Photo Portfolio Website (direction needed)

Hi, I am starting to work on a website for a photographer I know who wants to show his images large, but also let them load quickly on his website as well as allowing him to add in images on his own. Does anyone have some suggestions on how I could do this? I do not know if this is better for the Client-Side form or the Server-Side form, so I will be posting in in both, but I am interested in any feedback/help that anyone is willing to give. (I am also sort of new at making websites with limited knowledge of HTML and some CSS.)

One website that he looked at and really liked how it loaded quickly was www.jeremycowart.com/

Thanks

JJ