The Photo Workshop theme for WordPress is finally here!  After months of development, redevelopment and re-redevelopment (you get the point), we are now turning the keys over to all you WordPressers to see what you create.  (Check out Jared Cruce’s new commercial photography website for an example of the Photo Workshop theme live in the wild!)

Photo Workshop is an all-in-one solution for photographers and creative entrepreneurs who want the ability to show a portfolio of images or videos and pitch workshops, events, or products. The theme includes new features that were just released in WordPress 3.0, including Custom Post Types (details below) and Menus and also includes new theme display options including Slideshows with optional caption, thumbnail and navigational controls.  The theme also includes image theft protection (right clicking on images is disabled), iPhone video display options, custom colors, homepage design options and two custom widgets.

Designed for Professional, Entrepreneurial Photographers

If you are a professional or amateur photographer, I have three questions for you:

If you are like Jared Cruce, it’s time that you step up to the challenge and adapt your business model to the changing industry demands.  Not only does Jared have killer photography portfolios, but he also offers adventure photography workshops in the beautiful Oregon backcountry.  Using the Photo Workshop theme, Jared can update his portfolio, create private, password-protected galleries for his clients, market his photography workshops, and generate leads (form created using Gravity Forms).

Custom Post Types

WordPress 3.0 introduced a new feature called Custom Post Types.  This feature makes it easier for developers to create custom write panels with additional input fields that are specific to the content that you want to publish.  Think of it this way:  You are no longer limited to using posts or pages for publishing in WordPress.  So long boring tubular post and page templates!  Hello beautiful custom post type templates!  The custom post type we developed for this theme is what we refer to as a “Workshop”.  Each Workshop has a predefined number of fields, such as Title, Description, Location, Date, Price, Testimonial, Sponsor Info, Images, etc.  These fields are displayed using a special template file to create the Workshop (or could be an Event/Product…it’s very flexible) landing page.  Here is a video overview of how the custom post types work:

http://vimeo.com/13658887

Slideshow Options

One of the most requested features has been to add controls for the slideshows in our themes.  Not only did we add controls, but we also added captions, both of which can be optionally enabled or disabled on the theme options page.  You can also control the height of all slideshows, the transition or fading time and the length of time each slide is displayed.  Did I mention that these slideshows even work on the iPhone and iPad?  Yeah.  Pretty cool, eh?

Design Controls

We know that not everyone is a coder.  This is why we dedicate so much of our development time to building killer theme options into all of our paid themes.  Photo Workshop contains optional homepage design controls including a welcome message, slideshow, full-page video, featured posts and a widgetized region.  Check out this video overview of the new theme options (complete with AJAX saving and conditional options based on user-defined selections):

http://vimeo.com/13658826

So, what do you think? What interests you most about this theme?