One thing I noticed while putting this last issue (January/February 2015) of Shadow & Light Magazine together and checking links is that there is a growing number of photographers who do not have websites and/or don’t have much of an idea about how simple it is to present yourself, photographically. I am not sure if this is simply a trend or many people feel they don’t need one.

I understand that there are a lot of possibilities out there: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, tumblr, ello, etc., where you can highlight your work. But is that enough? Is that the efficient way to do it? Maybe we could start a discussion here.

It has long been my belief that in order to let people know about your work you need to show it to them. In my opinion there is no better way to show it to them than to have a clean, uncluttered, easily navigable site. One where your images are displayed without a lot of banners, ads, and images from a variety of other resources.

I checked in with a several of my peers and they agreed that if someone submitted work to them that had links to a variety of social media sites, without a link to their own site they may not go any further.

Many artists seem to believe that in order to put together a site you will need to spend a lot of money. For the most part, that is simply untrue. Just about anyone can gt a site up and running with about five pages for under $500. If you have some skills at handling this, your costs will be reduced exponentially.

I have built WordPress sites for a variety of artists for $400, with no additional costs, and I hold their hands for as long as it takes in an effort to enable them to take it over. For the most part that is a short assignment. Of course, however, there are a few who like to “hold hands” for a very long time. I certainly don’t encourage it!

The point is it doesn’t have to cost more than your car to establish yourself, graphically, on the Web. On a site you can have a couple of dozen images, a place to let people know what drives you, a contact method, links you like or recommend, and a few other pages. You could build a site like this one for a very reasonable fee.

For me, it is way too time consuming to have to go through several different “hot” sites in an effort to find a photographer to feature in Shadow & Light Magazine. On more than one occasion I have decided not to pursue someone who doesn’t have a site, just because I know that I will have to click through one, two, or three different locations just to get some relevant information.

So, let’s continue this conversation about how to present yourself on the Web. Send me some comments, here, about why you have been resisting putting up a site, and maybe we can do this together.

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