http://icyshark.com/my-heart-melts-every-time-i-look-at-him I use AdSense on this site, and a couple others like it, for the past year and haven't had any issues. As you can see, it's purely images with no textual content.
you are using in side bar. can we put the ads on posts themselves ? (wordpress have a plugin to put ads code on post)
you shouldn't have any issues with photos. If anything, photos are very effective means of advertising. If you know how to set up back links for your photos, more traffic and revenue for you