Your photos are your product, and your website is your gallery. A good photography portfolio website shows your best work, loads quickly and makes it simple for clients to book you. Here’s how to build one with AI, step by step, even if you’ve never made a website.
What matters most to prospective clients
- Your best work first. Lead with your strongest images in a clean, fast grid, because most visitors decide within seconds.
- Fast, sharp images. Compress files and use responsive sizes so galleries look crisp without slowing the page.
- A clear specialty. Make it obvious whether you shoot weddings, portraits or commercial work, so the right clients enquire.
- Pricing guidance. Show starting prices or packages, which filters out poor-fit enquiries and builds trust.
- An easy enquiry form. Ask for the date, location and type of shoot in one short form.
Pages to include on your photography portfolio website
- Home. A striking hero image or slider, a short intro and a link to your portfolio.
- Portfolio / Galleries. Organised by type of shoot, with 10 to 20 strong images each.
- About. Your story, style and a friendly portrait.
- Services and pricing. Packages, what’s included and how booking works.
- Testimonials. Short quotes from happy clients.
- Blog (optional). Behind-the-scenes shoots and real-session stories attract search traffic.
- Contact / Booking. A form asking for date, type of shoot and location.
Choose and prepare your images
- Pick your strongest 30 to 60 images across categories.
- Export them at a sensible size. Web images rarely need to be wider than about 2000 pixels.
- Use modern formats like WebP or well-compressed JPEG.
- Name files descriptively, for example
wedding-couple-sunset-lisbon.jpg. - Write alt text describing each image.
Domain and hosting
A domain with your name or studio name is easiest to remember. Choose hosting with enough storage and speed for images. See our beginner’s guide to creating a WordPress website.
Set up your photography portfolio website with Tuli Builder
- Install the Tuli theme. On a WordPress site with hosting and a domain, install and activate Tuli Builder. New to WordPress? Start with the beginner guide.
- Open the AI Assistant. In your dashboard go to Tuli, then AI Assistant, and pick Tuli AI, which is included with your licence and needs no API key. Prefer your own account? Add an API key from Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini or OpenRouter instead.
- Paste the prompt below. Swap in your real business name, city and services. The assistant lays out the page, drafts the copy and writes clean HTML and CSS.
- Refine visually or by asking. Click any element to restyle it in the style panel, or describe the change to the AI.
- Add your inner pages, then publish. Repeat the process for each page in the list above, replace placeholder text and photos with real ones, and publish.
The best prompt for a photography portfolio website
Copy this prompt, then change the name, city and details to match your business.
Build a portfolio home page for Lena Hart Photography, a wedding and portrait photographer in Seattle, Washington. Hero with a full-screen image slideshow and the line Honest, Timeless Photographs. Add a selected-work grid with six categories, an about section with a photo of me, a packages section with three starting prices, a client-love testimonials row, a short Instagram-style feed and an enquiry form asking for date, location and shoot type. Keep the design minimal with lots of white space, a thin sans-serif font, black text on white and fast-loading images.
Follow-up prompts to refine it
- Create a gallery template for a single wedding with a large image grid and a lightbox.
- Add a pricing page with three packages and a comparison table.
- Add a blog template for client stories with a hero image and a gallery.
Then ask for changes: “make the gallery images square”, “add a contact button to the header”, “use a lighter background”.
Build gallery pages that load fast
- Use a clean grid with consistent image sizes.
- Lazy-load images so only visible ones load first.
- Avoid auto-playing music or heavy slideshows.
- Test on mobile, where most clients will see your work first.
Make booking simple
Your contact form should ask for the essentials: name, email, date, location and type of shoot. Add a line about when you’ll reply. Tuli’s built-in form builder emails enquiries directly to you, and you can link to a calendar tool later if you want live scheduling.
SEO for photographers
- Use your specialty and location in headings: “Wedding Photographer in Lisbon”.
- Write short blog posts about real sessions and venues.
- Give every image descriptive alt text.
- Claim your Google Business Profile if you serve a local area.
- Get listed by venues and planners you work with.
Protect your work
- Add a subtle watermark to proofs.
- Include a copyright line in the footer.
- Use client galleries with passwords for private delivery.
Launch checklist
- Check every gallery on phone and desktop.
- Run a page speed test and compress any slow images.
- Submit your contact form and confirm delivery.
- Add social links and your Google Business listing.
Photography portfolio website FAQ
How many photos should be on my site?
Quality over quantity. A tight portfolio of your best 30 to 60 images beats hundreds.
Will big images slow my site?
They can if uncompressed. Resize, compress and lazy-load them.
How much does it cost?
A domain, hosting and your builder. Tuli Builder is a one-time payment from $49, with no subscription.