A Photography Website That Shows Your Work at Its Best
Claude CMS builds your photography website from scratch — custom gallery layouts, client proofing portals, print shop, and enquiry forms. No templates, no themes to fight against. Describe your style and Claude builds a site that looks as good as your photography.
Self-hosted PHP/MySQL photography site — masonry/grid gallery with lazy loading, password-protected client proofing galleries, Stripe-powered print shop, and a contact/booking handler. All written from scratch, zero framework dependency.
Everything a great photography site needs
A photography website needs to make your images the hero, make it easy for clients to enquire, and handle the business side — proofing, delivery, and payment. Claude builds all of it around your work.
Galleries & portfolio
A beautiful image gallery with the layout that suits your work — masonry, full-bleed, grid, or slideshow. Filtered by category so clients can browse weddings, portraits, or commercial work separately. Lazy-loaded for fast mobile performance.
CSS Grid masonry layout with vanilla JS Intersection Observer lazy loading. Project taxonomy in MySQL with category filter. Lightbox via vanilla JS — no jQuery, no plugin. Portfolio pages generated via site_create_page with per-project OG meta and Article JSON-LD.
Client proofing
Password-protected galleries for each client — share a link, they log in, browse their photos, and mark their selections. No third-party proofing platform needed. Your client's photos stay on your server, not someone else's cloud.
PHP session auth with per-gallery password hash in MySQL. Client selections stored in a picks table via POST handler. Admin view exports selections as CSV. Gallery URLs are UUID-based slugs. GDPR-friendly: data never leaves your host.
Print shop & enquiries
Sell prints directly from your site via Stripe — no print platform commission on top of your costs. Enquiry forms capture project details, date, location, and budget so every lead comes in qualified.
Stripe Checkout Sessions with size/finish variants, webhook-driven order handler, and fulfilment notes. Contact form with PHP handler, MySQL leads table, SMTP notification, and honeypot spam protection.
Built for every kind of photographer
Whether you shoot weddings, portraits, commercial work, or landscapes, Claude CMS builds a site around the specific features your photography business needs to grow.
💒 Wedding photography
Full wedding gallery portfolio, packages and pricing page, real wedding blog posts for local SEO, enquiry form with date and venue fields, and client proofing galleries for final delivery.
👤 Portraits & headshots
Clean studio portfolio, session types and pricing, online booking for available slots, and a client gallery for proofing and selection — with download links generated automatically on approval.
📷 Commercial & editorial
A polished portfolio with client logos, a case studies section, usage licensing enquiry form, and a client-only area for accessing and downloading licensed images.
🏔️ Landscape & travel
Gallery-led site with location archive, print shop with size and finish variants, Stripe checkout, and an email list signup for new collection drops and exhibition announcements.
👗 Fashion & product
Campaign portfolios organised by brand or season, a behind-the-scenes blog, services PDF download, and a streamlined enquiry form designed for agency and brand leads.
🎬 Videographers
Video portfolio with embedded Vimeo/YouTube, reel download, day rate and packages page, and a client portal for reviewing and approving cut deliverables — no Vimeo Review subscription needed.
Your work deserves better than a template.
| Claude CMS | Format / SmugMug | Squarespace / Wix | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | £6.99 | $12–$35+ | £13–£35+ |
| Custom design (not a template) | Fully bespoke | Template themes only | Template themes only |
| Client proofing galleries | Yes — built by Claude | Yes (SmugMug) / Limited (Format) | No |
| Print shop (no platform commission) | Yes — Stripe direct | Yes (platform markup applies) | Ecommerce plan required |
| Self-hosted (your images, your server) | Yes | No — platform hosted | No — platform hosted |
| AI builds new features on request | Yes | No | No |
Your photography site live in days
Getting your photography website live with Claude CMS is fast. Describe your work, your style, and what features you need — Claude builds the whole site around your images.
Get hosting
Any PHP/MySQL host with enough storage for your images — around £5–£10/month. Claude CMS installs in under 10 minutes.
Describe your photography
Tell Claude your speciality, style, and what features matter most — gallery layout, client proofing, print shop, booking. Share any brand colours or design inspiration.
Claude builds it
Claude designs your portfolio, gallery pages, enquiry form, and any custom features. Everything built around your work — not a template dozens of other photographers use.
Go live & keep growing
Point your domain and start winning clients. Add a new gallery, update your packages, or set up a client proofing area for a shoot — just tell Claude and it's live.
Your photography. Your site. Your clients.
Claude CMS starts at £6.99/month. First month free. A custom photography website with galleries, client proofing, and print shop — no templates, no platform commission, no lock-in.
30-day free trial. PHP 7.4+/MySQL 5.7+ host required. Full MCP tool access from day one. Image gallery layouts, Stripe print shop, and client proofing auth available from day one.