Fediverse photography
On the fediverse,
from your own front door.
Retro Photo Blogging. No Algorithm.
What’s new is old again. Nothing here is an invention: the single-photo blog, long-form posting, classic Insta, Picasa-style albums — all of it used to belong to photographers. We’re giving it back, on hardware you control, where nobody can take it again.
Your photos. Your voice. Your style. Your dignity.
You’ve heard the fediverse is where the grown-ups went. You’ve also heard it comes with a lecture. Here’s the version without one: your site is your site. Flip one switch and people on Mastodon, Pixelfed, and the rest can follow it, like it, boost it, and reply to it — from wherever they already are. The photograph never leaves your server.
And you’re not dropped alone into the whole shouting universe. SnapSmack comes with a small, quiet corner: a directory of photoblogs worth browsing, a reader for following them, and a weekly one-word challenge. Just photographers. Manners included.
Highlights
- YoursYou host it. You own the art. No company, no tiers, no upsell, no “we’ve updated our terms.”
- Four ways to scoreOne photo at a time, the classic grid, writing with photographs in it, or SMACKTHEMUP: simplified, self-hosted public photo sharing for friends and family. Pick the way you always shared.
- Get in, get outImport Instagram, Flickr and Blogger with dates and captions intact. Leave any time with everything, in a form other software reads.
- SkinsReal sites, real archives, and nothing that looks like a template.
- Not aloneYour site is on the fediverse. People on Mastodon, Pixelfed and the rest can follow, like, boost, and reply to your work while it stays on your server. Plus a directory of photoblogs worth browsing and a weekly challenge.
- Desktop suiteA free non-destructive photo editor, batch publishing, backup, import and export tools. Windows and Linux.
- Locked downReal security, publicly audited. If something goes wrong you hear it from us the day we know — not two weeks later.
- AI insideCaptions, alt text, looks, a skin designer. Five providers, your own key, your call. It’s the intern, not the boss.
- Cheap to runShared hosting, small footprint, upload and go. Run several sites from one desk.
- Not a companyBuilt by a working photographer who uses it every day, under a licence that stops anyone fencing it off.
Followed everywhere.Hosted in one place.That place is yours.
Leave federation off and the site is entirely its own thing. Turn it on and it plays nicely — consent, attribution, content warnings, the lot. The details, and the weekly challenge, are on the FAQ.
Built by a photographer, not a company. Ask him anything — he’s rude but he answers.