A website is essential for every photographer to get their work seen online. Building your photography website with WordPress is the best thing you can do. I know that WordPress is good for artists, because I am a digital artist and photographer myself and have built my website on WordPress. In this post, I’m reviewing the best WordPress themes for photographers that are quick to install, easy to customize, and come with all the essentials to make your photography website a success!
It doesn’t matter whether you are love taking photos in your free time or whether you are a professional photographer, it’s essential to have your own website. Otherwise, it’s much harder to get your photographs seen, attract clients, and sell your images and services.
Building your photography website with WordPress is a great choice, because WordPress offers many advantages over other website builders. It’s not only the most affordable option, but also the most versatile one in terms of creative freedom and functionality.
I know that WordPress is good for artists, because I am a digital artist and photographer myself and I have built my website (the one you’re on right now) on WordPress. I can guarantee that you won’t regret creating your website with WordPress. ʕᴖᴥᴖʔ
Given the nature of your work as a photographer, it’s key for your website to be visually appealing. But looks aren’t everything. There’s more to it.
Your WordPress site should also be user-friendly, eCommerce-ready (to sell your work), and SEO-optimized to rank it high in Google’s search results. These are just a few of the most crucial features.
Fortunately, there are WordPress themes that come ready-made with all those features—and more, providing you with everything you need to launch your own photography website.
In this post, I'm reviewing the best WordPress themes for photographers that are quick to install, easy to customize, and come with all the essentials to make your photography website a success!
Is WordPress good for photographers?
First of all, it’s important to note that there are two different versions of WordPress. On the one side, there’s WordPress.com, which is a website builder similar to Squarespace, Pixpa, or Simvoly.
→ Best Paid & Free Website Builders For Artists
Those website builders can be a great alternative for artists and photographers. However, they don’t offer the creative flexibility you’ll get with a self-hosted WordPress site. Plus, you won’t fully own your website because it’s hosted on a third-party platform that has a say in what and what not you are allowed to do.
A self-hosted WordPress site, on the other hand, is created with WordPress.org. This is the best option for any creative individual or business, and it’s what we are talking about in this post. ʕᴖᴥᴖʔ
The Content Management System (CMS) at WordPress.org is the best choice to build your photography website, in my opinion, because it offers unlimited design options and a myriad of (free) plugins, extensions, and integrations to extend the functionality of your site and make it fit any brand’s requirements.
Do you need help in building a successful photography website?
I got you covered! I have an entire guide for you to build an artist website for success that shows you everything from setting up your WordPress site, creating an online store, growing a mailing list, to starting an art blog—with a huge chapter on SEO and driving free, organic traffic to your site.
You can find out more about the e-guide here:
How to build a photography website with WordPress?
To get started, you will need to sign up for a WordPress hosting account. This will be your website’s home in the virtual world.
You will also need a domain name that users can type in their browsers to open your website, such as ginangiela.com. You can think of the domain name as the street address of your website where people can find it.
I recommend using A2 Hosting, ScalaHosting or Bluehost to get both WordPress hosting and a domain name. They are some of the most popular and reliable web hosting companies out there. ʕᴖᴥᴖʔ
More choices: → Best Web Hosting For Artists With WordPress Sites In 2025
Once you have hosting and a domain name, all you need is the right WordPress theme for your photography website and you are ready to go!
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What is the best WordPress theme for photographers?
Now, of course, you are asking how to choose the best WordPress theme for a photography site. Well, there are a couple of factors that you should take into account.
After all, your website should not only look good, but also be ready to work and upgradable, in case you want to add more functionality to sell your photos or offer online courses at a later point in time.
I have selected the 12 best WordPress themes for photographers on the list below with exactly these criteria in mind. Here’s what I’ve paid particular attention to:
Visual Appeal
You want your photography to leave the best impression. That’s why you need a stunning online presentation. Many of the themes I’m suggesting on my list of the 12 best WordPress themes for photographers have been made with visual creatives in mind or feature an image-driven layout out of the box.
Portfolio & E-Commerce Features
Since the main purpose of your website will be to showcase and sell your art, it’s great if the WordPress template has a ready-made portfolio page. It will save you the time of creating it yourself.
Nevertheless, it’s not a big deal to create your own portfolio gallery in case there’s no pre-designed one. Here’s how to do it: 3 Easy Ways To Create A Portfolio Gallery In WordPress.
Another key factor is e-commerce capability. If your WordPress theme lacks e-commerce functionality, you won’t be able to open your own store unless you change the theme. To avoid the hassle of switching themes, I suggest selecting a WordPress theme for your photography website that features e-commerce capability right from the start. Even if you don’t need it at the beginning.
→ Ultimate Guide To Selling Art On WordPress With WooCommerce For Artists.
All WordPress themes on the list below are eCommerce-ready, meaning they can seamlessly integrate with WooCommerce. This plugin allows you to sell physical and digital products, manage inventory, accept payments, handle shipping, and customize your WordPress store with various extensions.
Besides payment gateways like Stripe and Paypal for your WooCommerce store, you can add other services, such as shipping, newsletter opt-ins, wishlists, live chats, Trustpilot reviews, printing providers like Printful that will handle physical print sales for you, and many, many more.
To get an idea of what is available, check out the WooCommerce Marketplace.
Customization Options
Your photography website should match your artist brand. That’s why it’s vital that the theme offers customization options. All themes on the list are highly customizable, allowing you to align your site’s look and feel with your branding.
Page Builder Compatibility
Apart from being compatible with eCommerce plugins, all themes on the list work with the most popular page builders, such as Elementor, Divi, Brizy, Breakdance, and Spectra that offer advanced design options.
I’m using Elementor for this website, along with Essential Addons for Elementor and Ultimate Addons for Elementor.
If you’d like to learn more about that page builder, I have some tutorials for you to get stared:
Responsive Design
About half of the internet traffic comes from mobile devices. A responsive WordPress theme assures that your website is mobile-friendly and looks great on all devices.
Speed & SEO Optimization
SEO stands for search engine optimization and evidently helps you rank your website in the search results. An SEO-optimized WordPress theme includes clean code and is fast-loading, making it user-friendly and easy for search engines to crawl and index the site.
Here are some more tips for you to get your photography website’s SEO on point:
Support & Updates
It’s important to select a WordPress theme that is maintained by the developers to ensure that it is secure, regularly updated, and that you have someone to turn to in case something goes wrong!
With that being said, let’s dive right into our roundup of the 12 best WordPress themes for photographers!
12 Best WordPress Themes for Photographers
OceanWP
OceanWP is a multi-purpose WordPress theme with millions of active users and a 5-star rating on WordPress.org. I am using OceanWP for my artist website—and I’m loving it!
The theme offers extensive customization options, allowing you to tailor your site to your liking and artist brand. It is optimized for SEO, fully responsive, and compatible with WooCommerce and other eCommerce and LMS (Learning Management System) plugins. That’s how I’m able to offer e-learning courses on my website, besides physical art prints and digital downloads.
OceanWP offers numerous pre-made demos that you can install with one click. Many of those demos come with all the essential pages you need for an artist website, including portfolio galleries, about and contact pages, shop, blog, and more. There’s even an OceanWP portfolio extension available with the pro version that you can use for your art portfolio.
Just for you to know: I’ve built my website from scratch, without any pre-made demo, using Elementor, along with Essential Addons for Elementor and Ultimate Addons for Elementor. You can do that too, but it takes more effort than simply importing one of the pre-designed demos that you just need to fill with your own content.
→ Elementor For Photographers And Artists – QUICK & EASY Page Builder
Needless to say that OceanWP also works flawlessly with other popular page builders, such as Divi, Brizy, Breakdance, and Spectra.
If you want to learn more about this theme, take a look at my in-depth OceanWP WordPress Theme Review For Artists. To build a photography website, I particularly recommend the following OceanWP templates:
1. Photo
Photo—as its name suggests—is OceanWP’s WordPress theme tailored to photographers and other visual creatives. The template is user-friendly and includes various header styles for both desktop and mobile devices, along with a customizable top bar to link your social media channels.
It comes pre-loaded with all essential pages you need for a photography website, including portfolio gallery, home page with large image displays, contact and about page. There’s even a ready-made blog with sample post pages that you can modify to suit your needs. After all, we all know that blogging is good for artists. ʕᴖᴥᴖʔ
→ 7 Reasons Every Artist Should Have A Blog [*Hint: Blogging Is Profitable*]
The template is easy to install with a single click, enabling you to have your website up and running in less than an hour.
It also integrates a free WooCommerce shop and product pages, although the shop page is not yet linked in the header menu. However, you can easily add it with just one click if you wish to set up your own photography shop. In my mind, definitely one of the best WordPress themes for photographers!
2. Picture
Picture is an eCommerce template from OceanWP specifically crafted for visual artists. It comes with all the pages you need for showcasing your photography and selling it in your online store.
The homepage layout is designed to make a strong first impression: it beautifully displays your latest works for sale and allows you to add a brief description so visitors immediately understand what your photography is about.
In addition to highlighting your products, the homepage also features a section for your latest blog posts, allowing visitors to click through and start reading immediately. If you’re planning to start an art blog, you’ll be pleased to know that fully pre-designed blog post templates are included, ready for you to fill with your own content!
Another must-have feature for photographers is the gallery page with lightbox capability, enabling viewers to browse through your photographs in full size. As the template is made for eCommerce, you’ll get a fully functional shop out of the box, complete with individual product pages, shopping cart, checkout page, payment gateways, and much more.
3. Camera
Camera is another powerful eCommerce template from OceanWP’s WordPress theme collection. It’s tailored to creatives who work with a camera (*wink*) and consider selling their shots.
The front page provides plenty of space for your photos for sale, customer testimonials, and latest blog posts. That being said, the template also includes a pre-designed blog, equipped with everything you need to start writing about your photography.
The shop is fully set up with various product categories, which are also linked in the footer menu. Your customers can use product filters and switch between grid and list view to quickly navigate your product offer.
Additionally, the template is ready for membership sign-ups, which is ideal to offer paid premium content. A top bar allows you to link your social media channels and display shop notices like discount codes—a great way to attract buyers and subscribers!
While there isn’t a dedicated gallery page, the template provides plenty of opportunities to showcase your photos. If you prefer to have a separate portfolio page, you can create your own gallery or use one of the premade gallery building blocks from Elementor available with the OceanWP Pro Bundle.
Astra
Astra is one of the market-leading themes in the WordPress world. Just like OceanWP, it has stellar ratings on WordPress.org and 1M+ active users. Known for being lightweight and quick to load, it offers a great user experience and is optimized for SEO.
Astra is fully compatible with WooCommerce for selling both physical and digital products, such as prints and digital files of your photos. For those focused on digital products, Astra also supports plugins like Easy Digital Downloads. Apart from that, the theme works seamlessly with Learning Management System (LMS) plugins, such as Sensei LMS, LearnDash, and LearnPress, which are ideal for offering online courses.
As if that wasn’t enough, Astra is compatible with all major WordPress page builders, including Elementor, Divi, Brizy, and Breakdance, and even provides its very own visual builder, called Spectra.
The Astra theme is available as a free and premium version. The free version provides all the essential features, while the Pro version includes advanced options, premium templates, and white-label capabilities, starting at US$49 per year.
You can be sure to have one of the best WordPress themes for your photography website when choosing Astra, because there are numerous pre-designed templates that allow you to beautifully showcase your photos and also open an art shop with all necessary eCommerce tools.
I particularly suggest looking into the following templates:
4. Photographer
Photographer is a professional-looking WordPress theme that you cannot go wrong with as a photographer. The theme is clearly focused on displaying your portfolio in the best way possible. It offers plenty of space to showcase your photography and provide information about your work and services.
On the home page, the theme greets visitors by showing them your best work in the hero image. It’s equipped with appealing parallax effects and well-structured content blocks to provide an overview over your photography and related offerings.
The portfolio page allows you to prominently display your best artwork at the top, accompanied by a brief description. The rest of your portfolio is presented in a tiled gallery that opens into a scrollable lightbox when the viewer clicks on an image. If you prefer a masonry gallery, you can easily create one on your own using Elementor!
→ How To Add A Masonry Gallery To WordPress (Easy Step-By-Step Tutorial)
5. Artist
Artist is another of Astra’s WordPress templates specifically made for visual creatives. It’s also ideal for beginners, because it offers all the essentials for launching a website without being overwhelming.
As a matter of course, the template includes home, portfolio, about, and contact pages that you can all customize to your liking. The portfolio gallery organizes your artwork into different categories and features a “Buy Now” button, which links to your future online store.
On the homepage, you can showcase your best and latest work, say a blurb about your work as a photographer, and inform visitors about upcoming exhibitions. The about page provides ample space for your biography and artist statement, while the contact page makes it easy for visitors to find your studio on Google Maps, reach out to you, and follow your social media profiles.
6. Painter Artist
Painter Artist, another Astra WordPress theme for visual creatives, is perfect for displaying and selling your photography. Alongside the about and portfolio pages, the template also features a special section for promoting your upcoming exhibitions.
The homepage welcomes visitors with a large hero image that showcases your best photograph at the top, accompanied by the story behind the piece, your name, and photographic work.
With WooCommerce already set up, the pre-built shop comes with sample products that you can easily replace with your own offerings. The theme’s minimalist design provides a clean, distraction-free experience, making it easy for visitors to explore your photography website!
Automattic
Automattic is one of the most popular developers of all things WordPress. They are the creators of WordPress.com and of many market-leading assets for WordPress.org, such as WooCommerce (ecommerce extension), Jetpack (comprehensive security suite), Akismet (spam protection), Sensei LMS (e-learning system), and Pressable (managed WordPress hosting).
Basically, it’s the one-stop place for all things WordPress.
In fact, Automattic also features a collection of top-rated WordPress themes that are built for speed and performance, loading quickly and guaranteeing an excellent user experience. The themes are eCommerce-ready and ideal for small business owners like artists, photographers, and other creatives.
Many of Automattic’s themes are specifically made for visual storytelling, meaning visuals like images, videos, typography, and layout are in the main focus. In any case, all themes are fully responsive and compatible with WordPress’s native block editor and most other page builder to customize your theme’s look and feel.
All themes come with free updates and customer support that will help you with installation, configuration and usage of your theme.
Altogether, Automattic’s collection includes 100+ pre-designed demo sites that you can import with one click. All you need to do is replace the content—and you can send your website live!
Here are two awesome template choices for your photography site:
7. Basti
Basti—you don’t necessarily need to look any further to find the best WordPress theme for photographers from Automattic’s product range.
In fact, the template is specifically tailored to the arts & crafts industry and includes everything necessary for a fully featured photography website. It includes lots of beautiful pre-designed image blocks to showcase your work and there’s even a dedicated ‘Basti Art Market‘ layout that you can import with one click of the mouse.
The Basti template comes complete with everything you can possibly need for your artist website, including online store, testimonials and pricing pages, news pages to announce upcoming exhibitions or new artwork for sale, and a mega menu with multiple columns ideal for websites with extensive categories.
You can choose from seven different layouts for the home page that welcomes your visitors with a selection of your best images and shortcuts to your art products. Even the pre-designed footer includes a tiled gallery block that directs your viewers right to your six best artworks!
8. Folio
Folio is an excellent WordPress theme for your photography site that you should definitely have a look at, if you choose to use Automattic. Since the template was made for visual creatives, it’s optimal to showcase and sell your photographic work.
Folio features a minimalist and edgy design that makes your photography site stand out. The most important menu items are located on the left-hand side, leaving ample space for your artwork to be displayed on the homepage. The built-in portfolio page (also linked in the main menu) makes it easy to create a showcase for your artwork.
Once a visitor clicks on the little hamburger icon, a full-screen menu opens with more navigation options to your shop, social media, and so on. The WooCommerce shop is complete with products, product pages, descriptions, and the possibility for your customers to leave reviews.
Divi
Divi is another top contender for best WordPress themes for photographers. Developed by Elegant Themes, a well-known name in the WordPress community, Divi allows you to build any kind of website. It is fully responsive, SEO-friendly, highly customizable, and ready to use right out of the box.
Divi works with all popular page builders, including Elementor and Brizy. However, it’s important to note that Divi does not support WordPress’s native Gutenberg editor. Instead, it has its own editor, also called Divi, which is part of the package. That being said, Divi requires an annual license fee, which is reasonably priced and provides access to all products developed by Elegant Themes.
All Divi templates come with pre-designed shop and blog pages. However, there are no specific pre-made templates for individual product and single post pages. But that’s not a major issue; you can easily import one of Divi’s single page designs if you don’t want to create your own.
In fact, Divi offers over 1,900 single page designs to choose from. Additionally, it provides 260 complete website design packs, and I have selected the best ones for your photography website:
9. Photography Studio
Photography Studio is a fantastic choice for photographers, especially those who want to showcase entire projects and sell services, in addition to prints of their photographic work.
→ How To Display Art Prints For Sale Online [*6 Tips That Work*]
Besides a standard portfolio gallery, the template includes a project page for presenting photography projects consisting of multiple images. Two pre-designed service sections allow you to present any photography-related services you offer, such as photo editing, retouching, creative direction, commissions, or online courses.
There’s a contact form in the footer for clients to easily reach out to you. Like all Divi templates, Photography Studio is ready for eCommerce, although WooCommerce is not pre-installed.
10. Art Gallery
Art Gallery is a versatile WordPress template with a focus on visual artistry. Its clean and minimalist design can be easily tailored to match any photographer’s brand.
The template’s about page provides ample space to include your artist statement, mention your creative achievements, and highlight your best works. The template also features a dedicated artist page where you can share your biography, display more of your photographs, and even include a video about your work.
Art Gallery is particularly suitable for photographers who hold exhibitions or need to make other announcements on their websites. It includes two pre-designed sections that you can use to promote events you take part in—or simply repurpose to showcase more of your photography!
Themify
Themify is a widely used provider of WordPress themes and plugins with over 120,000 happy customers and a 4.9-star rating on their official Facebook page. It’s an ideal choice for small businesses, bloggers, e-commerce shops using WooCommerce, and personal portfolio websites.
The themes are lightweight, fast loading, and optimized for SEO, helping to improve your website’s ranking on Google. They come with the company’s own page builder, the Themify Builder, but also work with other builders, such as the Gutenberg block editor or any other popular page builder like Elementor, Divi, Brizy, Spectra, and Breakdance.
Currently, Themify features over 40+ WordPress themes for all types of websites that are ready for import with one click. The most popular themes are Ultra and Shoppe. In my view, Ultra definitely has its place among the best WordPress themes for photographers, so don’t miss checking it out!
11. Ultra Photography
Photography is Ultra’s WordPress theme specifically designed for photographers and other visual artists. Naturally, it has everything you need for creating a photography website. The homepage is purpose-built with a gorgeous optical layout to showcase your best work.
Apart from that, the theme includes a ready-made portfolio page where you can display more of your artwork in a masonry-style gallery. There’s a placeholder for your logo in both the top and footer menu that you can replace it with your own logo. Colors, fonts, and other elements are customizable with just a few clicks, too.
Photography is also a great pick if you want to get into blogging, because Themify’s Builder Pro allows you to custom-design everything, from single posts to post archives, progress reading bar, related post widget, and so on. Builder Pro, the Themify page builder, and many other plugins are included in Themify’s Club subscription.
Thrive Themes
Thrive Themes provides WordPress plugins and themes that are designed to create conversion-focused websites. That’s why Thrive Themes is particularly popular among bloggers and creative entrepreneurs who want to build a business around their photography.
In fact, Thrive Themes has all the tools you possibly need to monetize your photographic work. Some of their main products include: Thrive Architect (a visual drag-and-drop page builder for WordPress), Thrive Apprentice (to sell online courses and memberships), Thrive Suite (for blogging and affiliate marketing), Thrive Quiz Builder (for interactive quizzes and surveys), and Thrive Leads (opt-in forms to grow your email list).
→ 40+ TOP Lead Magnet Ideas For Artists To Grow Your Mailing List
What sets Thrive Themes apart from the other themes on the list is that it acts as a foundational platform that provides all the functionalities and features that WordPress offers in one place. Once you sign up for the Thrive Suite, you can choose your favorite WordPress theme for your photography site, get free access to the Theme Builder and 9 other Thrive plugins, including the ones I’ve mentioned above.
Thrive makes sure that your website is secure, regularly updated, and has access to the latest tools and widgets at all times. All themes are optimized for speed, fully responsive, and SEO-friendly. They are eCommerce-ready and integrate seamlessly with WooCommerce—meaning you can immediately start selling your photographic work!
As I see it, the following theme is a great choice for building a photography website with WordPress:
12. Allure
Allure is one of the best WordPress themes for photographers from Thrive Theme’s collection, for a number of reasons. First of all, the homepage is designed to showcase your best photograph at the top—a good start for any visual creative’s website. A prominent call to action encourages visitors to learn more or go directly to the product page.
Moreover, Allure comes fully equipped with everything you need for your photography website, including a pre-made online store and blog. It also offers multiple sample pages for different purposes, such as contact page, about page, services, and more.
Nevertheless, there is one small drawback: Allure does not include a pre-built portfolio section. To work around this, you can either customize one of the provided sample pages or create a portfolio page from scratch, for example using a tiled gallery!
