i am working on a photographic guide but I am stuck immediately as i do not know how to get someone's picture on the thread without it showing just a link and no photo.
Do you mean an existing photo in the gallery? When you view a photo in the gallery, off to the right (on desktop browsers - it's down below on mobile browsers) is a "Share This Media" block which has links you can copy and paste into forum posts. You'll want to experiment with the various formats to see which works best for you, but you most likely want the "Share BB [IMG] Code" or the "Share BB [IMG] (With Thumbnail) Code" (which shows only a small thumbnail rather than the full image).
