Photoblogging Made Easy: Exploring Gallery Types
Create polished, professional galleries with the options in your Media Manager, no matter your theme. Here’s a quick look at different gallery styles on three free personal blogging themes.
Photographs capture moments and bring life and color to our blogs, websites, and portfolios. In this age of digital storytelling, images are key elements in our narratives. With over 200 themes in the WordPress.com Theme Showcase, some designed for photography, there are many ways for you to tell your stories.
Photographers and photo bloggers can choose from a number of versatile premium themes to take their passion to the next level. But you don’t need a premium theme, or even a photoblogging theme, to display your images in polished, professional layouts. Let’s take a look at gorgeous image showcases on free themes that are great for personal blogging and writing, created with the built-in gallery options in your Media Manager.
Bushwick
Square tiles gallery on the Bushwick theme
First up is Bushwick, a lightweight blogging theme we launched at the end of December. While ideal for bloggers who just want to write, Bushwick displays photography beautifully with each gallery type (Thumbnail Grid, Tiled Mosaic, Square Tiles, Circles, and Slideshow):
Set your gallery to one of these five options, which each have a distinct look. Do you prefer a clean grid of separate thumbnails, scattered on the page? Choose the Thumbnail Grid, your default gallery setting. Or, do you want a dynamic tiled look, with different-sized images placed within a mosaic? Select the Tiled Mosaic.
Ryu
Tiled mosaic gallery on the Ryu theme
Ryu is a simple, easy-to-read personal blogging theme that also shows off your photographs well (especially large, full-width images). On Ryu, each gallery type looks sharp and stunning:
One notable feature about Ryu is the large-sized font of the post titles — it’s a bold yet sophisticated typographic touch, and pairs great with galleries of any kind.
Circa
Thumbnail grid gallery on the Circa theme
Launched last month, Circa is a one-column theme that’s fitting for personal musings, with a colorful palette in time for spring. We like the subtle color and design accents in this layout, and the way your images shine in each gallery option:
A minimal theme, Circa has widget areas that are located behind a gear icon in the header, so your galleries take center stage on the page, no matter which type you select.
Creating a gallery
To compile images into a gallery when you’re creating a post or page, click “Add Media” to begin…
…and click “Create Gallery,” where you can then drag images into your Media Manager. On this screen, in the dropdown menu next to “Type,” select the type of gallery you’d like to display (Thumbnail Grid, Tiled Mosaic, Square Tiles, Circles, or Slideshow). Each gallery has its own unique style — while you might have a favorite, we recommend trying them all before you publish a post.
Need more information? Check out more themes in the Theme Showcase and learn more about galleries.