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Organizing travel galleries
jcdill
Registered Users Posts: 225 Major grins
I'm helping a friend setup his Smugmug account.
He goes on epic travel adventures, lasting 2-4 weeks, with 3-7 main locations within that adventure. He comes home with thousands of photos from each trip and it's difficult to cull down to even 300 top photos, given the number of different locations and their beautiful features.
I'm trying to figure out how to set this up in Smugmug, using categories, sub categories, and galleries. What I want to do:
Travel -> Trip title -> Specific location -> Specific feature
For example:
Travel -> China 2009 -> Xian -> Yangtzi boat tour
(There are ~30 specific features, among ~7 different specific locations, in each trip. This gets the number of photos in each gallery down to a reasonable level.)
He does other types of photography as well as travel photography, so I am trying to avoid creating new category for each trip. Also, in 20 years it would really clutter up the category level to have a category for each trip!
I'd LOVE to see how people have solved this problem with their own travel galleries. Please share the URL of your site so I can see how a visitor navigates to your travel photos!
If this is the wrong place to ask about how you organize and display your travel photos, please let me know where to post this question.
He goes on epic travel adventures, lasting 2-4 weeks, with 3-7 main locations within that adventure. He comes home with thousands of photos from each trip and it's difficult to cull down to even 300 top photos, given the number of different locations and their beautiful features.
I'm trying to figure out how to set this up in Smugmug, using categories, sub categories, and galleries. What I want to do:
Travel -> Trip title -> Specific location -> Specific feature
For example:
Travel -> China 2009 -> Xian -> Yangtzi boat tour
(There are ~30 specific features, among ~7 different specific locations, in each trip. This gets the number of photos in each gallery down to a reasonable level.)
He does other types of photography as well as travel photography, so I am trying to avoid creating new category for each trip. Also, in 20 years it would really clutter up the category level to have a category for each trip!
I'd LOVE to see how people have solved this problem with their own travel galleries. Please share the URL of your site so I can see how a visitor navigates to your travel photos!
If this is the wrong place to ask about how you organize and display your travel photos, please let me know where to post this question.
JC Dill - Equine Photographer, San Francisco & San Jose http://portfolio.jcdill.com
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
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"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
This is difficult question. I can point you to www.themodernantiquarian.com where the members are organizing the trips we take by location. It is actually very neat because we have a Google world application for accessing the points of interest.
It seems you already decided how to organize your friends photos so I am not sure what you are asking. I would not have chosen your method myself but it is personal choice.
I would start by thinking about the viewer. Do they want to follow the story in chronological order? Then week 1, week 2 would do it. I don't personally think anyone other than the photographer wants to view 300 or more photos at a sitting, so sorting stuff more rigorously would be an idea. The only way it makes sense to have hundreds of photos is if you tell a story and need lots of non-keeper images for continuity. I'm making youtube videos these days and I don't need more than 100 images at a time - so a convenient organizing principle for me is thematic. So after thinking about the viewer, you need to think about WHAT you want to do with the images in future.
Probably with this number of images the only person interested in the organizing principle is the shooter themselves. Systematic tagging is perhaps more important than the hierarchy of galleries for the long term. As a vehicle for self-expression, multiple images tell stories - an infinite number of stories. In my view, a trip is not a story other than for the people directly involved.
A rag tag of reaction, I hope this helps a bit - at least I give you something to think about.
I have had a similar problem and you can check out my site. It has worked out really well for me so far and if I put some more effort into actually writing and organizing a few extra things I think it would work even better. I have organized by Continent > Country > State and or Province
http://www.kelseygrayphotography.com
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If organizing by topic is more important, then you are going to have to combine levels at some point to make it work. One way would be to instead of using an entire level for one entry (i.e. the category level just for "trips") make separate categories for "Trips - China 2009," "Trips - Spain 2010," etc. then work down from there. Or combine subcategory items like "China - Great Wall," "China - Beijing," etc.
Or yet another option is to put what are now your top-level categories (where "travel" is on your example) onto an HTML-only page and then make "China 2009" a category using SmugMug's current hierarchy levels. I know this is probably confusing, but there are folks on here who can help with all of this.
To see how my "travel" section is organized go to http://www.railroadphotographer.com/Photo-Lines .
The Railroad Photographer
www.railroadphotographer.com
You're welcome to take a look at my solution. My site is in my signature at the bottom of this post (takes you to my homepage), but I have a Travel category: http://www.winsomeworks.com/Travel which is linked to my NavBar... you can see that's what you're on because it's highlighted. I don't have dropdowns on my NavBar yet... that may help someday. If I did, they'd link to my sub-categories. As you'll see, the top part of the page is devoted to Travel subcategories. These subcategories hold galleries from the places I've done the most travel/living... China, Tibet, North Carolina, etc. When I get to the point with a travel gallery where I need more than a couple galleries for that place, I create a sub-category. So if you click on "China" you'll see a whole page of galleries, mostly in chronological order from newest to oldest: http://www.winsomeworks.com/Travel/China-1985-to-1987 . I'm only just beginning to scan my old slides & film photos, so those galleries are far from full. But they'll all end up with many pages eventually. The bottom part of my "Travel" category page says Travel Galleries and shows all the galleries that are "leftover" i.e. don't need an entire sub-category-- a weekend trip, for instance.
At this point, if you feel you need one further breakdown at the sub-category/gallery level, you could do this: instead of having a whole category called Travel, make "China" a category of its own & link it to the NavBar. Then you could have "Guilin" or "Sichuan" as sub-categories. Then you could have lots of galleries all shot in Guilin... say "Guilin in Spring" and "New Year in Guilin" etc. Just depends if you mind having lots of main categories on your NavBar. I already have 19 buttons on my NavBar besides "Travel", so I'm refraining from going that route as long as possible. But yes, I have thousands of photos from some places-- so it's a challenge. I think step #1 is to decide why you're posting the photos, because that'll help you figure out how many to post. For myself, I want them where my family and I can see them whenever, rather than having them in a closet... i'ts part of our history. So there are many more there than I may ever want to print or that are even worth printing. However, I DO have some there that I hope to buy prints from here on SmugMug as I'm able. I like to be able to sell some to friends or strangers too, and even if I only sell a few, I know I'll never sell any if they're invisible!
I will probably make some journal-style or old-journal-style galleries at some point with a limited number of photos (maybe 30 or so) that tell a travel-adventure story. I can always copy & move a few into that type of gallery as I have time. Another thing I do is try to keep themes matched between at least the sub-category and galleries.... so as you'll see, my Tibet sub-category & all its galleries are all set to the new "yellow" theme... less confusing I think. I would also like to have some galleries such as "Thailand Portfolio" to direct people to my very best Thailand photos if they don't want to wade through a bunch of galleries. I could keyword the best ones with "Thailand portfolio" in order to have a Smart Gallery find them at some point. Here are some problems I have/had, some for which I have yet to work on good solutions:
1. Sometimes I've traveled with family & have family photos mixed into the scenics. I want family members to be able to see both... the snaps & the scenics. However, I don't like having gallery protection all the same in those mixed galleries. For instance, I'm fine with my extended family copying or downloading the snaps for their use, and doubt many strangers would even bother copying them. So for those photos, I'd leave Right Click Protection off. However, I don't want that ability for what I call my "art" photos. I normally put RCP on them. So, I'm at a wall with that. Some people solve it by having a second site. There are other possible work-arounds but someone else may have to shed light on that for you. Sometimes I simply make a second travel gallery with more of the snaps in it, & place it in my "Family" category.
2. Another problem is if you want a gallery to be under 2 different categories or sub-categories. For instance: PA Churches could be listed under my "PA" sub-category or under my "Church" category, or even under my "Architecture" sub-category. SmugMug could have made this a lot easier than they did when we got virtual galleries. Granted, it's MUCH easier than it used to be!! But to do this, you'll have to create one gallery, PA Churches, & put photos in it. Then you'll have to create another gallery in a different category or sub-category, and click on "Smart Gallery", then tell it to fill with photos from that first gallery (which you choose from a drop-down list). It would be nice if you could simply create one gallery and then virtually place it a couple categories if you wanted, rather than go through all the gallery re-creation steps. Oh well.... maybe someday! You can also make smart galleries that fill by using a certain keyword or two, so that helps. Clincher there is you can't always arrange them the way you want.
Ok, good luck! Hope this helps-- feel free to ask for more clarity if needed. There are some highly elegant solutions around here, but many of those solutions require a good deal of customization.
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EXACTLY!
No, he doesn't blog. We want to do this entirely in Smugmug.
The problem here is that the top level will get quite crowded with every trip as its own category. If I combine at the other end, then it gets too crowded with too many sub categories per trip, or too many galleries per sub category. Sigh.
It's not that it's confusing, it's that it doesn't scale for adding new trips automagically using the uploader from Lightroom. The solution needs to work for uploading smoothly from Lightroom.
Thanks! It REALLY helps to see how other people are organizing their photos, even if it's not exactly what we want to do with these travel photos.
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
Thanks!
"Chance favors the prepared mind." ~ Ansel Adams
"Light thinks it travels faster than anything but it is wrong. No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it." ~ Terry Pratchett
I've struggled with this in Flickr, and now moving over to Smugmug I'm having the same problem. I've decided to create an overview/organization page on an external site.
I'm just getting it started here - still working out the kinks. The benefit is that I can organize it any way I want.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3861944/Photo%20index.htm
http://www.photosbyat.com/gallery/6429787_dmmWa
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That's awesome. How is it in Smugmug?
Also - what site do you use to edit the text? I've tried Kompozer and found it frustrating for a Newbie like me...
description. You can use html and CSS to format it. I used a table
with three tall cells. Also used critique style because it's wider, but
the journal (old) can be widen.
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