Maybe a template or advice from photographer? Thanks
A good question, but one that is not an easy straight forward answer.
The best advice I can give you is sit down with yourself and have a good think about the following…
- Who are your?, how do you want to come across as?, and what is your style?
- Who are your targeting your website at, aka marketing niche?
- Look into your brand style… the colours and font style and any supportive material
- Take pen to paper and sketch out the wireframe… the web pages you will have making up your website in total
- Have a think regarding the keywords you will be using to promote your website via SEO which entail will give you and idea in how to write out your website’s content
- Once you have that sorted work on how your want to present your page(s) layouts. The essential is the home page and the subpage. The subpage will represent all your other pages of your website… like a pseudo template
And once you have that all worked out it is time to dig in and start designing your website in Sitely. If you are familiar with Figma or Sketch you can also fidelity mockup your website in those and when completed import it across to Sitely. Sitely does a really great job in importing! 
Once you come to the end of creating your website I would also physically test your site on the mobile devices, plus include Android and Windows - if you can. The next step is to purchase hosting and Publish your website to it.
Sitely has one or two templates that can work for what you want to create which you’ll find when creating a new project, or Sitely, with a bit of AI help, can generate you one to start things off.
Then there are prebuilt Sitely templates out in the wild that could give you further ideas or help as a starting point. Here are the templates I have built out for photographers…
- Theme Kit 4 - Konscious Fotograpghy themed template 4
- Theme Kit 5 - Greenfoto Boss themed template 5
Ok, I hope that is of help to give you an idea or two! 
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Best advice I can give is DON’T use any templates. If you’re a genuine photographer at heart then you’re a natural creative. Nothing’s worse than watering down talent with someone else’s ideas - most especially a template that’s going to get used over and over again.
Templates are good for when you’ve no experience building a site or, just don’t have a creative bone in your body and need “expert” advice on how to create your presentation.
Best thing to do is take inspiration from your own work. What do you shoot? People, places, things… what’s your go-to subject matter? Come up with a concept that will showcase where your passions are - if you have any - and build on that.
How about sharing some of your best work. Let me (us) see what you can do with a lens and I’ll reply back with some constructive advice on how to promote yourself as a creative artist. Not a web designer.
Over this weekend I’ll be launching my new company website after being forced offline by covid. Maybe you’ll get some ideas from that - because I won’t touch anything that’s a template. With exception to the booking/reservation plug-in.
Cheers.
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Everyone is a “Web Designer” who takes cheap shots at people who have studied the ins and out of web design for years! Sitely is a FANTASTIC TOOL, but there is so much more to web design to be able to make a successful hit with your targeted audience… But in the end talk is cheap!!! 
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Hi ! 
Even though I understand @robdeanaz point of view, I agree with @FlaminFig. If the goal is to sell your services, it’s better to use a template rather than risk a design that lacks professionalism. Being an artist at heart doesn’t necessarily mean excelling in all areas. You can be a great photographer but have limited skills in design or web development.
Moreover, the chances of a visitor stumbling upon another site using the exact same template are relatively low. Plus, you can always customize the design to match your visual identity and avoid a generic look. However, if you have strong design skills or if your site doesn’t require a particularly elaborate presentation, then indeed, building your site from scratch might be the better option 
If you’re interested, here are two examples of websites I’ve created:
A photographer’s website: https://photographies-by-samuel.webpulse.fr/
An art exhibition site for a client: https://eve-piquet-peintures.fr/
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No disrespect for who has studied or practiced design professionally, but I still wouldn’t necessarily recommend using a template over designing your own. I think it’s a matter of personal comfort, and if what you aim for is more edgy and non conformist, templates (or block-based tools) only get you so far. You can certainly “play it safe” and design a website that is uncontroversially like many others (either via template or your own design). Or you can go beyond it, something that you either raw-code or use Sitely for, there aren’t really that many freeform tools out there.
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Feel free to unleash your creativity! By all means don’t use templates that can be a good starting point! but if you’re unsure of what you’re doing, others (the end User) will be just as confused.
Similar to print publishing, web design comes with parameters and guidelines to ensure a positive and reliable user experience. By all means embrace these guidelines while creating your vision however you want.
However, it’s not constructive to criticise web design merely for the sake of making a point. While it’s true that a cookie-cutter approach exists and has you “disappear”, there is also a chaotic side of the web that drives users to click away in total frustration.
Web design should not be regarded merely as an art form; rather, it is a clever intelligent design that serves a functional purpose to captivate the users who interact with it!
Go crazy, but like driving you car on the road, consider your fellow Users!
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Learning to use a program does not mean you can design.
There is no problem in benefiting from templates.
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Yep. Seems to me @FlaminFig is designing for many, while @robdeanaz is designing for himself. Big difference. I’m also just designing for myself as a necessary evil of being self employed, but I’m a big Sitely fan because I get to change my website at my whim, almost for free. Hopefully, @robdeanaz gets to do that too… templates or not.
But, honestly, I’m a big @FlaminFig fan because he espouses economy, efficiency, simplicity and smart web design (not art design) to foster keeping control over a bunch of (or just our own) websites while the whole web technology universe evolves to crush us. And, if you’re out there all on your own and you want to practice what @FlaminFig preaches, get a Sitely subscription, a copy of Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think Revisited (A Common Sense Approach to Web and Mobile Usability), and build yourself something. Then, go do what you really want to do.
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This turns out to be an inflammatory topic. I think everybody has stated their position, and frankly I agree with all positions, everybody is welcome to give advice and to take it or not. We’re all in this together and there’s no “best” way, and you can even go from one position to another, try one thing then another.
Best if we stop trying to convince the other part (and perhaps by extension the larger audience of readers). Agree to disagree.
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