In the Club
Create a live photo-sharing session
Run a club or society? Here's how your tech can make it easier
Inviting your club’s members to share photos during an online meeting is a great way to improve engagement. There are lots of ways to do this, but our favourite is to use the photo-sharing tool in Google Photos. You’ll need a Google account to create the shared album, as will anyone who wants to add photos. You can set up a Google account for free at www.snipca.com/38837.
Create a shared album
Before you can share photos, you need to create an album to store them in. Open Google Photos in your browser ( https:// photos.google.com), log in to your account, then locate the Library section in the menu on the left and select Albums. In the top-right corner of the page, click the ‘Create album’ link, then enter a suitable name for it in the ‘Add a title’ box. This will be visible to everyone you share the album with.
You can add photos to your album straight away by clicking the blue ‘Add photos’ button. If you already have some photos in your Google Photos account that you’d like to add, select them by clicking the small circle in the top-right corner of each, then click Done. Alternatively, if the photos are on your computer, choose ‘Select from computer’ (see screenshot below) to upload them directly to your shared album.
You can now share your album by hovering over its icon – which will be grey if you haven’t yet uploaded any photos to it – then clicking the three vertical dots that appear in the top-right corner and selecting ‘Share album’. Next, enter the email addresses of the people you want to share the album with. If you’ve created a Google Group for your club (as we explained in Issue 600, page 48), enter your group’s email address here to add everyone in one go. Once you’ve added your recipients, write a suitable message in the box at the bottom, then click the blue Send button (arrow icon). The people you’ve invited will receive an email containing a link to the shared album.
If you want to add lots of people, you may find it easier to click ‘Create link’ (see screenshot above), then paste the link into an email and forward it to your club’s members. The only disadvantage to this method is that you lose control over who has access to your shared album, because people can easily forward the link to others.
Everyone who has access to the shared album will be able to view the photos in it. They can also add their own by clicking the ‘Add photos’ button in the top-right corner.
Present the photos
A good way to present your photos during a video call is to share the browser tab in which Google Photos is running. To do this in Zoom, click Share Screen at the bottom of the window, then select your browser window within the Basic tab. To do the same in Skype, click the ‘Share screen’ option (open the ‘More…’ menu if you can’t see it).
Bear in mind that photos will appear in your shared album as soon as people submit them, which means you won’t get a chance to vet them first. If you want a little more control over what appears, you can download selected photos from the shared album (click a photo to open it, then press Shift+d to download), move them to a new folder on your computer, then open them in an image viewer such as the Photos app. You can then share this window instead of your browser tab during the video call.
Manage access to your shared album
Once you’ve created your shared album, you can add more people by opening it, then clicking the ‘+’ button at the top. To remove people, click the three vertical dots next to the name of the person you want to remove and select ‘Remove person’ (see screenshot below). Note that when you remove someone, any photos they have submitted will be deleted from the shared album.