What
VE:Session is an open-source photography studio management application. It utilizes Adobe’s Flash platform to bring photographers and their clients a rich visual experience while proofing and ordering photo prints.
Why
We own a photography studio, and were not happy with the available software for proofing and ordering. We also want to incorporate additional studio management functionality. Booking sessions, tracking, marketing, etc. All of these items can benefit from a shared database of information. VE:Session is an attempt to centralize these items and provide a useful interface for photographers and their clients.
How
VE:Session is in the ‘proof of concept’ stage right now. It works, but is dependent on many other pieces of software to function properly. This makes it difficult to setup, and perhaps unapproachable by many. One of the goals of the project is to make VE:Session easy to install with non-specialized web hosting. Currently the application requires specialized hosting to facilitate the database backend.
Open Source
VE:Session is free to use and manipulate. If you create something that might be useful for others, please submit it back to the project. As mentioned VE:Session is in its infancy. Future versions will break the current version utterly and completely. Use it at your own risk!
Demo
http://session.visualempathy.com
username: demo_client
password: demo_client
There is not currently a demo for the Administrative back end. That will follow in the future.
Discussion
There are two Google groups for this project:
For project announcements, sign up for the announcements list. To discuss the project, sign up for the discussion list.
Friendly Warning
VE:Session is a mess right now. It requires a server capable of running MOD_PYTHON for Django. I currently use Slicehost for this. Most hosts don’t give you the level of configurability to do this. In addition, it requires an older version of SlideShowPro Director (1.0.0.9) that is no longer available. One of the top items on the TODO list is removing this dependency and giving VE:Session its own gallery managment capabilities.
The source code is completely uncommented and otherwise undocumented. When it is rewritten in the near future, this will change. It will have proper comments, unit tests, and documentation.
Assistance
If you have a need for extensive customization of VE:Session, or need assistance in implementing it for yourself, we are available to accommodate your needs.