My New Fine Art Photography Website (and Why I Switched)
Switching website platforms wasn’t something I expected to do this year. In fact, if I was ever building an online store, I never expected I would build it on anything other than Shopify. I’ve been building themes and providing customization support on Shopify stores for more than a decade, helping hundreds of merchants run their businesses. Honestly, it still feels strange to step away from the platform I know better than my own kids. But as my fine art photography business has evolved, I realized something important: my site didn’t feel like a photography site anymore. It felt like… a Shopify site.
And that’s not what I wanted.
Shopify is incredible for e-commerce, but it comes with a problem for photographers: it’s really easy to overbuild. Slideshows, mega menus, pop-outs, animated sections, specialty layouts — all things I’m guilty of leaning into, because that’s literally what I build for a living. But the more I added, the more the site drifted away from the reason people were there in the first place: the photographs.
The irony isn’t lost on me.
So, I decided to switch platforms to WideRange Galleries, a website platform by photographers for photographers. The main reason? It forced me to slow down and simplify. The platform is intentionally minimal, almost maddeningly so at times, but that’s exactly what makes it perfect for fine art. Images load fast, URLs are clean, SEO is baked into the foundation, and the overall experience centers on the artwork rather than the website furniture around it. No distracting popups. No animated headers. No building a complex navigation menu at 1 a.m. “just because I can.”
It’s honestly refreshing.
Switching also gave me the push I needed to adopt a domain name that actually fits the work I’m creating. maxwellfineart.com feels more intentional, and more aligned with the long-term direction I want this business to go. I always hesitate to completely change domains and lose all the search engine progress I had already built, but sometimes you have to move on from the things that don’t quite fit anymore — like the closet full of camera backpacks in my room.
I’ll be creating a video soon diving deeper into the technical side of this transition, including things like SEO, speed, image handling, and why certain platforms simply serve art better. Think of that one as the nerdy companion piece to this blog post. But for now, I’m just excited to finally have a website that feels calm, focused, and true to the work I’m trying to create.
If you haven’t explored the new site yet, I hope you’ll take a look. If you notice fewer flashy features, that’s by design. It turns out simpler really is better… even for a web designer. To me, landscape photography is about slowing down and appreciating the simple details. This new website feels like it does the same. I hope you agree.
