Where's a good place for a free, simple, trouble-free photo blog?

May 15, 2014 12:53 AM

Hey, I'm traveling and I want to start a blog to catalogue my adventures. Just something for friends and family that's a bit nicer and a little more personal than Facebook. Must be free, fairly traditional blog format (not Tumblr), emphasis on photography with captions.

Hey, the above pretty much explains it all. I'm about to jump off to Cameroon for a while and I'd like to have a place on the internet to post my photo-heavy updates when I get chances to get online and show my friends and family what I've been up to. I'm looking for a free service with a clean, simple, usable interface (both on the back and front ends) that will allow me to put the photos front and center (with whatever resolution I like) but write a bit about them. Tumblr confuses me and would definitely confuse my Mom and Dad; I want something a little more sort of gallery-esque.

I know this is a bit vague but I'd appreciate whatever advice you can give on the matter. I'll try to stick around for a bit to answer questions and narrow things down in the first stages, if necessary.

posted by Scientist to Computers & Internet (10 answers total)

if you have an ios device that's basically what Journals are for.
posted by empath at 1:15 AM on May 15, 2014

A Wordpress.com blog would probably suit you just fine. There are tons of theme options and there are fairly robust galleries.

Alternatively, there are photo hosting sites like Flickr or 500px, but I think Wordpress would work perfectly for you.
posted by Magnakai at 1:36 AM on May 15, 2014

Vscocam grid? Blogger? Squarespace gallery? Even Instagram can be viewed as a web page... What do you have access to?
posted by jrobin276 at 2:59 AM on May 15, 2014

+1 for the Wordpress.com blog. I'm sure they have lots of portfolio themes for you to choose from. Take photo, upload to wordpress.com, write blog entry and/or caption, hit publish. Done.
posted by John Kennedy Toole Box at 3:16 AM on May 15, 2014

Shutterfly. Create one or more Share Sites.
posted by megatherium at 4:03 AM on May 15, 2014

I would set up a basic Wordpress blog, and a free instagram account - and then use IFTTT to ensure any picture i post from instagram (easy to use! so quick! can prep offline posts for later!) will post on the blog.
posted by shazzam! at 5:56 AM on May 15, 2014

I think that either wordpress or squarespace would do the trick perfectly - they are designed precisely with this sort of activity in mind.
posted by HopStopDon'tShop at 7:03 AM on May 15, 2014

Nthing wordpress.com. There are multiple themes aimed at photo bloggers. I <3 my wp.com blog. No worrying about keeping self hosted stuff up to date. Nearly perfect uptime. Only thing to be aware of is that you can 't use wordpress plugins. Those are for self hosted blogs only. There are a variety of widgets you can use and basic HTML is the limit unless you want to pay for the CSS upgrade. I've never felt the need because I can usually find an out of the box theme that does what I want.
posted by kathrynm at 8:25 AM on May 15, 2014

If you have a gmail account, you can do this on BlogSpot. I like BlogSpot way more than I ever liked Word Press.
posted by Michele in California at 11:35 AM on May 15, 2014

I think Weebly is easier to use than WordPress for something this simple. You can use your own domain or one of their subdomains. You can upload photos in bulk and put them in galleries. They have simple, customizable, mobile-friendly templates that you can gussy up with css if you want. I have been more than pleased with every Weebly site I have dealt with.
posted by Biblio at 4:29 PM on May 16, 2014