Rick,
A site as you describe, where it is more of a brochure or catalogue is pretty simple and can be done in many ways. In my opinion (for what it's worth) one need not use a Flash based site for this, but others may feel differently. Flash will make it a little less easy for folks to copy your work, but that likely applies more to people who might grab you image for their Facebook page than it applies to someone in a position to use your shot for anything like a webpage for commerce somewhere. The latter will simply use a utility to capture the screen, as Oxide Blue points out. Watermarking is an option, but some find them distracting, and they can be cloned out to some extent. We just have to expect some abuse if our images are on-line.
So, if you want a prepackaged presence on the web, you could look at
Wordpress as a means of starting with a free application to get your feet wet. Wordpress started as a simple blogging application, but it has matured into a "content management system" (CMS) which will handle much more than a simple blog. There are many "themes" that one can find for free, or can purchase for a modest fee, and some are specifically aimed at photography in design. One can also host their site at Wordpress.org if their not yet ready for working with their own hosting solution, etc. or your can install Wordpress at your own host, using your own domain name, etc.
Some folks use
SmugMug as a sort of "website" but I consider it more of a "web service". There are some that have been personalized to the point of feeling very much like a private website. Folks using SmugMug in this way are typically looking for more than you describe in the way of print order fulfillment, schwag, etc. To me, it's about the same concept as Photoshelter, with some variations b/n each.
Another option is
Zenfolio, but again, this is kind of hosting and sharing web service that is different than a "real" self-operated, stand-alone web presence. I only list these few options (and there are others) because for some folks its the easiest and most practical for them, and you've not specified what you've tried or use currently in the form of any web tools.
To build (or have built for you) a fairly simple website and set it up with your own domain name is not difficult, but like anything that is new, there is a bit of a learning curve. And there are some conventions in design which are worth learning and adhering to for the convenience of your visitors. I would suggest that if you choose a totally self-directed approach to get a couple of books to help with the process. I can suggest a couple.
A bigger issue to work out is that you say that you are looking to sell your work as stock. So the biggest issue is getting buyers of stock to see your work, and it can be difficult to get those eyes to travel to your site where they can see your work. Stock buyers are now not only shopping at Getty Images, Corbis, Jupiter Images, Photoshelter, etc., they're also looking at the micro-stock sites for the 50¢ stock images. What's worse, is they're trolling flickr and asking for them for free, but of course there are also those trolling flickr who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars or more for the use of an image there (though the latter is far rarer now).
So the point is, the battle is not to get the site up, but to get others to see it, so as you are putting your site together you may want to make sure you have other content on the web pointing to your site. For example, if you have a flickr account you can put links in the description of your photos which will take a visitor to your site to view the image in a different environment and to see others, etc.
Sorry for the long post, but just wanted to cover these points in the interest of clarity.
To put your own website together independently you will need:
- A domain name, e.g. www.ricksimages.com
- A web hosting service
- Either a package such as Wordpress or a concept of how you'd like the pages of your site to be presented
- Possibly a "gallery" plugin for your site, depending on chosen options
- An FTP application and text-editor if you want more control than simply working through a web-based control panel
- Some time and a little patience
Each of these items is pretty easy. Domain names can be registered via
Go Daddy or many other registrars. Avoid Network Solutions, who was once the big fish, but they use tactics which are frustrating to users, and they're expensive for simple domain management.
Hosting is equally easy, but you will read of frustrations with hosts, so to me, service is far more important than price. The cheapest hosting services are of no interest to me. They cram too many sites on the shared servers, downtime can be to great, customer service and tech-support can suck. Lots of good ones, but don't shop in the bottom price sector. I like
Host Gator and pay about $8 per month, but there are others. Go Daddy will host for you too, as will many of the places that you might register your domain name, but the Go Daddy site is so cluttered that I prefer the calmer environment of other hosting options. I buy my domains through Go Daddy and am hosted at Host Gator (Host Gator charges more for domains). Other hosting options, such as Media Temple, Rackspace, Pear, etc. are more than needed at the stage of just starting your first site, though I use them for larger projects.
The other items on the list will fall into place as you determine which approach you are comfortable with. I would suggest that you think about what you want your site's primary sections to be, e.g. Home page, About page, Gallery, Contact represents four simple sections. One can then break the gallery in categories, etc. Determining this design structure will help you decide how to move forward.
I hope this helps a little. I know it's ridiculously long and you may have fallen asleep on your keyboard long before getting to this point. If you'd like more info, I'll be happy to share what I have experienced. I well remember the day I first started with the process and it was a bit overwhelming and need not have been.
Dale