Private galleries for boudoir and newborn work

This page is for photographers whose work isn’t for public view: newborn sessions shot in someone’s home, boudoir, family portraits a client would rather keep private. Those are just the common cases. Private works on any gallery, for any reason you or your client would rather keep it out of view. It’s on every plan, free included.

What Private means

Say someone pastes a gallery link into a group chat to share the photos. Most gallery platforms then show a preview: the cover image, a thumbnail, a little card. For a wedding that’s lovely. For a boudoir shoot it’s a disaster.

A Private gallery shows none of that. Before it’s unlocked there’s no cover photo, no blurred preview and no link-preview image, and search engines can’t list the page. Your client sees a plain panel in your studio’s colours and logo, enters their access code, and only then do the photos appear. So even the locked page looks like your studio rather than a login screen.

Private galleries are always locked

As soon as you mark a gallery Private, it needs a code to open, so you can’t leave one open by accident. If you set your own PIN, that’s the code. If you don’t, Tellisto creates a six-digit access code and shows it to you. You share it with your client however suits them: in your delivery message, in a separate text, or some other way. There’s more on what to write in the delivery email guide.

Private versus a PIN on a normal gallery

A PIN on an ordinary gallery controls who gets in, but the cover still shows, the link still shows a preview when shared, and search engines can still find the page. That’s the right choice for plenty of work. A wedding gallery can look inviting at first glance while only the people your client gives the PIN to can browse it.

A PIN can also guard just the downloads. Once a gallery has a PIN, open its Settings tab and, under PIN needed to, choose Download photos. Anyone with the link can then look through the photos at screen size, but saving or favouriting them needs the PIN. That suits a wedding, where guests can enjoy the day while only the couple can download. A Private gallery always needs the code just to open it, so this choice doesn’t appear on one.

Private also hides the gallery from anyone outside. So for each job, ask yourself: do I mind this gallery being seen before it’s unlocked? If not, a PIN is enough. If you do, use Private. Either way the link is a long random address, so nobody finds it by mistyping.

Make Private your default

If most of what you shoot is sensitive, you can have every new gallery start Private, so you don’t have to remember to switch it on each time. For a newborn photographer working in family homes, or a boudoir studio, that’s the sensible default.

1. Open Settings and choose Gallery defaults (under Studio).
2. In the Private galleries card, tick Make new galleries private by default.
3. Press Save default.

This applies to galleries you create from now on. Galleries you’ve already made keep their current setting. To turn Private off for one gallery, open that gallery’s Settings tab and switch it off there.

Two smaller details

On a Private gallery, the enquire-from-this-gallery button is hidden. On a normal delivered gallery, a guest who loves the photos can send you an enquiry straight from it, which is a good way to turn a wedding guest into next year’s booking. A sensitive gallery isn’t a shop window, so on a Private gallery that button is off.

Location metadata is stripped from client copies by default, on every gallery, not just Private ones. A newborn session shot at home carries the family’s address inside the files unless someone removes it, so Tellisto removes it before the client downloads anything. For more on what your clients can see and save, read how clients view, favourite and download their photos.