Was looking for this as well. Also - you may want to change the title to Lollipop (with an "i") to get more feedback!
I will be self deprecating and say after the change to lollipop I feel like a sucker so I spelled it Lollypop.
However the question remains how do I get to the pictures and regain the widget on my home screen ?
I found the answer, but this dumb message board won't me post a link (since I'm not up to 10 posts yet), so you'll have to web search for "DOWNLOAD ANDROID 4.4 KITKAT STOCK APPS FOR YOUR ANDROID". Scroll down to the Gallery APK. Download then sideload it (Security>Allow installation of unknown sources). It adds the widget to your widget gallery. Works like a charm!
I missed the Gallery app, as well.
You can:
1) Download the Gallery app apk
or
2) Open the Google Photos app, click the menu button on the top-left corner and select "On device" to access your photos.
I second that. Photos app's functionality sucks, QuickPic pretty much does it all, and does it well.The answer to this problem is to download the app named Quickpic in the play store