rainday9 on "Wordpress used as a journal?"

I am trying to set up a wordpress site that can act as a kind of photo journal - - Where I upload photos from my travels, but them have the freedom to later add text, short stories, etc above and around my photos.
The uploading photos part is working fine, but adding text is clunky. I have to either do it within the HTML editor (not cool), or I have to squeeze it into a comment box (text feels too separate from the photos - not integrated enough).
Any suggestions on how to do this?
Ideally the end result would be something resembling a running journal vs the traditional segmented blog site.
Any suggestions, plug-ins, etc would be appreciated!