You’ve spent years learning photography and honing your craft and it’s time to show your work to the world. That usually means a gallery and these days it’s probably going to be a web gallery.
You’ll have quite a few choices for web galleries and there are some technology decisions involved. The big tech decision is Flash verses no Flash. A Flash application can give you a rich visual display environment and fluid transitions, it can also provide tools for uploading your images, which is very convenient.
The downside with Flash is not all devices support Flash, particularly many mobile devices. Apple only recently added support for Flash on many of their iPhone and iPads.
For the widest possible audience, you’ll want to go with a CSS or scripted gallery. The challenge with those is they have to be updated regularly and not all browsers support standards equally. Some of them are plug-ins for other frameworks that have to maintained themselves.
Then there’s free verses paying for a gallery. I’m not above paying for a good gallery if it’s well supported and provides integration with social media and image sharing sites.
Here are a few to get you started.
I know, Flash-based and it costs money, but really delivers in terms of features, integration and functionality.
Several WordPress themes there that make very attractive image galleries. The only downside is they’re trying to get you to subscribe to WordPress themes on plans that can run up to $100 per year. With the free themes on a subscription site, you can’t always be certain they’ll stay free.
Another Flash gallery that has a free option with a branded logo or a low-cost option to purchase and remove the logo.
Zenphoto is open source and free to download and use. You can donate to support development and purchase customizations if you want something to work a little differently.
What I like about Zenphoto is being able to set up password protected galleries. The downside is it can be tricky to setup if you’re not technically gifted.
Those will get you started. None of them are perfect, but they all have attractive features. Know of one I missed here? Post it in the comments.