If you want to create your own ‘one photo a day’ photoblog, there are of course several existing free services available like Aminus3, etc., but if you are more serious about photography and want your own domain name, gallery and blog, Pixelpost is open source and is a free, popular and reliable option to build your own photoblog. But since you are here, you already knew that and you have probably taken the decision to build your own blog yourself already.
Since Pixelpost is open source, people are invited to write templates and addons to extend the basic functionality. I’m using Pixelpost as base for my Monochrome.Me.Uk blog and installation turned out to be very easy. Below I summarize my experiences with the addons and other services I like best and ended up using for my blog:
- Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Export Plugin: Pixelpost addon and Lightroom plug in that allows you to export directly from Lightroom into your blog. Only if you are using Lightroom, of course, but similar addons exist for Apple Aperture.
- Ajax Categories Manager: This AJAX based admin addon allow you to easily set categories for your pictures without any refresh.
- Custom Pixelpost Admin: A complete restyle of the Pixelpost administration area with more modern touches.
- Defensio for Pixelpost: Included by default now in Pixelpost, it is worth stressing that this addon is a must have. Before activating your blog, I would recommend signing up for a free Defensio account and applying for a free API key for your blog. No matter how small your blog, those spammers will come!
- Feedburner: A free Google service to handle your RSS feed in a simple way.
- Google Map: The GoogleMap addon is a Pixelpost addon that allows to show locations for the images without having to geotag them.
- Ping service: Included by default but activate it to add a list of RPC services to make sure your blog gets revisited by the search engines each time you submit a new entry. I am currently using the following servers:
- http://ping.feedburner.google.com
- http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
- http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
- http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
- http://ping.blo.gs/
- http://www.kping.com/blogping/
- RGB Histogram: This addon will create an RGB Histogram for colour images and a Luminosity Histogram for grayscale photos.
- Tag Cloud Generator: This plugin extends pixelpost to display attractive, web2.0-style tag clouds.
The only thing left to do is to pick the template that fits you and your photos best. Have fun!