Zan Visuals · Austin, TX · 2026
A portfolio that shows the work the way it was shot
Zan Visuals shoots weddings, portraits, and events, and the work is genuinely good. But an off-the-shelf WordPress theme made it look like every other photographer online. We rebuilt the site around the photographs, starting with a gallery that shows each shot the way it was taken.
Visit the live site- Industry
- Wedding & portrait photography
- Services
- Custom Web Design, Adaptive Gallery, Self-Serve Portfolio, Contact & Quote Form, Hosting Retainer
- Deliverables
- 5-page custom site, Adaptive photo gallery, Self-managed portfolio + working quote form
- Timeline
- Launched 2026 · ongoing
01 — The challenge
Zan Visuals shoots weddings, portraits, and events, and the work is genuinely good. The website wasn't showing it off. They were running an off-the-shelf WordPress theme, the kind that works fine on paper but ends up looking like every other photographer on the internet.
When your business is visual, the site has one job: make people feel something before they ever reach out. A generic template doesn't do that. They came to Headwaters for something built specifically for them.
02 — The approach
We replaced everything visual and built the new site around their photos. The centerpiece is the gallery. Most photography sites crop every image to the same rectangular box, which quietly wrecks the composition of anything shot in portrait, like a vertical shot of a bride squeezed into a landscape frame.
The new gallery adapts to each photo: portrait shots display tall, landscape shots spread wide, and the layout arranges itself around the images instead of the other way around. Alongside it, we corrected the pricing that was wrong across the services page, made the contact and quote form actually deliver to their inbox, and gave them a way to update their own portfolio. They can log the date, client, price, and notes on any shoot, with no spreadsheets and no asking us.
03 — How we built it
The workflow
- 01
Audited the old site
We went through the WordPress template and found what was costing them: a generic look, pricing that was flat wrong across services, and a contact form that did not reliably deliver.
- 02
Designed around the photos
A custom design built for their brand and their work. Photos first, everything else out of the way, so the site reads like the photography instead of a theme.
- 03
Built the adaptive gallery
The gallery reads each image and lays itself out around it, portrait tall and landscape wide. It also comes with a self-serve portfolio they update themselves and a quote form that lands in their inbox.
- 04
Tuned it after launch
A revision round cleaned up the early styling. We pulled the text out of its boxes, simplified the nav, and put the photos first. After that they moved onto a monthly hosting plan so the site stays maintained.
The live site
A walk through the build
04 — The outcome
- +72%
- visitors vs. the prior period (155 total)
- +49%
- page views (731 total)
- 32%
- bounce rate, so most visitors look around
Start a project
Let’s build it from the source.
Tell me about your business and what you need. I’ll tell you straight what it’ll take — timeline, price, the works.