A portfolio site that shows the work and books the job
BrightSite is the modern website platform for photographers. Image-first galleries sized for every screen, lead-capture forms that don't lose inquiries, and a blog for SEO. Plans from $29/mo. No WordPress themes to update, no plugin tax.
Problems we hear from photographers
If any of these sound familiar, your site is costing you bookings.
Galleries load slow
Full-resolution photos kill mobile speed. By the time the gallery loads, the prospect has bounced.
Updating the portfolio is painful
Every new shoot needs a developer, an FTP client, or a plugin that breaks. So portfolios get stale.
Contact forms lose leads
The inquiry form is broken, going to an old email, or filtered to spam. Bookings vanish before you ever see them.
No SEO depth
"Wedding photographer in Boston" should bring you traffic. A site with thin SEO rarely wins those searches.
What's included for photographers
Built for image-first sites that need to convert.
- 01
Responsive image pipeline
Upload a full-size JPEG or PNG. BrightSite serves it at 400, 800, 1600, and 2400 pixels wide, sends each device the right size, and uses WebP where the browser supports it.
- 02
Gallery sections
Ask Lumi for a gallery section, or edit one that comes with a template. Every image in it is served at the right size for the screen.
- 03
Inquiry forms that don't lose leads
Built-in forms with email alerts, spam filtering, and an inbox of every submission. On Grow and Scale, a webhook can forward them to Slack or your CRM.
- 04
Blog for SEO and editorial
Built-in blog with structured data, RSS, sitemap, and tags. Publish from the visual editor. Rank for "[city] wedding photographer" and "behind the scenes" longtails.
- 05
Images sized for every screen
Images are resized for every screen and sent as WebP where the browser supports it, and there are no plugins adding their own scripts.
- 06
Analytics + session replay
Analytics on every plan shows which galleries get visits and where visitors come from. Session replay and heatmaps (Grow and Scale) show how people move through a gallery.
Start from a finished site.
Complete templates you can make your own. Hover to scroll through each one.
An example, just to make it concrete
Imagine a wedding photographer in Maine. After a Saturday shoot, she edits 60 photos on Sunday, uploads the favorites to a new gallery page on BrightSite Monday morning, and publishes a short blog post about the venue with the rest. The blog post links to the gallery. The gallery links to her inquiry form.
Over the following months, searches for the venue name start bringing in inquiries. Each one lands in her inbox, and a webhook copies it to her CRM, so nothing gets missed.
Illustrative scenario. Not a real customer.
BrightSite vs the alternatives for photographers
| Platform | Plugins to update | Built-in forms | Team members | Starting price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BrightSite | None | Built in | Unlimited on every plan | $29/mo, or $290 a year billed yearly |
| WordPress (self-hosted) | Yes, you keep them updated | Needs a plugin | Unlimited users | Hosting plus plugins, varies |
| Squarespace | None | Form blocks | 2 on Basic, unlimited from Core | From $19/mo billed yearly ($25 monthly) |
| Wix | None | Wix Forms | 2 on Light, up to 100 on Business Elite | From $17/mo billed yearly |
Competitor prices and limits are from their US pricing pages, checked September 27, 2026. More reasons small businesses pick BrightSite →
Photographer website FAQs
How are gallery images served?
Images are resized for every screen and sent as WebP where the browser supports it, and there are no plugins adding their own scripts.
Can I add watermarks to my photos?
Not in-app today. We recommend watermarking your exports in Lightroom or Capture One before uploading, which is how most pros handle it anyway.
What image formats can I upload?
JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, and AVIF. Export RAW files from Lightroom or Capture One first.
Do you handle client galleries and proofing?
Honest answer: not today. BrightSite is built for the marketing/portfolio side. For client galleries with proofing, favoriting, and downloads, we recommend pairing with Pixieset, Pic-Time, or ShootProof and linking out from your BrightSite portfolio.
Will my site work on mobile?
Mobile-first by default. The responsive image pipeline, the layout system, and the templates are all built phone-first.
Other industries we build for
Care most about search visibility? See the SEO and AI search tools built into BrightSite.
Weighing platforms? Read the best website builders for SEO, or the migration checklist if you are moving an existing site. Explore the documentation to see how it all works.
