My cousin Kai just got married yesterday in Maine.  I wasn't able to make it, but my parents and sister were able to fly up and attend.  By all accounts, it was a fantastic wedding and I wish we could have made it, but with a month old baby (not to mention her two-year-old sister) we just didn't feel like we could handle the trip.  And, given the multiple layovers and missed flights my parents encountered along the way, I think we made the right choice.

Still up in Maine, my dad called and said that he wanted to know the best way for all the attendees to share the great multitude of pictures that were taken.  He offered to use his corporate server to host the pictures, but I suggested that it would take a lot of work to write an interface to these pictures that was slick, intuitive, and made it easy for people to post, share, and view pictures.  Plus, there are a lot of great services out there, such as flickr, photobucket, and webshots (incidentally, doesn't anyone believe in capitalizing any more?).

Since we want to share both pictures AND video, I decided to go with webshots.  I can't say that I really love the interface, but it does seem to have all the necessary bells and whistles.

One thing I immediately noticed is that there does not appear to be any Web site that allows a community of users to post and manipulate the pictures of an album.  For instance, given my cousin's wedding as an example, I don't know of a Web site that would allow multiple people to register for the same album so that they could all upload and share pictures together.  The best solution I can think of is to create a new account, share the username and password with those interested in posting pictures, and distribute the URL to those that simply wish to view the pictures.

That said, I was asked to create said community, and share some simple instructions on how to both view the pictures, as well as upload new pictures.

View the pictures

1. Open up your browser of choice.
2. Browse to: http://community.webshots.com/user/kaisky2007/
3. Select your album of choice (e.g. Wedding).

Upload new pictures

1. Open up your browser of choice.
2. Browse to: http://www.webshots.com/
3. Enter the username and password in the upper right-hand corner, and click the "log in" button.  Feel free to  contact me if you need the login information.
   
   
   
4. After you are logged in, click the "upload" menu button.
   
   
   
5. Select an upload destination (or create a new album).  Personally, I'd recommend just using the existing "Wedding" album to keep it simple.
   
   
   
6. Click the "select files" button.  This will open a file dialog box.
   
   
   
7. Browse to the location of your pictures and/or videos.  Select the files you want to upload, and click the "Open" button.  You should see the selected files added to your file list.
   
   
   
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 to add additional files.
9. Once have added all your files, click the "upload" button.
   
   
   
10. You can now add a title and description to the pictures and videos you have uploaded.  The more information the better, so add some comments!  If you don't, then people that missed the wedding (like me!) won't know what I'm looking at.  Click the "save" button to save the title and description (or click "save all changes" below).
    
    
    
11. When you are done, you can click "view album" to look at your handiwork!

Pretty simple stuff!  I hope that someone in the family finds this information useful!

Congratulations, Kai and Sky!