Help: Building Photo of the Day section

I have looked all over and can’t figure out how to do this in a simple way.

I’m adding a photo of the day feature for a specific category and I want to be able to do the following:

1) Post a new photo each day, which I can also archive to a monthly post.

2) Be able to pull the latest image using scripting that I can insert in a category page, and/or in posts.

My first instinct is to use the Yet Another Photoblog plugin so I can post a single image by day, and I can just call the most recent photo on the photo of the day page. I would then just have to make an archive post each month that includes all these photos.

My complaint is that this is going to generate 30 extra posts a month, which I’d prefer to avoid.

Can someone recommend an alternative? Anything I may not have considered or something I missed? Any help is appreciated.