A Very Slick Photo Gallery WordPress Theme
Without a doubt, the Manhattan theme by StudioPress is a very slick photo gallery WordPress theme.
Why is the Manhattan theme such a slick photo Gallery WordPress theme?
Keep in mind, this is my opinion. I’m not basing this proclamation on any official WordPress theme rating organization. My reasons for liking this gallery WordPress theme so much are twofold:
It has my preferred photo gallery layout on the home page, and
It’s a theme that operates on the Genesis Framework.
My Reasons Explained
1. Photo gallery layout and Design of this theme
The home page is what makes the design so fantastic. I like the large above-the-fold image slide show for featuring your best photographs.
Under the large photo space on the home page you have space to create a gallery. The Manhattan gallery demo features only 4 photos, but you can add many more if you like. You can create a large scrolling gallery of photographs on the home page. This is easily done in the WordPress Widgets panel.
What you do is drag the Featured Posts feature built into the theme on the Genesis Framework and drag it to the home page widget section. The Featured Posts widget pulls your images from the specific posts you place your images. You can also manually insert source image code in the Widgets to display any number of photos.
The point is you can create a huge or small photo gallery on the home page. Those photos can link to a post or not. It’s up to you.
Moreover, because the Manhattan home page is configured with widgets, you can add article titles and/or excerpts as well or in place of photos.
Essentially, you have many options for designing your home page with the Manhattan theme.
2. I like the Genesis Framework
There is much to say about the Genesis Framework.
If you go with the Manhattan theme, you gain the benefits and features of Genesis. That is a fundamental advantage of the Manhattan photo gallery WordPress theme. In other words, Manhattan is not a stand-alone WordPress photo theme. Instead, it’s driven by Genesis which gives you the tools for building a fantastic photo gallery website.
Just so you know, I use the Genesis Framework for many websites, including my offline business website. When Genesis was released, I fairly quickly migrated most of my websites onto Genesis. I’ve been very happy with that decision ever since.
Why pay for a photo gallery theme when there are many free gallery themes available?
Good question. In fact, before I used paid themes, I used free themes as well. I became frustrated with free themes. Then I read something about some free themes being encoded with links and perhaps even poor code. I became a concerned and dug a little deeper.
I wish to emphasize not all free themes are compromised. The trouble for me then was I couldn’t tell whether a free theme was okay or not.
A few words about StudioPress
When you buy a theme from StudioPress (such as Manhattan), you can use it on as many domains as you like. This is important. Some premium themes restrict the number of uses. Not so with StudioPress.
You also have access to a good support forum with senior moderators who know A LOT about WordPress themes and StudioPress themes specifically. They answer questions generally within 24 hours.