Setting up a photography portfolio with the Aperture theme

The Aperture theme transforms VeloCMS into a high-impact photography portfolio. The homepage becomes a full-bleed image grid, individual post pages open in a lightbox-style layout, and every uploaded image gets responsive WebP and AVIF variants (640, 1280, and 1920 pixels wide) generated automatically for fast loading. This guide walks you through the complete setup.

Step 1 — Activate the Aperture theme

Go to Admin > Themes and click Activate next to Aperture. Your blog immediately switches to the full-bleed grid layout. Existing posts appear with their featured image as the grid thumbnail — if a post has no featured image, a placeholder renders instead. Set a featured image on all portfolio posts for the best result.

Step 2 — Configure your portfolio categories

Portfolio work is organized by project type, not chronology. Go to Admin > Categories and rename or add categories to match your practice: Wedding, Portrait, Commercial, Landscape, Editorial. The Aperture theme renders category filter pills on the blog listing page — visitors can filter the grid by category without a page reload.

Step 3 — Create your first portfolio post

Go to Admin > Posts > New Post. The post title becomes the project name displayed in the grid and lightbox header — make it descriptive: 'Emma and James — Wedding at Brockwell Lido' rather than 'Wedding 047'. Set the category to match your work type. In the Settings panel, upload a high-resolution featured image — this is the full-bleed image that fills the post page.

Step 4 — Build the gallery inside the post

In the post body, use the slash command /gallery to insert a gallery block. Upload between 4 and 24 images — the block renders them in an auto-masonry grid. Click any image in the published gallery to open the full-screen lightbox, which has previous and next buttons and closes with the Escape key or a click on the backdrop.

• Upload the highest-resolution originals you have — WebP and AVIF variants at 640/1280/1920px are generated automatically at upload
• Maximum 24 images per gallery block — split large shoots across multiple blocks for better layout
• Add alt text to every image: it improves accessibility and image search ranking

Step 5 — Write the project context

Below the gallery block, add 150–300 words of project context using the editor. Cover: the brief and location, your creative approach, any interesting technical detail, and a one-line about the client (with their permission). This context is what Google indexes — a gallery-only post has no textual SEO value.

Step 6 — Configure the About and Contact pages

Clients hiring photographers want to know who you are. Go to Admin > Pages and edit the About page — add a professional headshot, a 200-word bio, your specialisation, and the geographic area you serve. The Contact page should have a booking enquiry form. Use the built-in Lead Capture Form block to create a simple name, email, event type, and date form — submissions land in the Forms inbox at Admin > Forms, a built-in feature (no plugin needed).

Step 7 — Set social metadata for sharing

Each portfolio post uses its featured image as the Open Graph image — the preview thumbnail that appears when you share the post URL on Instagram DMs, X, WhatsApp, or email. To check how a link looks, paste the post URL into the sharing debugger of the network you are targeting. The Aperture theme also emits ImageObject JSON-LD on portfolio posts, making your images eligible for Google Image rich results.

Custom domain for a professional portfolio

A portfolio hosted on your own domain (e.g. janephotography.com) signals professionalism to prospective clients. Go to Admin > Settings > Branding > Custom domain (the same panel is also at Admin > Setup > Custom domain) to connect your domain. Add the CNAME target and TXT record the panel shows at your DNS provider — full instructions are in the Custom Domains help section. SSL is provisioned automatically — no certificate management required on your end.