I’ve been doing some research on the different tools available for those who want to set up a photo blog (or just integrate more photos in their existing blog) using the WordPress platform. I’m sharing what I found here to help streamline the process for others interested in doing this as well.

Plugins

• Slickr Gallery - Integrate Flickr albums into your WordPress site. See a demo here.
• Lightbox - Required for Slickr Gallery but also works as a standalone plugin. When someone clicks a photo thumbnail the page becomes obscure and the larger resolution version expands on the screen. Very cool looking. You can group photos together to create a gallery effect too. See a demo here.
• WP-SimpleViewer - Create flash photo galleries on WordPress pages from photos you upload to the site. Based on the standalone SimpleViewer application. See a demo here.
• FAlbum - Create galleries on your site using Flickr photos. See a demo here.
• Shutter Reloaded - Similar functionaity to Lightbox. A bit simpler to implement and less likely to conflict with other javascript in the page.

Themes

• Monochrome Gallery - Free theme that really puts photos up front on the site. Includes a configurable javascript slideshow on the front page. There is also a premium version called Monochrome Pro with more features. See a demo here.
• iThemes Photo Gallery - Premium theme that presents itself more like a pure photo gallery than a blog. Utilizes black or white color scheme. See a demo here.
• Hyku Gallery - Horizontal scrolling photo gallery. See a demo here.
• WordPress Theme Generator - Create a simple theme without having to touch code.

Other Tools

• Flickr Slideshow Generator - Generates the code to embed a slideshow for photos hosted on Flickr. See a demo here.
• JW Image Rotator - Configurable javascript slideshow that can be embedded into most any website. Can display photos from RSS feeds. See example and setup wizard here.

There are quite a few other resources that will work within the confines of a WordPress based website. These were the ones that I found to be most interesting. I decided to go with the Monochrome Gallery and no other plugins or tools for the site I’m building at http://www.julietlofaro.com. I am using some of the other tools I’ve found for specific uses on various websites though. The lightbox plugin is a particularly good tool for presenting small groups of photos added to posts.

Happy photoblogging!