Photo Site Index C&C

[bgaideski]

So I usually upload my photos to a blogger site. This gives me a place to host them as well as a way to share them with friends and family who don't have facebook, or with other photographers who I may not know personally.

I have been using the site for about 4 months now and decided I was long overdue for an 'Index' type of page.

I am very rusty on web design but this is what I put together:
Photos by Brian Gaideski: Photo Recap

I was hoping some of you could check it out and let me know what you think. I know its very simple, but is it good enough to get my point across? Do you think whenever I make a new post I should add it to this index? I originally planned to make one of these pages every few months to showcase all of my work to date. I'm looking for ideas.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Gaerek]

Take my opinion for what it's worth. You may have a reason for doing things they way you're doing them, but I think you're using the wrong tool for the job. Blogger is a great place if you have a blog, and post a few pictures here or there. It is not a great tool for hosting galleries. It's designed specifically for text. The ability to add photos to it is a nice feature, but there are far better ways to go about it.

So my recommendation is simply get an account with a service who's whole purpose is to host photos. I use Smugmug personally (they have a yearly fee, but is WELL worth it for what you get), others use sites like Flickr, Zenfolio, or any number of photo sites out there.

As far as using Blogger to make a photo gallery site, you did a pretty good job, but I think there are far better tools that are far easier to use if you want to share photos online.

 

[bgaideski]

The reasons are mixed. I will admit, using a blog probably isn't the best way. I've used a few different sites such as Flikr and Picasa but they never really took off for me. Granted, they are better for displaying/organizing images then blogger might be. Originally the blog started with me thinking that I might do a photo of the day type thing. That didn't last long though and now I just post a group of photos from my particular photoshoot.

Some of the photo sites rubbed me the wrong way because I really didn't have much control over the size of the image on some of them. Some sites will not let you use the full size image. Some of my images I would like to be able to provide to people in a larger format.

Eventually I would like to put together my own website. When that time comes I will have to rethink the way I want to share my work.

Thanks for the comment

-Brian

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Well, you can link your Flickr to your blog pretty seemlessly. That way, you can blog your images, and also have them organized by Collections, and Sets. Flicker then becomes your "index".

 

[Gaerek]

The reasons are mixed. I will admit, using a blog probably isn't the best way. I've used a few different sites such as Flikr and Picasa but they never really took off for me. Granted, they are better for displaying/organizing images then blogger might be. Originally the blog started with me thinking that I might do a photo of the day type thing. That didn't last long though and now I just post a group of photos from my particular photoshoot.

Some of the photo sites rubbed me the wrong way because I really didn't have much control over the size of the image on some of them. Some sites will not let you use the full size image. Some of my images I would like to be able to provide to people in a larger format.

Eventually I would like to put together my own website. When that time comes I will have to rethink the way I want to share my work.

Thanks for the comment

-Brian

Smugmug lets you do everything you just mentioned not liking about other hosting sites. It will allow you to upload the original resolution image, but you can control the size that people actually see. It stores the original also, so you can use it as an online backup (which is one of the purposes I use it for). I think it's about $40 a year for the basic account, but that includes unlimited bandwidth, unlimited storage, and all the nice little gallery tools to do a fair job customizing. It's not for everyone, but I am completely happy with Smugmug and personally wouldn't use anything else for my main photo display.

I wouldn't make this decision lightly, but I really think you might be happier with something that was designed for photos. In the end, however, use what works for you. I think that your current site works very well, all things considered.