I have wanted to create a system to share my images with my family and friends for SO LONG..... The problem with all of our images is that we have them on our devices and there is no easy way to share them. With some difficult coding work done mostly by ChatGPT, I finally solved this issue.
In this post I will go over the different components in my system.

Long Term Storage

The first thing to solve in your Image System is where to store your photos. I am in my mid-fifties so I have lot's of photos. Too many of course, but so be it. Most people are using the cloud for their long-term storage. I don't. I just don't trust it, and moreso, I don't like how Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. try to take control of our lives. In this case I have choices, so I am exercising that choice. My solution is to have my images stored in 3 different locations. I have two 5 TB external hard drives that I keep all my images and videos on, and another desktop computer. I keep one of my hard drives at work so I God forbid, my house burns down, I have that copy safely stored away. Now if you think that is a little extreme, I want to tell you that I personally know two people that had their houses burn to the ground, and two others that had significant house fires. It isn't as rare as you might think. I store the images in what I call Libraries, and I separate them into Year Folders, then into Month Folders.

Image Library Folder Structure

I just save all my images in the appropriated Library in the year, then in a folder with the numeric month.

Image Tagging System

Over the years I used Adobe Elements, Picasa, Google Photos. I spent hours and hours tagging my images so that I could view them more efficiently with Adobe Elements. If you used this yourself, you understand the issue is that you are no longer using it. It either became too expensive with Adobe's crazy subscription plans, or you simply were overcome with life and stopped using it.

My tag system is WONDERFUL. It is the answer to what I have want for many, many, year. It is also DIFFICULT. Since I know how to code, and I met a new friend last year named ChatGPT, it was possible for me to do this. A pitch for giving it a shot:

If you want to do this bad enough, and you like to learn new things, then this IS POSSIBLE for YOU to do this also. I am even willing to help... so, think about. Anyhow, here is my tagging system. It is still only a few weeks old, but I am already able to do so much with it in sorting and sharing my images.

Cloud Hosting

What?!!! you are asking..... I said I didn't want to be beholden to Apple, Microsoft, or Google to control my images. Yep. That is right, I don't. The system I use, I CONTROL. That is the difference. Yes, I am using Amazon to store a COPY of my images. Yes, a COPY, NOT ORIGINALS. With this I am able to share my images, and to protect them from whoever I want to have access to them. It is a very cool system (yes, and complicated unfortunately) that Amazon has developed with its AWS services.

What Does It Cost You Ask...

AWS S3 Structure

I keep the same structure as my hard drive, and upload the images with my VB.NET software for only those images I Tag.

Now Share on Your Website

Yep. You need a website. You really do. Do you want to be controlled by what social media throws at you, or do you want to control who sees what content of yours. Just, yes just, pursue your own website (cost is about $30/year) and you can learn something new and share this with others.

SIDE NOTE: I hope to develop an app that lets you share your content with other that do similar things, so stay tuned and see if I am able to execute my idea effectively. I don't have a name for my concept yet, something like..... DirectlyShared.com