Instead of
find albums -name *.jpg -not -name *.sized.jpg -not -name *.thumb.jpg -not -name *.highlight.jpg -exec zip -r -1 album.zip {} ;&
use
find albums -name *.jpg -not -name *.sized.jpg -not -name *.thumb.jpg -not -name *.highlight.jpg -print| zip -1 album.zip -@
It will take 5 minutes instead of 5 hours on 500MB archive.