If you want to make it "easy" on the Blogging thing then just blog from Wordpress.com or Blogger.com. No sense in paying for web hosting just to host a blog.
I don't really have a sense for what it is you want to do with your "photography business". If you are a photographer and want to sell photos and advertise your work on the main site then, again, go with Smugmug. I haven't seen advice here from anybody actually running a photography business and generic knowledge about what might be available for other kinds of hosting is not germane. I've been building websites for over 16 years now - everything from straight HTML to blogging to Church sites to large forums to photography to many other kinds of sites.
I wouldn't necessarily disagree with this. Rich is definitely right in that a lot of this depends on what you're wanting to do. If you want to actually sell pictures off the site, with a shopping cart, etc., etc., hosting your own WordPress account is not the way to go, as it would take a lot more than you probably know how to do or are willing to pay for. So if you want to really run a business through the site, you need to look at other options.
There is not a "Oh, this worked for my blog so it will work for your photography business" solution.
Having a blog in conjunction with your photography website is a good idea but your goal here is not to spend/waste time trying to maintain a blog but to blog in order to promote your photography. If you host your own Wordpress instance then you'll be spending money and time that you don't need.
Except that by hosting one's own WP install, you can customize your site so that the main WP page is not the blog, but you can have the blog as a separate part if you want.
The only reason to host your own Wordpress blog is because you enjoy the "hobby" aspect of self-hosting and administration of the back end.
I'm not sure that this is entirely true. You can do a lot more customization and the themes available on Wordpress.com, in my opinion, are free for a reason.
The other mistake most people make is an assumption that aesthetics is the key factor to web success. It's not even close. The most successful websites in the world are also the most austere. I recommend a free account on Wordpress.com or Blogger.com and just find a theme you like. Don't spend a dime on a theme. If your business was big enough to worry about a custom blogging theme then you wouldn't need to come to us for advice but your IT person dedicated to supporting you would be doing this research for you.
Go with what's simple and focus your time on what really matters. Get the blog up and the site up to start advertising your work and then start using keywords that will attract the right kind of traffic.
Again, I don't necessarily disagree with this in its entirety. However, I think aesthetics (particularly for anything related to photography or graphic design) are quite important. When it comes to businesses I am considering using, if I think the website looks amateur, I assume the same about the quality of the product. I'm sure lots of people don't think like that, but I definitely do, and I know a lot of people who are the same. So again, Rich is right in that you really need to know exactly what you want this website for. If you just want to blog and put some pictures up, using a free Wordpress.com account may be the way to go. If you want to have a more professional looking site with full info on your business, along with a blogging feature, I'm not convinced the the free option is really the way to go.
---------- Post added at 03:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:30 PM ----------
And let me add this:
I would trust Rich much more than myself about anything to do with the technical aspect, the "function" of all of this. I've been really talking more about the form or the look and feel of everything. To me, that is very important. To Rich, he's trying to clarify for you the function of your site. E.g., if you look at his SmugMug page, it appears (correct me if I'm wrong, Rich) that one can view the galleries, look at them in different sizes, and buy them all right off of the site. Those are all great functions that to have up on your own site would be more than you're probably wanting to deal with. So again, trust Rich about the function stuff.
I wasn't thinking, as he said, so much about the business side of it, but rather the look of a site where people could go to get a feel for your photography and contact you for projects, etc. I think that a site like that needs to look sharp. Anyhow, just some thoughts.
