At Best Web Gallery, I occasionally come across good Flash sites. In this post, I want to feature the best photographer sites (with amazing photos and galleries) that I've stumbled upon. Here are 15 sites that demonstrate excellent use of Flash technology to create beautiful photo galleries. Bookmark this page now if you like commercial photography or need to find inspiration to create your own Flash gallery.
1. James Day
With minimalism approach, James Day puts the focus on his beautiful photos. When mousing over the text menu, a preview of the project will slide up.
When you click on the large image, it allows you to zoom in and out.
The navigation at the bottom gives you quick access to the menus, turn thumbnails on/off, navigate the projects, and enter fullscreen mode.
2. Anders Bergh
Bergh loads all images on the homepage.
Click on any thumbnail to see an awesome fly-out effect.
When viewing a large image, it gives you options to go next/previous, zoom in/out, toggle slideshow, or back to thumbnail mode.
3. Jeremy Cowart
No fancy navigation menus or marketing text when you land on the homepage of Cowart's site. You'll know what to click once you enter the site.
Love the loading animation!
Click either the left or right side of the viewing area to navigate through the photos. Notice how beautifully the grayscaled image, currently being viewed, transition into a color image?
The title bar at the bottom displays the photo count and title. You can click on the thumbnail button to view photos in thumbnail mode. Click on the fullscreen button to toggle fullscreen mode.
Extra effort is put into providing a keyboard control. You can use the specified keys to navigate around the site.
4. Ciriljazbec Photography
My first impression of this site was: "Wow! Impressive photos!". Ciriljazbec definitely knows how to sell his skills by featuring a series of full size (and high resolution) images on the homepage.
When you are viewing the photos, it puts the main focus on the image and hide everything else. Moving the mouse around allows you to scroll the image.
On the right side of the navigation bar, you have the options to toggle: Slideshow on/off, Fit in/out, and Move Photo on/off.
5. Nil
Another nice loading animation.
The photo thumbnails are scattered out randomly. Click on the thumbnails to view the larger photo. The photos you've viewed are tinted with pink color.
When you click on the "align photos" button, it will align the scatter photos in a line. You can click on the thumbnails or drag the black circle to navigate through the photos.
6. Jesus Vilamajo
The homepage of Vilamajo might look very plain, but click in the photography portfolio, you will discover its beauty.
The navigation bar at the bottom tells you how many photos are being loaded. As soon the photo is loaded, the tiny rectangle bar will become clickable.
The blue color indicates the photos you've viewed and yellow indicates the current viewing photo.
Click on the zoom button on the bottom left of the image to load a larger image.
7. Ad Vlemmix
Yet another boring homepage.
When you click on the portfolio link, it will automatically enter fullscreen mode. The photos are in grayscale and overlapping each other (it gives you a feeling that the photos are scattered on a table). Click on the photo to bring to front and turn to color mode.
8. Project 7-7
The homepage features a series of video clips in the background.
Once a thumbnail is clicked, a scaled up image of that thumbnail pops up. As soon as the high-res image is loaded, it will replace the scaled up image.
You can drag vectically or horizontally to navigate through the photos in the grid.
The top navigation allows you to quickly jump to different levels.
9. PMA | mis-arch
Be patient, go to the "Projects" section, watch as the thumbnails flow toward you and fade out repetitively in a cycle.
When you are viewing the large image, mouse over the title bar to see the project details. Mouse over the image title to see the thumbnails.
10. Dvein
Click on the circular thumbnails or text menu to open the project details.
The overall transition effect on this site is beautifully directed.
11. Thomas Spiessens Photography
See how a simple slideshow with pixelate transition can work out so nicely.
The sliding dock provides quick access to the high-res photos.
Don't miss out on the tiny slideshow timer under the "Portfolio" button.
12. Javier Ferrer Vidal
The photo thumbnails look like they are flowing in the air.
Mousing over the thumbnail will blur it. When the larger photo is loading, the thumbnail of that photo will progressively turn into a negative image.
13. Jam3media
Jam3media creatively uses the thumbnails to form words.
14. Brook Pifer
15. Hello Design
Mouse over a thumbnail to display a series of project images like a carousel.
Click on the thumbnail to activate a slideshow.
i love it is amazing keep it of
@Caracalla and @Gleb, I don’t agree with you. These sites are specifically about visual content and presentation. They are not text-heavy archives of data. We need sites like this to push the boundaries of style and technique, not stick with some lowest common denominator. And why exactly would a screen-reader need to access a portfolio of photographs?
Besides, surely the absolute catch-all belt-and-braces option would be flash-driven interface for those that can deal with it (with bandwidth sniffing code built in) and a non-flash version for those that either want or need it, whether deployed automatically as a result of code that sniffs out the viewer’s platform limitations or by offering the site visitor a non-flash option.
I really balk at this sort of high-minded attitude that whiffs of snobbery when it comes to flash, as if there is no skill or creativity at play. I find it ridiculous that people are impressed with a website initially but then say “ah, it was done with flash, that explains it.” So you think making a slick, professional flash interface is the easy option? Guess again. Have a go at it yourself if you think it’s a case of just pressing a few buttons.
Personally I’m absolutely sick and tired of cookie cutter wordpress sites with a couple of colour-by-numbers tweaks to an off-the-shelf template, but maybe that’s just me. Each to their own, huh?
Thanks for the awesome collection. I have bookmarked this article over at the SEO Social Bookmarking website.
I love that jeremy cowart stuff. Amazing work.
Thanks for the post
If I only had an ounce of the eye for design that these folks have. Great collection, some real talent here!
Oh my what is this, a debate? You guys are all right on your views.
Flash is truly an amazing medium to use when creating photo galleries. Honestly, I would use it more if I knew how to do it at the level that they do. But to use Flash as the entire element for your portfolio is where I think the issues arise. I do think it’s important for a screen-reader to be able to view an image portfolio especially when you mask your content, contact information, contact forms, company information, bios, etc. in the Flash doc as well? What a blind person never gets their photo taken? But yes, a flash and non-flash version would be the best option. Like you said though, whatever works, works!
Love this post, really inspires me creatively on flash gallery concepts. Definitely bookmarking this! Thanks!
p/s: I really like your site design, layout and posts :)
Please please please add target=’_blank’ to your external hyperlinks.
very nice. the Javier Ferrer Vidal site is kind.
I agree with Chris #42, creating your own website is a lot more demanding then just using some template. All these Template driven sites promote slack behavior.
It would be great to see some original people out there in the art world and not “artists” taking the easy way out by thinking they are innovative and unique by using a “New” sort of “Trendy” Blog with enhanced features.
I do my own site.
on #4 its Ciril (name) Jazbec (surname)
wow… great galleries. thanks for posting. very inspirational. :)
I love this post.I have bookmarked this page.
I really like your site and posts.
Thanks a lot.
- Kamal
Thanks for the collection, enjoyed looking through these.
I love this site, thanks for doing my research ;-)
While they do look nice, they take way too long to load, even on a broadband connection. I wish there was a way to make images look flawless on the web without sacrificing short load times.
Cool, especially liked the Javier Ferrer Vidal site.
Also, check out photographer site http://www.dag-knudsen.com/ which has a nice gallery.
Thanks a lot for all these website. I recommend Airtight if you want to integrate flash gallery in your wordpress website :
Airtight Viewers
Free flash files in http://clipdepelicula.com/category/flash/
I love this post, great flash design art.
Great site love the human touches!!