Closed Photosharing site needed for photo group sharing often nude pics

June 7, 2017 6:42 AM

Looking for websites for closed group photo sharing.

As FB has decided that breasts and especially nipples are heretical and about to bring us close to the endtimes I am looking for an easy to use platform for a small group of photographers to upload their work to.
It is a requisite that non members cannot access this site.
Free is always best but then we the photographers or at least the photos become the product.
This is not the intent, so maybe a small annual fee is acceptable.
As usual all input is very gratefully received especially if you can expand a bit and say why your choices are what they are.
Abraçoes.

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

Your best bet would be to set something up on your own...a domain name is 10$ a year plus hosting. Some of the "all in 1" hosting services even have templates/modules to get you set up with a site with little to know programming knowledge including password protected areas....if you or someone in your group knows a bit about web/programming its pretty easy to set up a wordpress style blog. That way members could upload/post pictures with out worry about breaking content guidelines or sketchy "if you upload to our site we own the picture" type issues.
posted by Captain_Science at 7:28 AM on June 7, 2017

There are a lot of platforms built specifically for professionals to share photos in a controlled way, including the prevention of unauthorized right-click/copy, which might be a concern here. They're not going to be free (except for maybe a trial period), but compared to the cost of getting a website off the ground with the access controls you need, pretty cheap.

Smugmug is one that comes to mind, as I've used it -- I have not vetted it for the application you're considering making of it. But I know you can restrict access, and large high rez uploads are no problem I'll go ahead and say that the instance of Smugmug *I* use does allow copying photos off the site, but it may be an option you can uncheck.
posted by randomkeystrike at 7:39 AM on June 7, 2017

Most hosts that offer Cpanel will have at least one photo gallery app available via one-click install. They aren't going to be as slick as Google Photos or Flicker, but they will give you total control over the content.
posted by COD at 8:41 AM on June 7, 2017

Have you tried setting the privacy of your Facebook group to "Secret"? It means people can't search for the group and find it - the only way to join is to be friends with a member who adds you, so if you like for new Photographers to find you it may not work. But in my experience, setting the privacy to secret means that Facebook no longer auto-deletes photos with breasts/nipples. It's probably still against the terms of use of Facebook, so if that's your concern I suppose it won't fulfill the need, but it seems to work on a practical level (I guess they turn off their auto-nudity-finding software for secret groups). Might be worth a try before switching to a new platform!
posted by jouir at 9:41 AM on June 7, 2017

I would recommend against setting something up yourself or using anything that isn't auto updated. Setting up something yourself and then not paying attention to it makes it much more likely that those photos will be exposed.

No specific recommendation, but if you want the photos to stay private, I'd pay for a service that specifically offers private photo sharing and updates the service without your intervention.
posted by cnc at 9:41 AM on June 7, 2017 [3 favorites]

Private circle on Google plus?
posted by smoke at 2:15 PM on June 7, 2017

It's also reasonably likely that hosts where you set something up yourself will also have content agreements that might preclude the type of content you're wanting to upload. You'd have to read the fine print to know.
posted by instamatic at 4:29 PM on June 7, 2017

It's not too hard to host the files on a PC rather than on the web. You would just need to have one of your number that can leave a PC running 24/7. I think I used pcAnywhere, but I think there is freeware that will work.

You may need something fancier if you need multiple connections at the same time.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:33 PM on June 7, 2017

Flickr (remember flickr?) allows you to create a private group that can only be accessed by invited members. Once you make a flickr group private, you can never make it public again, so that's a bit of a guarantee for members that things won't suddenly be made public by an admin.
posted by klausness at 1:23 PM on June 11, 2017

Also, flickr is OK with nudity as long as you set the safety level appropriately (Moderate or Restricted, depending on the degree of nudity).
posted by klausness at 1:29 PM on June 11, 2017