How I built a “Buongiorno” image gallery with React: share your tips on using beautiful images in web projects

Hi everyone 👋

I’m working on a small web-project where I want to display a set of “immagini buongiorno bellissime” (beautiful morning-images) to greet users when they visit the site. My aim is to create a calm, welcoming experience — something like a “Good morning” feel each time.

So far I’ve:

Set up a React app using Create React App

Created a component that fetches images from an API and displays them in a carousel

Added a lazy-loading strategy so the images don’t slow down the page load

Here are two things I’m struggling with and would love your feedback on:

Accessibility — what’s the best way to handle alt-text / image descriptions for these “morning-scene” images so they’re meaningful for screen-readers?

Performance — I’m seeing some image load flicker on slower connections. Has anyone found a good pattern for progressive image loading (blur up, low-res placeholder, then full-res) for a gallery like this?

If you’ve built something similar (image galleries, good-morning themes, welcome screens) or have tips/tips to share, I’d love to hear your experience.

Thanks for reading & happy coding!