So now it’s online, the new homepage! And I must say, I’m a little bit proud of myself! But let’s start from the beginning.
Retreating from the Major Networks
Just under two years ago, I radically shut down my social media activities. Dealing with the algorithms and all the garbage flushed into your timeline was just too exhausting. You could honestly think the world was on the brink of collapse!
However, I didn’t want to give up on photography entirely—specifically, showing it off and talking about it. And that’s when I stumbled upon Bluesky! By now, we’ve built a small but wonderful community there, including plenty of fellow photography enthusiasts. And the whole thing happens completely free of that doomsday vibe. Feel free to drop by and check us out!
Inspiration from the Bluesky Community
Bluesky is home to the entire spectrum, from seasoned pros to casual snappers. Nobody tries to lecture anyone else on how things should look or work. It is incredibly refreshing.
Some members also run their own websites. I want to put the spotlight on one of them today because it inspired me so much that I’m writing these lines on my own new homepage today: it’s the site by Mike Hindle (mikehindle.uk). It is great precisely because it scales back to the absolute essentials: images and text. No bling-bling, no flashy animations, and above all, no ads! Just bare information (and fun of course). Please visit his site and check it out!
Moving Away from Clutter toward Minimalism
I already had a website before. It was also running on WordPress, but it was hopelessly overloaded and—let’s just say—rather questionable regarding GDPR compliance! Mike’s site showed me that there is another way.
I now rely on simple structures with the standard „TwentyTwentyFive“ theme and next to no plug-ins. The core advantage of WordPress is that you are truly free in your decisions. In return, it isn’t quite as easy to use as some website builders tailored for photography (like WIX, Zenfolio & Co.), but with those platforms, you always end up being the product yourself in some way.
The Journey to the Finished Website (and How AI Helped)
WordPress, on the other hand, requires a bit of know-how; you have to dive deeper into it. I built the entire site using a local WordPress environment and then migrated it over to my existing live WordPress domain in one go (well, at least almost).
And that’s where we suddenly found a truly meaningful use case for AI! It can guide you around the odd technical cliff here and there. I will write a separate post about that soon. For now, I’m just happy to have the site live—thanks, Mike!