How to Set Up Your Own Free Video Photography Website
Many photographers and videographers stuggle with ways to show off their work to the masses online. There are photo-sharing sites like Flickr and video-sharing sites like YouTube, but one popular way to show off related photos and videos on the same page is by creating your own photo and video website. One way to do this is by creating a simple, yet elegant, photo blog with a unique template, multiple tabs and an easy (and free) way to upload and share your photography.
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Things You'll Need
- Digital photos/video on your computer
- Computer
- Internet access
- Adobe Dreamweaver software (or similar)
Instructions
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Go to the website blogger.com. Click on "Create a Blog" and follow the instructions to create your own blog. Give your blog a name representing your photography or videography. Although blogs started as digital journals kept online, they now can be formed into mini websites.
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Visit the website bloggertemplatesblog.com and find a template that best suits your needs for your photography. Choose a template that has multiple tabs if you want to have a "contact me" tab on your site or a tab linking to your profile on a social media site like Facebook or Myspace.
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Click on the template you want for your site and click "Download" to get the code. Open the downloaded file and double click on the .xml file within the folder to open that file in Adobe Dreamweaver. Copy and paste the code from the opened file into a new Dreamweaver HTML document.
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Edit the tab/link names and information to reflect what you'd like to have on your site. For example: If the tab shows up as "Tutorials" and you want it to say "Contact," replace "Tutorials" with "Contact" in Dreamweaver and change the link from an http: to a "mailto" and your email address. Delete any unwanted tabs by deleting the links and text associated with them in the Dreamweaver document.
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Click on "Layout" on your Blogger blog's "Dashboard" on Blogger.com. Then click on "Edit HTML" in the top navigation bar. Copy and paste the HTML code from within the Dreamweaver document into the box under "Edit Template" on Blogger. Click the "Save Template" button at the bottom of the page.
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Click on the "Posting" tab in the upper left-hand corner of the Blogger website to bring up the box to type a new blog. Post your photos or videos here whenever you'd like by adding the "add image" or "add video" icons in the tool bar of the box. You can also post links to outside sources like Flickr or Picasa pages with your photos. You can embed YouTube videos by clicking on "Edit HTML" and pasting the YouTube embed code in the box.
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Click "Publish Post" and then click "View Blog" to see your work in progress. Explore the Blogger "Dashboard" to update your profile information, add personal photos and info and to add more posts with photos and video.
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Send the link of your blog to your friends and family; post your blog posts to your personal pages on social media sites to promote your photography and videography.
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In the future, if you want to pay for a ".com" or ".net" Web address, click on "Settings" in the Blogger Dashboard and then click "Publishing." Click on "Custom Domain" to change your Web address to your new domain name.
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Tips & Warnings
Small photos can be added as thumbnails automatically and link to the bigger version of your photo.
Blogger is good for small website usage or starter sites with only one main page to add photos and video. Wordpress also works as a way to use a blog site as a real website, with more tabs available.
