @ThemeGoods

Great photography theme from ThemeGoods stunning design with lots of feature for professional photographers.

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DIAMOND - Photography WordPress Theme by @GT3themes

Checking this theme from time to time it still amazes me with all those amazing stuff it powers.

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I would say the most impressive one is the TwoFold due to smooth animations and large photos:

Thanks to all who included our TwoFold theme :slight_smile:

1 Like