Victoria Smith
We moved Victoria Smith’s photography off a slow template host and onto a portfolio and print shop she owns: faster, cheaper to run, and updated in batches instead of one item at a time. Then we made the ad film that sends people to it.
The site
What we built first: victoriasmithphoto.com.
The website
Photography portfolio and print commerce
Victoria Smith Photography
Left a template-host photography site for an owned portfolio and print commerce system she can actually run.
The problem
Victoria’s site lived on a template host: adequate looking, but slow, and soul-destroying to update — a large photographic catalogue managed one item at a time, built for clerks not makers.
The tension
Victoria’s previous site was adequate, but performance was not optimized. More importantly, the nature of template self-hosting platforms makes data entry soul-destroying — especially with a large photographic catalogue that had to be uploaded and managed one item at a time.
What we decided
We rebuilt the site as a custom system she owns. Performance is significantly better. A proper admin with batch upload removed the repetitive data-entry burden. Ongoing costs are lower.
What we built
- Image-led artist and band galleries
- Print editions, variants, pricing, and product detail
- Stripe-supported commerce and inquiry management
- Protected administration and responsive media delivery
- A dedicated production environment with migrated email
The result
An owned site and admin with batch upload and print commerce, so the photographer can publish work instead of fighting the CMS.
Batch upload and dedicated administration now make a large photographic catalogue practical to manage, on a system Victoria owns.
Ownership
The portfolio, catalog, commerce, database, media, administration, domain, and production environment are independently operated on Victoria’s own infrastructure.
How it runs
A DigitalOcean VPS, Linux, PostgreSQL and Prisma, Nginx, domain, TLS, and email migration form the maintained production environment.
Technical specification
Architecture, systems, data, and how it is hosted and run.
- 01
Portfolio and commerce
A full-stack Next.js application connects image-led artist and band galleries to print editions, variants, pricing, inquiries, and Stripe-supported purchasing without allowing the commerce interface to overpower the photography.
- 02
Data and administration
PostgreSQL and Prisma model products, pricing schedules, print sizes and editions, variants, inquiries, artists and aliases, bands and members, posters and lineups, and analytics. Protected administration manages the catalog and commercial operation.
- 03
Commerce and media
Stripe Checkout is integrated directly through Stripe’s REST API. A custom S3-compatible DigitalOcean Spaces layer uses AWS Signature Version 4 for upload, deletion, signed access, and CDN delivery, with responsive handling for high-resolution photography.
- 04
Independent production environment
The application was deployed to its own DigitalOcean VPS with Linux, Docker, Nginx, PostgreSQL, domain and TLS configuration, plus email creation and migration. The resulting portfolio and commerce system is independently owned and operated.
The ad campaign
With the site rebuilt, we made an ad film to bring people to it.
The ad film
Film · 56 seconds
Victoria Smith Photography
With the new site live, SI made an ad film for Victoria Smith Photography to send people to it.
Services
Victoria Smith PhotographyLink
Project details
Services
Currently accepting select projects
Let’s make it.
Outgrowing a template host? We build the site you own, so you can publish the work instead of fighting the CMS.
We build and deploy what you need so you can create and ship what you want. Then we make the ads and place them.