Hey What's Up? How is everyone doing this week? Me? Pretty well, thanks for asking. This week I want to talk about something I don't think I have discussed before, websites. If you're reading this you know I have a website . It's what all of these blogs are attached to. I have some of my best photo's in galleries that you can see. I really don't try to sell photos but will if someone wants one. But the question is do you need a website if you are just an amateur photographer? I really don't think so .  Now don't get me wrong this blog isn't against websites just that I don't think that you need one but let's do some pro's and con's on websites.

Pro's: Websites are easy to put together and create. There are all kinds of companies with templates that let you build and personalize your very own website. If you want to sell some of your images these websites make it easy to do so. They may even take care of all of the work and just send you your cut of the money made from selling images. You can have a blog if you like to write like I do. I've never been much of a writer growing up but after I got a website and gave it a go I found that I liked doing it. They like anything else can be inexpensive. I think I started mine for 5 bucks a month for the basic service but I think the price has risen over the years but it's still less than 10 dollars per month. But like anything else the more you want to do with it the more it will cost. You can have world wide coverage of your photo's and presented the way you want them to be seen. If you use any social media type service they will compress and alter your photo's a little. And of course it's kind of neat to say " just check out my website" when you're taking to someone new.

Con's: It takes effort to keep up a website. You have to update the site with new images and blogs to keep it current . You don't have a staff to take care of this you are a staff of one. Subscriptions can be a pain. How many do you have from Adobe, Netflix, Hulu, ... This is just one more.  So there is the website and then there is the domain name mine is MaxStansellPhotography.com but that doesn't come free you have to purchase and make sure it's not already out there. You will probably have a email attached to the domain name so there is the upkeep of that also.

So there are some pro's and con's It looks like the pro's have over taken the con's but the con's are strong arguments. To tell you the truth If I had to do it all over again I don't know if I would get a full fledged photography website. Most if not all my activity on this site is this blog. I keep it pretty active as I post once a week. I think that the only reason that I keep this website open is because of the blog. I have over 350 of them and I don't want all of that work to disappear .  I have the basic subscription so it's fairly cheap to keep. I don't update the photo's as much as I should but I do like saying "Check out my blog" or "Check out my Website" Its something I have built. But if you just want to share photo's there are sites like Flickr, 500PX, Instagram or even on Facebook. Most of these sites aren't really secure so when your photo is out on the web it's out there for anyone to grab. With a website Its a little more secure but still there are ways folks can get your photographs. Me I really don't care that much if someone uses my photo's if they aren't making a profit from it. I would prefer they ask but I have found my photo's in Text books and web articles and I'm not too bothered with it. I don't do photography to make money it's for fun. But Monday Quarterbacking I would get a website but one for just the blog and maybe not to showcase photography. But that's just me. It doesn't cost much to do a website and I do enjoy playing with it.

Well that's my thoughts . Until next week Get out and Shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link