Photo Gallery

Adding A Photo Gallery To Your Wordpress Post – 2.7

Saturday, February 7th, 2009

I’m not sure if I am using the correct terminology here. I am not talking about some sortable photo gallery plug-in with tons of features. What I am talking about it the “Gallery” feature that comes with the Wordpress package that allows you to place thumbnails into your post.

I just found this today. I know, I am probably the last person on earth to realize this was even available. I was going through an old post about Luray, VA. My brother took a bunch of photos a while back that I posted here. Basically, I wanted people to see what the area looked like. I noticed that I didn’t put any captions in the photos, so I clicked the “Add an image” button, just to see if those photos were stored somehow. They were and there were a few tabs that I hadn’t noticed before in the pop-up window. One of them said, “Gallery.” Mind you, this tab only appears if there are photos already uploaded.

I clicked the link and saw all the photos. Each photo had a link next to it that showed its properties. I still had the option of adding captions and all that. At the bottom of the list of photos, I noticed some neat little options that let you post all of the uploaded photos for that post as a gallery. How sweet. I chose the number of columns I wanted to see in my post, the order of the photos, how I wanted each photo to show when it was clicked and hit “Insert gallery.”

Take a look below for an example gallery. I found some random pet photos to post. Be sure to click each photo for a larger view.

: Simon sleeping on top of Jambalaya

: Simon lounging around

: Mickels on the grass

: Simon getting all nestled in

: Mr. Quack stopping by to say hello

: Flipperhumanbodyman laying on bed

: Simon licking Michaels ear

: Holly looking through door waiting to come inside

: Michael sleeping on the floor

: Holly and Simon sleeping on the floor

What is the benefit of putting your photos in gallery form? Well, for one, your page will load a heck of a lot faster. Also, you will give your readers more of a choice. They can click what they want and ignore the rest. You know, I am all about reader satisfaction.

(Well, this isn’t the greatest example. I had to adjust the “medium” picture size to fit the screen better. Now, you have to options. You can click the thumbnail, which will bring you to a medium sized photo. Then, you can click that photo for a full sized photo. In this post, the medium sized photos are too small. They will be correct in later posts.)

Cool Pictures Of Tomatoes And A Mushroom

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

I think these two photos may have been the inspiration for my new photo gallery.

I took them yesterday when it was kind of rainy outside. I thought it would be neat to post these really cool shots on the blog. Then, I thought that no one would know what the heck am I talking about. Someone out there with a crazy smart brain would ask, “Why is Jay posting pictures of tomatoes and a mushroom?” I’ll tell you why…because they are cool.

Tomatoes

This is a picture of the tomatoes I have growing on the back porch. The reason I took this photo is because I am quite proud of my plant. Also, because I liked the way the drops of water on the red tomato show as kind of orange.

Wild mushroom

This is a very cool picture of a wild mushroom that is growing up near the driveway. I saw this and just couldn’t resist.

For the high resolution versions of these images, please visit the “Misc” category of my photo gallery.

Photo Collection Using Coppermine Photo Gallery

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

I had a great idea yesterday. I was thinking that since I like to take pictures and post them up on this blog, maybe people would appreciate a dedicated photo gallery.

One of the things that always annoyed me what that no on can really see the detail in my photos. The new camera that I got takes great pictures, but when I shrink them down to fit in the blog, I lose so much of the close up detail. For the blog, I shrink the photos down to 503 pixels. For the photo gallery, I will shrink them down to 1000 pixels. That should let the average blog reader (civilian) see what I want them to see.

Where can you see this marvelous new gallery? Well, right here. The gallery is an open source application developed by Coppermine Photo Gallery.

I just put a few photos in there for now. I am not going to drive myself nuts be going back to every photo I ever took to try to fill it up. Also, I am reserving the gallery for only really good photos…not everyday things I post here. Well, some of the stuff I post here, but only the good stuff. I will also refer to the gallery in my posts if I have a better photo over there.

When visiting the gallery, be sure to click the thumbnail photo. When the photo gets large, click it again for the really big one. That’s where you’ll see some really cool stuff.

Pictures Of Luray, Virginia

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

If you have ever driven through Virginia, you would probably agree with me when I say it is a very pretty state. I like to drive down Interstate 81 because of the scenery. Virginia has a very diverse landscape, which makes almost the entire state exciting.

I am sure I mentioned that I love to browse different towns online. I like to look at photos of the areas. Many times though, there really aren’t a lot of photos to see, not even on the websites that the towns own and maintain. This always gets me a little curious. I mean, the reason for the website in the first place is to inform and attract, so why not add a nice photo gallery to it? I guess they are getting there.

Recently, my brother Jeff bought a cute place in the hills of Virginia near Luray. He has made a little hobby of taking interesting photographs of the area. He has been emailing them to me and I thought they were great. I asked his permission to post them on my blog and he agreed. I think this may be his big break…getting published on a famous blog like mine.

Anyway, since there really aren’t any great shots of Luray, VA out there yet, we are going to start putting them there. The pictures below are some country shots. I believe Jeff is going to start taking pictures of the town and different more populated areas, so I will post them when he gets them to me.

I think I finally know where Jeff gets his talent…me.

: Sunflowers in lawn – Luray, VA

: Back country road – Luray, VA

: Driveway with gate – Luray, VA

: Old fence line in field – Luray, VA

: Flowers near fence in front of mountains – Luray, VA

: Tower in front of mountains – Luray, VA

: John Deere farm tractor – Luray, VA

: Field in front of mountains – Luray, VA

: Horses in field in front of mountains – Luray, VA

: Deer in field near mountains – Luray, VA

: Sunset over farm – Luray, VA

: Old rusty school bus in field – Luray, VA

Mayflower Inn, Washington, CT

Tuesday, March 4th, 2008

Laura and I decided to get in the car and visit Washington, CT yesterday. What was the destination? Well, no less than the Mayflower Inn & Spa in Washington, CT.

As I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts, my mother purchased a gift certificate for us a few years ago for the Mayflower Inn. If memory serves me correctly, we used it for a Valentine’s Day dinner, but I may be wrong. It was either that or New Year’s Eve. Anyway, we drove there at night and (even at night) really liked the area. We decided that it needed to be visited during the day.

Now, please let me explain…I am sure we have all heard of New England. Sure, we have heard of it, but have we ever really seen it? What we learned yesterday was that be merely driving through Connecticut and Massachusetts really doesn’t count for visiting New England. There is a little corner of Connecticut that, if visited, you can easily imagine some English dude sitting on a log with one of those white wigs on. That is what Washington, CT is like. You can also throw in Bridgewater too. They are both like that. There are more white houses that are over 100 years old than you know what to do with. Needless to say, they are really cool towns. Pricey towns, I’m sure. What really struck us both yesterday, was the fact that we weren’t able to locate one messy property or piece of junk. The whole entire area was extremely clean, which made us feel very nice inside.

One of the things that really aggravates me is the lack of pictures and videos on the internet. Even on Google Earth, people would rather post videos of their kid’s first birthday party, instead of videos of main st. in the town the video is attached to. When I visit town websites, I expect to see some sort of photo gallery or even a walking tour. You would be amazed at how few websites actually offer these features.

Since we visited the Inn yesterday and I happen to own a regular digital camera and a video camera, we decided to use them. I took all the photos and Laura took half the video. These are all just of the Inn and not the town. We’ll get to that. Enjoy!!!

It may look cold, but it was actually the first time this year that I actually felt a warm breeze. It was about 50 degrees outside. This is a photo of the path up to the bush maze, going towards the spa.