Photo blog software?

[photoSmart42]

Hey, all. I'm looking to start a photo blog of sorts, and I'm looking for some suggestions on what others are using. My initial thought is to have a Wordpress with a photo blog theme hooked into my Flickr account for hosting the photos since I've worked with both of those frameworks and they're free. I've looked at Smugmug, and they seem great, but I think I have to pay for that.

Please share your experiences with photo blog software you've used.

 

[Dale Allyn]

Wordpress is very mature blogging software with several themes available which are geared to photography. You may also like to look at Pixelpost which is a photography-specific blogging application, free/open-source, etc.

It really depends on what you want to do with your blog, and if you want to do more than blogging, etc. Wordpress is an excellent blogging CMS (Content Management System), but is not terribly easy to build your own themes for it. Luckily, there are a zillion themes available for WP to make it easier. One can then personalize a theme with a little CSS tweaking, some (X)HTML, etc., but many run WP sites with a full canned theme because there are so many from which to choose. There are free themes and themes available for purchase for a reasonable fee.

ExpressionEngine is a more powerful CMS, but it also requires more hands-on involvement. There are themes available, but a mere fraction of what are available for WP. I use ExpressionEngine and like it very much, but it's a more involved commitment with regard to coding than is WP. I believe that most use ExpressionEngine (EE) as a "blank slate" for a starting point. EE easily accommodates multiple blogs, or sections which may or may not be blogs, galleries, forums, etc. EE has many features that WP does not, but WP has some very nice features absent in EE as well.

I did use PixelPost for a few years. It's well geared to projects such as a photo-a-day, and other sorts of linear blogging projects.

Of course, one can run combinations of different packages if needed. e.g. a WP blog with a photo gallery separately, etc. It really depends on what you want to accomplish now, and where you want to take it in the future... and of course, how involved you want to be with regard to the development of your site.

 

[photoSmart42]

Thank you for the feedback. I'll look at those other CMS platforms you mentioned, but it seems like I'll just stick with the Wordpress/Flickr combo for now since I'm familiar with both.

 

[Don Libby]

I started with blogspot for our blog and have been about 95% happy with it. Ken Doo uses wordpress which I believe is generally happy with. Blogspot just did an upgrade and now offers the ability to post slightly larger images. I’ve also posted videos and have a PayPal button for a DVD I produced.

And it’s free!

Cheers Don

 

[Dale Allyn]

Thank you for the feedback. I'll look at those other CMS platforms you mentioned, but it seems like I'll just stick with the Wordpress/Flickr combo for now since I'm familiar with both.

Several good options. I skimmed over one point, but will mention it now since you repeated it: In the past, it was great to have a WP blog using hosted images from a flickr account. It was one of the nice features of flickr. But that was more meaningful back when storage and bandwidth were more costly. It still works, but today one can get hosting with essentially unlimited storage and bandwidth (at least in the likely volumes we're talking about) for next to nothing. In my case, I want all of my images on my server, not Yahoo!'s, even though I do have a flickr account as well. This way my site doesn't take a hit if I choose to leave Yahoo!/flickr for any reason. (Actually, I've not been active on flickr for a couple of years, but that's another story. ).

I recently discussed this with a friend who started hosting his images on flickr long ago (when first available). I asked why he was continuing to host images that way because he had mentioned a few times that he might leave flickr. Now, to do so would mean going through years of hosted images to set paths to new locations, so in a sense he's locked in. In his case he now justifies it by the fact that he enjoys embedding slideshows into his blog, but he admits that he could still do that anyway when needed, and of course there are many other ways to embed slideshows without flickr as well.

One might also consider that flickr uses pretty aggressive sharpening algorithms on the resized images, so one might want to modify what is uploaded to flickr if using one of the "non-original" sizes. Not a big deal for many blog topics, but some photo-bloggers might not care for it. And then there's the image size itself, which may influence your design. Your blog software can likely resize, but then you have multiple resizings and image degradation. Not a big deal for many, but a factor for some.

So, depending on your hosting options and costs in your area, I mention all of this stuff in case you want to build more independence into your tools so that you're not inconvenienced if you choose to change.

Good luck with your project.

 

[robertwright]

you may also want to consider using wordpress hosting instead of your own server, that way all the wordpress updates are handled for you instead of having to update the blog yourself.

While it is fun to "roll your own" after a while it becomes tedious to have to maintain and keep current with patches, etc. and think about what is compatible with what. The current wordpress is much easier to upgrade but I always inhale a little when pressing the "upgrade" button. what if?

 

[kdphotography]

Yup! Don's right----I'm very happy with Wordpress. It's easy to use and that's extremely important to me. I'm too busy to deal with anything that requires too much time.....

 

[Don Libby]

While I’m certain I’d say blogspot isn’t easy I have gotten used to it and can generally post an entry including multiple images within minutes. There’s certain things I like in Ken’s blog (using wordpress) and certain areas in mine; now if I could just merge the best of both…

 

[Godfrey]

Hey, all. I'm looking to start a photo blog of sorts, and I'm looking for some suggestions on what others are using. My initial thought is to have a Wordpress with a photo blog theme hooked into my Flickr account for hosting the photos since I've worked with both of those frameworks and they're free. I've looked at Smugmug, and they seem great, but I think I have to pay for that.

Please share your experiences with photo blog software you've used.

I've been blogging with http://posterous.com for some time. It's simple and elegant, you don't have a lot of options, but it does what I want and is extraordinarily easy to use. My photo blog is listed below.

 

[bigtex]

wordpress is great, check out the "autofocus" theme which is a great image-based template