What has long been overdue was finally accomplished: A few days ago I hit the publish button on the project that I had been working on for almost a decade – my website. Well, of course I haven’t spent 10 years actively working on it, but at least it has been almost a decade since I decided to create my own website. Now, and numerous unfinished attempts later, the site has finally gone live.

It all started way back in 2010. I had recently bought my first full-frame camera and was sure that landscape photography would be my thing. After a few successful outings with my new toy I was even more convinced and since I needed a platform to present my images, I went and bought a domain. Within a few days I proudly uploaded an html file displaying the famous words “This website is currently under construction. Here you will soon find…”. I had already set up a blog – the one-click blogspot solution – and really believed that creating a website would be fairly easy, but of course that wasn’t the case and so soon never came. A few years later, when I realized that I hadn’t progessed a single line of code, I sneaked in an apologetic note.

It’s not that I wasn’t thinking about that empty webspace of mine from time to time. I even sat down to design various layouts in Photoshop but – I’ll be honest here – luckily none of them was ever made available to the public. I just wasn’t ready back then and I cannot blame myself for that. I still needed a few years – for both my photography and my knowledge about webdesign. By the end of 2016 I was confident enough with my photography but for the webdesign part it still took me until late last year. I slowly started to experiment and learn and earlier this year, after 10 years of many breaks and pauses I was finally all set to get the job done.

Once I knew what I was doing, I soon had the task laid out in front of me and things started to take shape. My design approach was focused on images. Visual and simple. But I wanted to give those, who want to know more, all the options to dive deeper into the subjects. The design needed to be less cluttered than my first blog approach, but to still have at least the same level of complexity. Designing the website was a big challenge in that regard, but after countless iterations the result comes very close to what I had imagined.

As you can see above, I have come a far way from where I initially started. Admittedly I was relatively clueless at the beginning, but I  had great expectations in regards to the look and feel of my website. I kind of knew what I wanted and probably could have paid somebody to get the job done, but I had the feeling that I would either end up unhappy or broke. At the end, going the DIY route certainly didn’t keep me from being unhappy at times, but at least I was able to continue to pay my rent and after all, I got almost exactly what I had in mind.

Well, I could go on now for quite a while, telling you about the big failures and little successes that filled the past twelve months. But I reckon that I’d be better off telling those stories to either a coding nerd or a therapist. I will not bore you with those details for now and instead give you a little tour and explanation of what the final website is made of. For those interested, I threw in a few visual clues about the process of its creation.

I was convinced that the core feature of the website would still be a blog. I was pleased to find out how easy it was to import my old blog including all comments and meta-data from its blogging platform. At least I wouldn’t have to start from zero. I still had to invest countless hours into spell-checking (that hurt.), kicking out stuff that I didn’t want to keep and reprocessing images to make them ready for 2020. I could feel that I had grown significantly since putting together my old blog and this realization made me further think about the future of my online presence. I decided that I would have to spice things up a little. From now on the blog would be split into three distinct parts, which would differ in content and design.

As the name gives it away: the images section of the blog is focused on my photographs – after all they are the reason for me to run this website. That’s nothing new – my blog has always been centered around images. Text has been a little companion, explaining the background or giving details. But I want to change this. I have learned that with photography, although the ultimate goal is to end up with an image, the image itself should come last. The image comes after the experience. Without the experience there is no image and from now on this experience will play a crucial role.

The way I approach taking pictures has changed a lot. Before, it was all about technical details. Now, I don’t really pay attention to those anymore. Over the years the camera has transformed into a tool that I handle, just like I would handle a screwdriver. Setting the f-stop or ISO has become a routine task, that merely serves as means of getting the result I want. There is nothing magic or overly interesting about it. At least for me. And since I realized that, my mind is finally free to get to the core of the process. And I want to reflect that in my writing. Less how’s and where’s. More why.

Under articles you will find a potpourri of news and updates, but I will also start to share my thoughts and experiences. As mentioned before, I have grown with my photography and all of its aspects. Technical evolution alongside with refined skills and trained eyes have made me change the process of taking and postprocessing images over and over again. Social media has changed the way I interacted with my peers and has at least at some point deeply influenced my own behaviour. But, what once felt right, might have turned out to be truly wrong. I want to elaborate on this process and its steps forward, but even more so on its steps back.

I have decided to strip the travel aspect from the image posts and give it more space, time and dedication. Under adventures you will find stories and travel diaries. Some shorter, some longer. Some will have in depth information about the places, some will have extensive behind the scenes galleries. All of them should convey a sensation of adventure and give an insight in how I feel, whenever travelling to new or old places.

As I already said I wanted a bit more than just a blog for my website. I added a portfolio page, which does what it promises to: it shows a selection of my best work. There’s a store, which in good old manner features a “coming soon” announcement. Better than nothing, I’d say – but more on the store below. The about page is almost too obvious to mention it.

If you look close enough you will see that most of the content currently on display is not too recent, to say the least. This of course is not as it is intended to be and will change within the weeks and months to come. I have tons – yes, literally tons – of images to show and stories to tell. This includes most of my work from 2016, the year I spent nine months dedicated to photography and exploration. But also images from older and newer travels that never made it anywhere other than my own library. Unlike in the past, from now on I will treat this website like work and will regularly sit down to update it. So stay alert for new posts and images, the next one is already pre-written and waiting for me to hit the publish button.

The “coming soon” message on the fine art print store is temporary, but finishing it will take a little more time – I expect it to be done early next year. Unfortunately this is a bit more complicated than just uploading a few images and adding a description. The most important and most fun part is already done – I have chosen a local fine art print shop, papers and sizes. Setting up all the shopping-related e-mails and stuff like that is still waiting amongst a few other less interesting tasks.

Furthermore I do have good news for my non-english speaking viewers – at least for some of them. I’m working on translations to german and spanish which should be done within the next few months. Subsequent articles will then be published in all three languages.

Besides the digital world, things will also happen in real life – but that will be the content of a separate article. For now I can give you a quick hint: Some of my prints are already at public display. Due to the Covid19 situation though, they cannot be accessed at the moment. Once lockdowns are a thing of the past, I will let you know where you can see them.

Well, now that you know what is going to happen here, it’s time to invite you to be part of it. Have a look around, explore the website. Ask questions. Leave comments. I’m happy to help out and to tell you more about anything or any place shown here.

If, during your exploration of the website you find anything unusual, please forgive me. I spent quite a while testing all the pages for any flaws or bugs, but I’m pretty sure that I didn’t catch all, so please – let me know! You can either leave me a comment below, or drop me a line via mail. Any help in eliminating bugs would be very much appreciated. Thank you very much!