Upgrading my photography website

A little leap: part 1

I’m delighted to share my new website! Before, my website had five albums and a short blurb on moving to California and wanting to meet other photographers and surfers. (I still always want to meet them :] ) But fast forward a bit and I had built a real portfolio and felt like I had outgrown this space. I would say that digital marketing is not my forte, and in residency I only learned how to cut, but over the past two months I learned so much about how to show up with a body of work.

My new home page

Making an online home for my photos

I think that every photographer should have a website! I really, really believe it. A portfolio can be ten images to start with. When I first made my website, it was mainly film from my travels and my first week at Pismo Beach. It didn’t actually cross my mind until I took a film photography class and met professionals, who shared their sites. This was my original process - I made an excel sheet, sites, and listed things I liked about them. (This was totally foreign to me, I had never made anything but medical journal research).

I started with Squarespace, which is $25 per month and set up everything in half a day. Even if I didn’t have a clear direction yet, I think that something happened psychologically when I owned a website.

Also, platforms glitch all the time. The “algorithm,” which always reminds me of the Wizard of Oz, changes regularly. Websites are actually ours.

I hit a tipping point when I had done a number of shoots and found a real sense of where I wanted this whole thing to go. There were three categories that I wanted to do more of - couples, makers and artists, and surf photography. There’s a fair amount of latitude with each of them, but most of my photos have a theme of people interacting with the natural world. I also knew what I had less interest in - big groups, newborn shoots, studio. I started learning about pitching, and it felt like the right time to upgrade my website to be a reflection of how I had progressed.

I tried different ways, and AI was not it for me

I tried doing this myself. I tried prompts with ChatGPT and Claude to audit my website, which went just about nowhere. I tried vibe coding, which went one step beyond nowhere. Then, I read that to create money, you have to invest some money. I did a rabbit hole search of website designers specifically for photographers, and I really like Christina from the Buffalo Collective. I got the feeling that I liked her as a person from her site, which is exactly what I wanted people to get from reading my site.

I somehow had the thought that I would send in pictures and that would be the majority of the work? It was actually a lot of good homework. I singlehandedly kept my local coffee shop in business answering, editing, and re-editing questionnaires. What surprised me the most - a lot of the questions were adjacent to photography and more about me. By now I’ve owned a lot of my story - coming from being a surgeon, knowing that I wanted to get to California, and finding joy from the ocean. I thought a lot about the defining features of my process, which include gentle posing and strong attention to natural light. In a world of AI where images are so easy to generate, people want to know who is actually behind all this. It’s a good time to show some personality, which I think is lovely for all of us who have come to photography from a former life. Here are some examples of questions toward the end-stage of editing:

Q: Clients often say you make them feel comfortable. Walk me through your first five minutes with someone who’s nervous.

A: I run into this constantly as a surgeon, and I’ve learned that the warmth and presence I bring say as much as the words. Whenever possible, I arrange a phone call ahead of the shoot so we can get to know each other and I can understand their expectations. When we meet, I chat with them naturally, telling them about myself and learning about them, to build a connection before shooting. I’ll usually start with walking and candid shots to help them relax in front of the camera, giving them plenty of encouragement along the way, as a friend would.

Q: Outside of photography and medicine, what are you naturally curious about?

A: I’m always curious about how people build new careers. I’ve photographed a lot of people whose businesses and brands were their second act, and photography is exactly that for me too. This is a career I had no formal training in, that I started while working in a completely different field. I love hearing people’s stories about their reinventions, and I try to bring that character out in their photos.

Q: When you’re not working, what does your ideal Saturday actually look like?

A: I like to wake up early to surf and shoot my friends in the water. I’ll then spend the afternoon reading in my hammock and getting tacos from my local taqueria. My favorite way to end the day is with a bonfire and games on the beach.

It was so worth it to hire someone. For me, it wasn’t just all of the technical aspects of good web design. I felt (and still feel) shy about saying that I’m actually doing this. But I partnered with someone who has been with other people at this juncture, and I spent so much time preparing/getting feedback for this website that being a photographer actually felt more real.

My new website below!

Here’s the link: https://clarazhu.me/

And if any photographer is also at my stage, I had a wonderful experience with Christina.

I’ve now interacted with a number of cool people on Substack building things, and I’d love to see the links to anyone else’s website! No project is too small or too early.