Recto — Photography Portfolio HTML Template

Recto is a five-page editorial HTML template for photographers, visual artists, and small studios that want type-driven hierarchy instead of decorative chrome. Pure white-on-white minimalism with no accent color — photography brings the only colour to the page. The typography is a Newsreader serif paired with Inter Tight and IBM Plex Mono, and the hero is a type-only editorial poster with a vertical-rule "currently showing" caption — radically different from the standard split-text-and-image hero.

The template ships as plain HTML, CSS, and a small file of vanilla JavaScript. No framework, no build step, no dependencies in the page. Every design choice is exposed as a CSS custom property at the top of styles.css, so editing four values re-skins the entire system.

Pages

• index.html — Type-only poster hero with a four-quadrant balanced layout, full-bleed current-series feature, six-tile editorial mixed-size grid of recent work, statement, journal teaser list, press, and closing CTA.
• work.html — Catalog of forty-two series presented as a numbered list with hover-preview, plus a twelve-tile cover grid for visual browsing.
• series.html — Single photo essay with alternating full-bleed plates, paired side-by-side plates, captioned tall plate, captioned numbered text blocks, and prev/next pagination plus a prints CTA.
• journal.html — Nine short notes between series, indexed by date and place, set in a clean reading column.
• contact.html — Five labeled contact blocks (email, prints, phone, studios, press) plus a six-field inquiry form with timing & type-of-work select fields.

Design notes

The base palette is pure white #ffffff against ink #0a0a0a with NO accent color. Hierarchy is built entirely with type weight, size, italic vs roman, and uppercase mono for the small labels. The eyebrow is a vertical-rule + uppercase mono pattern (no decorative dot or coloured marker). Headlines lean italic for emphasis. The hero is composed as a balanced two-column grid with the H1 on the left, a "currently showing" rail on the right anchored at the top, and a meta-strip + CTA strip below — all four hero quadrants are visually filled at 1440×900.

Use cases

Photography portfolios, visual artist sites, gallerist project pages, photographic book publishers, art-direction studios, editorial photographers, fine-art print stores, and any independent practitioner who wants a quiet, considered presentation rather than a colour-heavy template look.

From the same studio

If Recto's quiet white-on-white direction suits you, you might also like Talasea — boutique hotel template for a warmer editorial direction, Axioma — creative agency template for a Swiss-grid agency look, Solara — Mediterranean restaurant template, Meridia — luxury real estate template, Volta — fitness studio template, or Aurix — AI SaaS landing page.

Tech

• Vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript — no framework, no build step
• Google Fonts: Newsreader, Inter Tight, IBM Plex Mono — preconnected
• Responsive: 320 / 480 / 768 / 1024 / 1440+
• Accessible: semantic landmarks, keyboard-visible focus, alt text, reduced-motion respect