A Gallery vs Photolog

  • I’ve been contemplating whether or not to use a gallery script or use a weblog tool to publish photos. I really like the photolog style of publishing if it can be organized correctly, whereas a normal gallery script doesn’t give me some of the nice features of a weblog tool. I’m wondering if I’m looking for too much in one or the other?
    I look at sites like Chicago Uncommon and really enjoy that setup, but I would rather use something other than MT… since I haven’t used it.
    Here’s a scenario:
    I’ve started to do a lot of event photography (weddings, celebrations, etc). I’ve created a new domain in which the people I work with have the ability to say, “Go here to view our photos.” But I want it to be more of a documentary type style where people talk about the photos I take for them, so the weblog tool becomes a nice feature (as well as having the ability to rss all the info).
    My thinking is to separate each event/photo set into different blogs which would allow me to refine the catagories of the photos I take. Like for a wedding, I could separate “getting ready”, “the wedding”, “the reception”, etc. If I could attach addition information (catagories: weddings, date) to that and have it all reference to a main “central” area where it could catagorize the information in the other separate blogs… Or do I setup one blog, then separate by just the event (less refined) and date?
    I’m just looking for input and any suggestions as to my choices.

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

  • I’m not sure WP is really what you’re looking for here. I wish I had a good gallery program to recommend but I don’t. ?? I guess I wasn’t very helpful.

    Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    I’ve used 4images; it is a nice program, although I’ve had problems with the thumbnails it creates (this was testing area I tried with this script, it’s not an active area for the general public, but you can see how there are some problems with using ImageMagick). Gallery is okay, the main thing I have with this script is the customization and how it keeps large images on the server. As far as galleries go, I think that Coppermine was an excellent package, but there are some limitations with that as well.
    My goal with this current project is to merge user stories with the photos, and most photo sets have 500+ files. Yet, it is to be a showcase for the photos that I do for others.
    I’m thinking I can get by with WordPress by FTP’ing the photos into a directory and placing the images into a post. Then just create a catagory for each event which could be separated by date (adjusting the post time for each image post, thus it would give me a relationship to the event:photo catagory).
    Maybe I am looking too much into this…

    I have used Coppermine as well and really liked the easy customization, but didn’t like some of the main parts of the program.
    Sounds like a lot of work to use WP! I have only used it for blogging, never for anything else.
    I haven’t had any problems with thumbnails using 4 images with ImageMagick at all! I like the fact that people have to register to use it.
    You also have to take into consideration the bandwidth you would be using with that many photos. You need something that would make thumbnails automatically. ??

    If you’re okay with a perl-based system, you could take a look at Blosxom. I see there are a few image plugins available. The imagegallery plugin looks like it could be promising. Though, I haven’t tried them, so I’m not sure if any of them will meet your needs.

    Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    I’ve also played around with Blosxom, while very low-fi, it is a decent setup. The image plugins (specifically imagegallery) have the same functionality as Alex King’s photo hack, so WP has a lot more benefits than Blosxom. I’m pretty committed to using WP. I like the development and the future goals of the project. So, I’m just going to give feedback where I can.
    I really think that Weblogging tools are setup as an excellent publishing facility; it is more focused in providing articles and media (photos, audio, etc). Whereas, most CMS’ out there overdo just about everything, and being harder to control the output. There are some good galleries out there, and they are for a single function, some providing extra features than others. But, I think that if a publishing system like WP has the right features (concerning media handling), it could replace a lot of the galleries out there.
    What I would really like to see is Alex to introduce some of his photo script into the media handling of photos and other content into WP. I’ve followed his work for a while and have been impressed with his developments. Props to you, Alex. And I feel that the other developers are just as good. So, you have this excellent core that is being worked on and improved with some wonderful players backing it. This is why WP is so interesting to me.
    I guess it would be nice to really comment now on how we could make WP that much better by combining core gallery features/handling in WP. That is, if the developers don’t mind this feedback. But it would be nice to hear from other user experiences using different tools and what they liked/disliked using such tools.

    Have you looked at e107 CMS? It might be a little over kill but you could get a post by post system, it has a port of Coppermine with it. https://www.e107.org

    There are some pretty interesting ideas that have been tossed around for handling multi-media in WordPress. As an FYI, I’m going to be providing an upgrade script from my photos hack to the *real* WP multi-media solution when it becomes more than just a grand idea. ??

    Thread Starter lane

    (@lane)

    Geronimo:
    I have looked at e107. I think it’s an excellent portal/CMS system, but I find most CMS’ too rigid in structure (namely, block layout style). From a graphic designer’s perspective, I dislike most CMS systems. Even viewing e107’s site gives me a headache. Content is everywhere, your eye looses focus… articles, downloads, who’s online, polls, people chatting in shoutboxes, last comments from the forums… everything is “slapped” in front of you.
    Most portal/CMS systems are overkill. That might be why the failure rate is so high with such systems. And, it also might be why Weblogs are so popular; they are more focused in providing information, you can drill down to the information that you want (look at a general CMS’ed site and try to make heads or tails of what is going on on that site within 15 seconds…)
    Maybe it comes down to good design and UI, like when presenting information (especially on the Web where user attention is at a premium), you want the user to be able to find what they want fast. Otherwise, they are surfing to another location without a thought. Take this example, provide some content/copy that takes up the full width of a browser compared to copy that is maybe 250 pixels in width, a users eye will stray when the sentences are longer, whereas the eye is able to move faster over copy in shorter lengths.
    So, if you want to provide a more robust community, yes, portals are the way to go (since you have more options and “plugins”), but if you want to focus on publishing (writing, photos, media, with some community features like comments), then a Weblog tool is the way to go. There are some exceptions, of course, like if you were to concentrate more on a corporate site, a Weblog tool might not be enough (depending on the flexiblity of the tool).

    Excellent comments.

    load:
    I agree with the overload on the information, I am pretty sure you could weed down the varouis “box style” menus on a site. the only reason I really mentioned it was because it had a ported Coppermine gallery with it. I do agree with you on your comments though.

    Great we all agree but still there is no solid WP photo gallery or even photo managment system. Right now I am in a bind. I always recommended WP but more and more clients and friends want a way to post photos and galleries. The Flickr thing is nice, but why host photos with some other service when you have a domain, directories, and space to do it yourself. Sure sure… tags and all that… the majority of people I deal with (including myself) can careless about such. I have no need to tag my lunch “peanut butter sandwich” and share it with the world. I much rather present it on my site, on my server, …etc. But enough about Flickr- please continue… what is everyone else using? Can we see some real world examples?

    I never could find exactly what I wanted in a plugin for my gallery…..so I just made my own gallery with a combination of css and page templates…

    https://mykahil.com/photo-gallery/

    Looks like we are a few with this dilemna.

    I found that what worked best for me was to use wordpress as a frontpage for a photo gallery. If people care to see or know more about one event they leave the blog and get to the gallery.

    I made the mistake to use a modified coppermine gallery rather than the official one… now I have 1000’s of pictures I can’t move to the real coppermine without loosing the number of views/comments etc…

    I’m trying to integrate coppermine (bite the bullet) or gallery2.

    Can’t make up my mind yet, the result once intgrated in wordpress seems quite similar. I must say I have not looked much into details yet.

    Looks like gallery does a better job with the exif data than coppermine though.

    Oh well, have the possibility to choose is a luxury I guess ??

    Ralph
    —
    https://www.digitalfrog.nl

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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