The Project
Goldplated Photos is a beautiful, secure, self-hosted photo gallery designed for photographers and enthusiasts who want complete control over their images.
Why We Built This
- Privacy First - Your photos deserve to stay on your own server, not on someone else's cloud
- No Lock-in - File-based architecture means your content is always portable
- Modern Experience - Professional gallery features without enterprise complexity
- Developer Friendly - Clean codebase with comprehensive documentation
The Creator
Kristijan Lukacin
Kristijan is a web developer and photographer based in Croatia. He built Goldplated Photos to showcase his photography work while maintaining full control over his content.
- Website: kristijan.lukacin.com
- GitHub: @klukacin
- Twitter/X: @klukacin
Human + AI Development
This project was built with substantial assistance from Claude, Anthropic's AI assistant. Claude helped with:
- Architecture design and best practices
- Code implementation and debugging
- Documentation writing
- Security review and improvements
Why We Share This Openly
We believe in transparency about how modern software is built. The collaboration between human creativity and AI capabilities demonstrates a new model for software development.
What This Means for You
- CLAUDE.md - The project includes a comprehensive context file that helps Claude understand the codebase
- AI-Assisted Contributions - Contributors are encouraged to use Claude Code for development
- Iterative Refinement - Features are developed through human-AI conversation
Technology
Core Stack
- Astro - Static site generator with SSR support
- PhotoSwipe - Touch-friendly image lightbox
- Sharp - High-performance image processing
- Node.js - Server runtime
Key Libraries
- exifr - EXIF metadata extraction
- fluent-ffmpeg - Video metadata via ffprobe
- Express - Admin panel server
- jszip - Album ZIP downloads
License
Goldplated Photos is released under the MIT License. This means you can:
- Use it for personal or commercial projects
- Modify the code as needed
- Distribute your modifications
- Use it privately
The only requirement is to include the original license and copyright notice.
Contributing
We welcome contributions! Check out our Contributing Guide for details.
Support
- Documentation - docs.goldplated.photos
- GitHub Issues - Report bugs
- Support - Buy me a coffee