Is there anyway to make photos uploaded by users pending until I can “approve” them? I want to be able to see the photos before they go live on the site.
You can check the rtMedia Moderation addon https://rtcamp.com/products/rtmedia-moderation/. Which will allow to set media report count. If site admin set value “0”, then all the uploaded media will be pending and show to admin in WordPress backend. You can check all the other options of this addon http://docs.rtcamp.com/rtmedia/addons/moderation.html
Thanks,
–Nitun