We've just spun up a brand new photo sharing instance, based on Vernissage. It's similar to pixelfed, but more focused on photography (as opposed to general image and short video sharing).
Signups are open. Currently, it mandates an email address, but you can stick whatever you like in there, and it will be automatically verified. Signups do require approval, but you can also generate invites that (I believe) bypass the requirement for approval.
Anyway, you can check it out at https://photos.blahaj.zone/
As a consequence, we will be taking down our pixelfed instance. We'll leave it up until the end of August to give people a chance to migrate, but honestly, it had really low activity in any case, so it shouldn't have too much of an impact on people.
Vernissage may also end up having low activity, but even if it does, I like it so much more than pixelfed, that we'll keep it running even if it's just me using it :)
I'll ask you in a few months how the experience with hosting it is đ
save