MT Image Gallery

On Friday lunchtime I was reviewing my Christmas pictures and wondering which ones to post to the site. I was contemplating the fact that these days I seem to be posting more pictures in the main body of the weblog than in the Gallery section, probably due to the fact that I use my digital camera in a different way (more “snaps”) to my SLR.
Does the whole “gallery” concept become somewhat worthless if I start showing you pictures in dribs and drabs within the body of the weblog? I wondered if I should start adding links to the gallery index page to point you to posts where I’ve included pictures.
Within a minute or two, I was idly wondering whether, in fact, it would be possible to use Movable Type itself to present the photo galleries, rather than the snapGallery script that I’ve been using up to now. The phone rang, I became distracted and this train of thought disappeared onto the sidelines.
However, later that day, in one of those spooky weblog synchonicity things, I noticed that Meg had been thinking on similar lines. Her requirements (expanded in the comment) started me thinking about the pros and cons of various different approaches and I’ve been toying with a few ideas ever since. Ultimately, however, they’re all quite time-consuming and I don’t see the benefits (single skill set, not dependent on Windows Scripting Host, allows comments on individual pictures) compensating for this.
I’ve also been searching the obvious places (i.e. the MT support forum and Google) to check that I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. Predictably, thousands of people have covered similar ground, though no one has implemented a gallery in quite the way that I would do it myself. But then, what makes me think that my preferences are so special?
Ultimately, I’m a pragmatist. I’m not going to spend hours and hours creating something from scratch when there are several ready-made solutions that will do the job just as well (the 80:20 Rule again). I’m not sure exactly which way I’ll go yet, but here’s the raw material that I’ll be using to help me make my decision (with a few scrappy notes at the bottom). Comments welcome.
http://blogstyles.com/photo/
http://gallery.sourceforge.net/
http://www.imagemagick.org/
http://www.movabletype.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=3e199c1b788bffff;act=ST;f=14;t=12343;hl=image+gallery
http://www.movabletype.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=3e199c1b788bffff;act=ST;f=14;t=11599;hl=image+gallery
http://www.movabletype.org/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=3e199c1b788bffff;act=ST;f=14;t=11249;hl=image+gallery
Gallery is a PHP script dedicated to creating and managing image galleries. Image::Magick is an image manipulation package with a Perl interface, which MT uses to create thumbnails as part of its upload functionality.
Conceptually many people seem to distinguish between photoblogs (i.e. a weblog based on photos, ordered sequentially by date) and galleries (i.e. collections of photos, generally organised by theme).