The State of the Website

December 20, 2025

I had a post some time ago where I described the workflow I used to maintain this website. I made some big changes recently and realized that it was time to archive the old one and create a new post that explains why things have changed and what has changed.

Why the Change?

This redesign was brought on by some lingering issues I had with the original site structure. I used the Skeleton Boilerplate to get started and over the years added custom HTML and CSS to modify certain features. These custom updates would sometimes conflict with the default styling and functionality embedded in the boilerplate. I am not a web developer, so resolving these issues often took time. While the Skeleton Boilerplate was a great base to start from, my needs were far simpler than the functionality it offered. Between the technical debt I accrued for myself and wanting a simpler framework, it was time to think more seriously about how I could revise my website to better serve the content.

What Changed?

My priority was improving readability across devices. This was something my previous design suffered from despite having responsive presets built into the boilerplate. I still needed to maintain that responsive functionality, but I didn't want to revisit defining media queries and breakpoints. While looking for some website inspiration online, I was reminded that a text only website is naturally responsive. No media queries or breakpoints needed. This approach meant that I could drastically reduce the footprint of this website by replacing the original Skeleton Boilerplate files with my own HTML and CSS. The final design that you see here won't win any awards, but it's fast, functional, and easy to read on mobile devices.

Portfolio

I decided to move my portfolio to Flickr rather than continue to host it myself. The problem I encountered was self-hosting high quality images. While modern internet speeds have made downloading high quality images trivial, it still requires extra hosting space and results in large data downloads for the end user. I tried to strike a balance between image size and quality, but I was never completely happy with the results. The goal of a portfolio is to show what you've got in the best way possible, and I realized that self-hosting my own portfolio wasn't going to do that. It made sense for me to leverage the resources of another service built specifically for that purpose, so I chose Flickr. It's well-established, easy to use, and reasonably priced.

As you can see, even though I'm using Flickr, I'm not embedding any images here. There are a couple reasons for that. First, a Flickr embed would require extra HTML and CSS functionality to make it responsive. Second, I think the native interface through Flickr is a better viewing experience. So, rather than embed a featured image on my homepage, I chose to use a hyperlink that will take you to that image on Flickr instead.

Workflow

This website continues to be hosted by Siteground and I have had no issues. There has been no downtime, the best I can tell, and on the rare occasion where I needed to contact support, they have been responsive. From a performance perspective, Siteground has been great. In terms of affordability, though, they are not the cheapest hosting service around. I use their StartUp plan which is $17.99 per month. I have explored other hosting options. This website isn't quite a static website since I use some PHP but, if it were, I know that Netlify with Github, Digital Ocean, or Amazon AWS are popular static website hosting options. The reason I continue with traditional website hosting, though, is that I find it comparatively easier to use and understand. I'm not against learning new things, but this is one of those cases where I'm willing to pay a premium for the ease-of-use and reliability and performance. All things considered, I think what Siteground charges is reasonable, so unless they suddenly raise prices significantly, I will continue to use them.

I make updates to this website by editing the HTML and CSS files using Visual Studio Code. Manually updating HTML and CSS might sound burdensome, but in practice it's simple and takes very little time. I then use Transmit 5 to copy over FTP the updated files.

Observations

I remember when I started this website nearly eight years ago that I was going to write one post a week, which then became once a month, and eventually “whenever I feel like it”. The only thing I did with some consistency was post a new featured image on my homepage. I had early ambitions of making this website a resource for commentary on current photography news and trends, but I soon learned that one's interest in a topic is directly related to how much motivation you have to write about that topic. Rather than follow trends, I decided to focus on things that interest me instead. An occasional gear review here. A short essay there. No set schedule. I don't have a lot of content, but this website has reached a stage where it has become a passion project that is occasionally neglected but never abandoned.

Moving Forward

My goal is to post new content more frequently than just a few times a year. While I have some legitimate excuses that kept me away, I also know that procrastination played a role too. It's one thing to think about doing something, it's another to actually do it. The same applies to my photography as well. Reviewing my photo catalog, I've taken far fewer photographs this year than previous years. I've been lazy with my photography and that's something I need to fix.

I do feel good, though, about the site refresh. Again, it's not flashy, but that was kind of the point. I suspect there will be some minor tweaks along the way, but for now things feel like they're in a much better place.