posting photos... where? how? why?

[John Koch-Northrup]

Where do you post your photos? To your own site? Flickr? Facebook? Here?

I'm sort of mulling over where to go with my photos... I originally was posting to a Gallery install. Tried Coppermine briefly. For a couple years I used Pixelpost (the remnants of which are here: http://www.johei.com/pixel/ - this was a great photoblog script - and I liked that I could tweak it to show EXIF info, RSS feeds, etc...

Of course - I post a photo here on the AtmoWorks site now and then - and I really like the other photographers that post here (there are several of you that knock my socks off).

Facebook... eh... very cool for sharing snapshots with friends and family - but can't really post an image that's a decent size and they seem to squash the resolution. Of course - facebook links into other sites fairly well so I can post somewhere else (like flickr or elsewhere) and at least my distant cousins will see I've uploaded something new...

I'm seriously pondering going back to a solution like Pixelpost... but then there's the whole lack of "community" in that. I have absolute full control over how things look... but the trade off is lack of people to interact with - which is part of the point.

Anything better than Pixelpost come out? I haven't been trolling for photo gallery/blog software in a very long time... Is there a better community than flickr? What are the others?

[Igneous Flame]

In my experience of Flickr, I would say its good and bad, its quite a community - but (in my view) it's quite a 'fake' place, in the same way Myspace is.

I've seen loads of mediocrity 'bigged up' by people's contacts, without any objective criticism of their work.
But this doesn't seem to bother most people, who really get off on the networking side of things.

[Kevin Pletcher]

I would have to agree with Igneous Flame. Flickr can be 'fake'.I have seen many mediocre photos receiving over the top adoration after being submitted to a laundry list of groups (seemingly fishing for "big ups").

However I like Flickr for a number of reasons. First and foremost I can post artistic photos for public viewing and occasional feedback. I can even include them into groups of a similar style or subject matter.

I can also post my everyday snapshots of family and personal life and set them to be viewed only by friends and family.

[John Koch-Northrup]

My debate (with myself that is) is whether I want to put my photos up on a central server type of thing or keep it on my site. I'm not really interested in 'promoting' my photos - just making connections with other people that love to take photos.

pros / cons:

* flickr is a 'big' site and controls the updates/bug fixes - they store/display the full versions of photos for $25 a year. 'evil' people I'm assuming get moderated our eventually.

* on my site - I already pay for hosting - so why pay flickr more?

* on my site - I have to watch out for idiots (script kiddies and such) that like to mess with the available blog / gallery scripts... nothing more annoying than having your entire site go down (which happened with my original "Gallery" install - or have to delete a 100 spam comments (which happened with an early version of "pixelpost").

* flickr appears to be easy to plug it in anywhere (widgets and such) according to their faq - though I probably need to sign up and try it - also easy to link into from facebook and twitter (though I'm growing tired of both... maybe I'm just in a non-social mood?)

Two main goals:

One is to have a place to put my massive collection of family photos (I've 'inherited' several collections of photos that need to be scanned)... I want it to be easier than easy for relatives to get the big scans of the images they want... and also easy for family to view those photos online in galleries/slideshows/whatever. The idea of someone wanting to print a book out is also there - I know my Aunt does that through shutterfly I think... Obviously the social bits of flickr don't matter here - but the ease of use does.

The other goal is for me and Heidi to post our more artistic photos. We have fun with it - it's a hobby of ours. I enjoy looking at other photographers work - and I enjoy chatting with people who's work inspires me or interests me in some way. I like those connections. It's the same with musicians for me.

So - anyway - I think I'll sign up for a free flickr account and see how easy it is - and try installing one of the local server scripts and do some comparisons.

[Ravi Mayor]

How do I protect my photos from getting downloaded without my permission? These are my personal photographs and I don't want anybody stealing/using them.

At the end of the day I would like people to see my art but don't want anybody stealing it.

[John Koch-Northrup]

That's a really tricky question! On most websites (including all the Ning sites just like this AtmoWorks community is built on...) all you have to do is right-click and save on Windows - or drag a photo to your desktop on mac.

I've been looking at flickr a bit - and you can set the download rights for the full resolution version -but I'm assuming the smaller versions are just as easy to copy and save.

I've seen some photographers use flash galleries to make it more difficult to copy/save (you can still do a screen shot of anything on the internet however...)

Some people will embed watermarks into their photos...

What I do is tend to upload smaller versions - if someone wants the full version then they can ask me and normally I'm fine with it.