Photo Gallery Options

Background

I’m an amateur digital photographer. I’ve been doing this since about the summer of 2009. I photograph for personal reasons. Often, my photos are of interesting nature-focused subjects. However, I’m also known to take many photos at family events. I enjoy taking photos of sports, typically soccer or martial arts, that my daughters participate in.

MobileMe

Given this, I was immediately impressed with Apple’s MobileMe galleries and the ease with which I could share my photos with friends and family. I could create a unique username and password for each gallery. My friends and family had a visually pleasing means of browsing the photos and downloading them individually or in bulk.

The galleries were the only part of MobileMe that I used. When Apple announced they were shutting down MobileMe and, specifically, the galleries, I started looking for alternatives.

On top of the photo galleries, I need basic blogging capabilities to talk about the latest photos or series of photos. I’m not an avid or regular blogger, so my blogging needs are simple. I haven’t found anything nearly as straightforward and flexible as MobileMe.

Some Alternatives

I’ve tried SmugMug, Zenfolio, and Picasa Web. I’ve also tried creating my photo galleries using RapidWeaver and web hosting. I’ve also tried WordPress with Photocrati and web hosting. While these solutions appeal to different people, they are far too complex for my needs. They either offer many capabilities I don’t need (such as photo selling) or have cumbersome configuration and management implementations.

There is an associated cost for the services that come close to meeting my sharing needs (Zenfolio and SmugMug). I’m not opposed to paying for a service. I already pay for Dropbox storage, which has a broader usage value beyond photos, so I can’t justify paying for a photo-specific service. I bought Photocrati, but that also requires paying for WordPress hosting service.

Flickr

I’ve started to upload photos to my Flickr account, which has remained mostly unused since I joined in 2009. The update provides a visually appealing view of my photos. Unfortunately, the sharing options are still too restrictive for my needs. I want to create sets with specific usernames/passwords, and I’d like to enable/disable downloading original photos on a per-set basis.

Dropbox

I’ve been using Dropbox to share photos with friends and family. Creating a link is easy and doesn’t require me to add everyone’s email to a “gallery,” nor do they have to create accounts. The photo gallery's look and feel are minimalistic, but it works. Friends and family can see and download individual photos at their leisure.

Scriptogr.am

I’ve even experimented with Scriptogr.am and Dropbox together. Scriptogr.am offers a basic Markdown-based blogging capability and stores my posts on Dropbox. Since I’m already using Dropbox for some photo sharing, it seemed to make sense.

Unfortunately, Scriptogr.am hasn’t had any updates in quite some time. It looks like development has stalled. So, I don’t want to invest too much time getting set up with a service that might not be around very long.

Current Solution

So, for now, I’m using Flickr (I also use Google+ and Facebook) for public photo sharing and Dropbox for private photo sharing. I’m not an avid blogger, but occasionally I like to post photo commentary or random thoughts.  I’m going to experiment with using Tumblr for my blogging needs.