Neither remote will make the photos display, but I don't think it's a remote issue. The manual for the BluRay says insert a disc, press up/down arrows to select Picture Navigator, press OK, press up/down arrows to select Pictures, press OK.
That assumes you have all of this displaying so you can select the options.
When you first insert a disc, it should read it and display something. No remote needed. The BluRay shows it goes through a READ cycle, then it shows CD, then it stops and no display.
Panasonic doesn't have any user forums and I can't find any forums that really deal with troubleshooting a dvd.