Lin, would this site be mostly a gallery type of approach with a front page with other information, maybe embedded gallery albums behind the front page?
If that is the case, it wouldn't be hard to setup at all, and your hosting services wouldn't have to be anything extravagant or expensive. A lot of hosts provide auto install scripts for Photo Gallerys, bulletin boards, shopping carts, etc through something called Fantastico. You can modify the front end for your gallery to meet your demands, and even have other informational pages outside of the regular gallery application pages.
I'd be glad to give you a hand installing server apps, configuring it, etc if you get stuck.
Brandon