Three years ago I published an article about organizing and reviewing one’s archive and I had grand plans to follow up with an article titled “Contemporary Art Has A Schadenfreude Problem.” Unfortunately, before I could publish it, the site was hacked and has been limping along the internet highway with its hazard lights on. I was unable to do anything but get alerts from time to time when the site would drift further into cyberspace. Many times I considered shuttering the website completely, but after toiling over this website for over a decade I just couldn’t seem to let it go.
Fast forward to today and I am thrilled to tell you that the site is back up and running smoother than ever thanks to some handy work on the back end (the sites, not mine). Once I could log back in, the first thing I did was strip out the Amazon banner and static ads (I’ve wanted to do that since 2021). Originally, those ads are what paid for the hosting, domain registrations, etc. and once my photography practice took off they became a nuisance and needed to go (Amazon likes to change and update things regularly, as they should, but this would create a ton of work on my end just to stay compliant with their associate program… I also felt their ‘retro’ design detracts from, well, everything. Chances are, you’ll still come across an add or three that I missed as the site is quite large and my attention span is not.
To be honest, there was a moment where I worried my mom would visit my website and some hacker would have made it so she got redirected to some nudie site or a contemporary art portfolio (I kid). Thankfully nothing like that happened and so long as the site continues to work I’ll share some updates and thoughts in the near future.
Perhaps you’ve realized by now that there are some seemingly random photographs sprinkled throughout this word sandwich. These images are a part of a series I’ve been working on for the past 3 years called Life On Mars. If you’d like to learn more about it you can head over here or follow PhotolisticLife on Instagram. There are also some other projects I share on that site as well as some images of installations and such that I completed over the past few years.
If you’ve made it this far I feel like I owe you a secret tip or something… Okay, if you think you’d like to create low-light images like the one above here is a simple trick that will help you nail the exposure every time: meter for the highlights and underexpose by one stop. Use aperture priority and set exposure compensation to -1… That way your cameras sensor isn’t trying to expose the entire scene and blow out your highlights. You may be wondering why I don’t just use manual. First, that would necessitate a tripod. Have you ever looked out of your houses front window and spotted a man behind a tripod with a camera on top looking back at you? Want to? Me either. Second, the entire project is reflex driven meaning I didn’t preplan or stage anything. I wanted to retain the composition that first caught my eye without thinking about it, which is nearly impossible with a tripod.
Cross your fingers and I might be back again in the future. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll keep things going next time. Life’s too short to mess around on the internet longer than you must. Until next time…
