It could have been a collage
Inspired by the silly traditions of the Swedish midsummer celebrations, I decided to make a collage of the best photos from the mini-vacation in Umeå last week. I still haven't added any real photo album to this site, so I figured that a collage would be a nice way to show the promised photos. And besides, allowing oneself to be a bit childish and just play around with photos and graphics for the fun of it is usually a good thing - it can give a lot of inspiration and boost the creativity. I was really happy about the way the collage was turning out. I had added 14 images, of which 4 were mixed into one layered photo showing me playing bowling. It sure looked a bit silly, but the collage was still a lot of fun to create!
But I was so into the puzzling that I forgot about saving a copy of the collage file, and when I was going to export the final image my image editor crashed - and an hour of image editing resulted in… Nothing at all! Losing work in that way is of course not a good way to boost the creativity. I couldn't find any motivation to start over and do it all again, so for now I'll only post this photo, straight from my own photo album.
The picture (taken by Micke on June 14th) shows me and Johanna inside a parking house in central Umeå. I haven't posted very much personal material on this blog in the past, but on July 2nd the two of us have been a couple for 7 amazing years - and that is something I would want to share with the entire world!
I will write more about that later for sure, but now I'm leaving the computer for a while to enjoy the great summer weather for a while. Later tonight I'll start planning for the addition of a photo gallery feature. Any good suggestions on what plugin/script/service to try out?
Comments
Comment from Kraig
Time: June 24, 2007, 7:27 pm
Look at Gallery, the open source web based photo album organizer.
http://gallery.menalto.com/
Comment from Miad
Time: June 25, 2007, 2:25 am
I agree with Kraig, the open source gallery plugin for WordPress is the way to go if you want to integrate a gallery to your WordPress blog.
Comment from Mark Olson
Time: June 25, 2007, 1:01 pm
I am going through the same problem as you in deciding on a photo album organizer. I have been with flickr for a year and let my subscription run out because one cannot share their private photos without having one's friends/family sign up with flickr. I am about to give http://jalbum.net a try. I am already paying for online space, so why not use it. Just thought I would send this off as an idea for you.
Comment from Andreas
Time: June 25, 2007, 1:39 pm
I have tried most open source galleries already, and found a few that could be interesting. But what I look for now is something that integrates automatically with WordPress (basically a plugin), that only has the features I need and that works well. The Gallery script is way too big as I would only use a few percent of the features…
I want something that allows me to upload an album, that lists a number of thumbnails on and that displays a full-size image if you click on one of the thumbnails. There are many plugins that do that, and I will probably end up using one of them. Probably one of the more simple plugins, as I like simplicity. But which ones are worth trying out?
Comment from LobsterMan
Time: June 25, 2007, 2:24 pm
Hi Andreas,
You might want to try my plugin, WPPA. you can create albums and upload photos within the WP Admin area, and it has a 2 file theme, that integrates with the WordPress theme system, so you can play around with the look and feel.
You can see it in action here and here.
Comment from Andreas
Time: June 25, 2007, 5:04 pm
LobsterMan: Yes, WPPA seems to be perfect - everything I want and not very much more than that. :) It is one of the plugins that I've been looking forward to try for several weeks…
Comment from mosab
Time: June 25, 2007, 11:42 pm
well, Andreas i like your designs a lot, i have ven used two of them and sent you an email..
i am sorry for the collage, but i have a small suggestion
if you don't have the enough motivation to start another collage, why don't you try Picasa (by google), they have a very easy "Collage" and really is fun.
Picasa itself is a piece of art when it comes to managing photos on your desktop, whether you are using windows opertaing system or linux..
here is the link:
Comment from Andreas
Time: June 26, 2007, 12:47 am
I've tried Picasa in the past, and it was nice. But for some reason, I haven't used it in a long time. I tried a lot of different photo managers to find one that could handle my 11.000-image photo collection, and ended up purchasing ACDSee Photo Manager 9 which I am still using for my image management (and I'm really happy with it). I has some kind of collage feature as well, but I have't tried it yet.
Comment from Nat
Time: June 28, 2007, 5:47 am
Happy with both of you. Cheer
Comment from Dima Design
Time: June 30, 2007, 8:35 am
Lovely photo. Andreas at you good taste and the excellent girl. I think you will be happy. Successes to you.
Comment from Britney
Time: June 30, 2007, 2:54 pm
Congrats on the happy years together…
Maybe the two of you have some useful words of guidence up your sleave!!! =)
/Britney
Comment from Web Design
Time: July 4, 2007, 10:09 am
Congrats!!!
Comment from Ted
Time: July 5, 2007, 5:38 am
Hi Andreas and all other readers,
My site host (site5.com) led me to andreasviklund.com over a year ago. I love reading the log posts from someone who lives in an environment so different from mine. It is nice to see a brilliant programmer from rural Sweden is basically the same as a novice programmer from urban San Francisco, California.
I have just started using the wppa plugin this week and it seems to work well for me. I had to read the instructions on how to install a plugin and got it to work on the first try.
Good luck and thanks for the posts and templates.
Comment from isecore
Time: June 24, 2007, 4:42 pm
Yeah, that was a fun day. Too bad about technology eating your creative stroke, but maybe it'll come back.