Building a self hosted photo stream and add images with iOS Shortcuts

I confess. I'm one of those people who still takes pictures of their food in 2020. Most of the time of the meals I've cooked myself though.

I've deleted Instagram many years ago, so I ususally don't share those photos with anyone.
While making dinner the other night, I suddenly had the idea of making a little website, where I could share those photographs with close friends or with my family (mom and dad are pretty good cooks/bakers).
The sharing process has to happen on the phone though. I don't want to switch to my notebook and airdrop images into a folder. Maybe iOS Shortcuts could be helpful here…?

After writing the idea down I couldn't rest anymore. "Didn't I see this GitHub project recently to deploy a photo blog on Netlify?" my head asked. After cleaning the kitchen I remembered: It's called photo-stream and has been made by Tim Van Damme.

I cloned the repo, updated the config, added the repository to Netlify and hit "deploy". Now I have a little photo blog available on foodgrams.stefanzweifel.io.

But how do I add images to the site without leaving my phone? After a quick search I stumbled upon the Working Copy app. A fully fletched Git client for iOS. It even supports Shortcuts. Neat!

After watching the video in Working Copy's manual I've created my own shortcut. You can downlaod it here.

Now I can share the link with friends and family and they can be in awe of the delicous food I cook. Next step would add the RSS feed to a shared chat room to discuss the photos.