A few updates - Future Website Plans and More!

It’s hard to believe that it’s August already. Here in Ireland it’s technically Autumn now, and already you can feel the change in the air. And speaking of change, you may have noticed that I haven’t been posting very regularly recently, so I want to apologise. As well as being busy with client work, I’ve also been doing some thinking and I’m hoping to make some big changes soon, on the website and in a broader sense.

My website conundrum

I’ve been talking about this over on my Facebook group, but basically, my website viewership has fallen off a cliff. Since 2020 (hmm, what could have happened in 2020… ;-) ) my viewership has been steadily declining and that decline has been accelerating in recent months. It’s now less than a quarter of what it was. So it’s fallen by two thirds in the space of two years.

At first I thought it must be some technical problem. I had assumed it was to do with google changing their algorithm. Then I also noticed that some of the loss of readership was due to the stupid EU cookie thing 9the bane of my life for a while - long story) and people declining cookies, and therefore not showing up in analytics. But even taking those things into account, I couldn’t figure out why there was such a decline.

But then recently, I had an epiphany: and that was that a lot of it – well, probably all of it – is down to me. I’ve found it harder and harder to write for and update the website recently – partly because of other work – and partly because I don’t like it any more. It needs a big change – but more on that in a minute…

An impressive run at the same time

It also dawned on me that this has been going for over 10 years. (The site in its current form started in March 2011) and so it’s no wonder it’s loosing viewers. I started this after I had a similar site for several year called The Aperture Blog ( The site actually ran concurrently for a while, but it wasn’t really in its current form until Aperture died) - which was about Apple’s Aperture, but then that got discontinued so I started doing more content on this site. There are very few websites that I’ve kept visiting for over 10 years and haven’t lost interest in. So, when that dawned on me, I realised I needed to cut myself some slack. It’s time for a change – a big change.

The other thing I realised as I was researching the problem – is that my current setup is a mess. I have two websites masquerading as one. There is actuallygood reason for this. On the one hand, I have my regular blog - and then I also have my photo stories / portfolio site. The reason that the two of these are separate is because one has a sidebar and the other doesn’t - and there’s no way in Squarespace to do both. I cross link from my main blog when I want to post an entry that is mostly photos, and I want the images to be as prominent as possible. But I realise that this is confusing. The thing is I actually really like my photo stories site - but anyway - something needs to be done.

Squarespace, not viable any more?

The other issue is the platform that I use - Squarespace. I’ve been using Squarespace for years, before they become a regular sponsor one every YouTube video out there, and they served me well at the time. But I’ve hit the wall with what Squarespace can do, and it’s gotten to the point where I hate it now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great for small websites, portfolios and the likes. It’s not good at handling a large blog like mine.

I have numerous problems. The site loading time is waaaaay too long. It’s almost impossible to manage old blog posts. The search function barely works. In fact that’s so bad I have to use google to search for my own articles. If I want to change or delete old and out of date articles, it’s next to impossible to delete more than one at a time. It’s just incredibly frustrating.

On top of that, Squarespace has updated their platform for new sites, but older sites like mine are stuck with the older platform. Which in a way is fine, because the newer platform, while more advanced in some ways, is not remotely suitable for a blog like this one. So I’ve no choice but to move.

The plan

So - going forward, I’ve finally decided to make the move to Wordpress. This will let me address a lot of the long-standing issues (the search doesn’t work properly, for example). I’m hoping to do that within the next month or two – depending on my schedule and how successfully I can pull it off. I’m also going to look at combining both sites back into one, but I’m not 100% on that. I kind of like my Photo Stories site as it is.

It’s incredibly frustrating to me that I know I have some good and valuable content on this site about many topics. It’s frustrating that people aren’t getting to see this content, as I know it’s useful and would help people. Some of this is possibly down to SEO, a topic which I can never get my head around and often seems like some kind of dark magic. Some of it is down to the fact that the stupid search isn’t working properly. Some older content need updating, and that’s very difficult with Squarespace, so hopefully a move to Wordpress will help. I know Wordpress isn’t perfect wither, but the current situation is untenable.

Finally, I’m considering whether or not that will be the whole plan - or if that’s just to save the current website - while I start from scratch on something new. Part of me just wants to let this site die and start from scratch - stupid and all as that would be.

As long as I’ve been writing on this site, I’ve had a bad case of imposter syndrome. Sometimes I feel like I’m just kidding myself thinking I can write about photography and related topics. But over the years countless people have thanked me for helping them and so I don’t want to let those people down either. I just need to refocus my content. I need to find my groove again, whatever that maybe about.

With that in mind I’m taking a short break from regular posting while I try and figure things out (i've been pretty much doing this for the past month or so anyway)so gear and tutorials and so on, might be less often, for a little while while I come up with a new strategy, and work on moving the website. I will still post here though, so check back regularly, and of course if there’s any major new software releases or anything like that, I’ll be on it. (I still have a review of DXO Film Pack that I’m working on for example). I will also still post occason my Photo Stories blog regular photo content - in fact I want to post there more so check that out too (link at the end of this post)

Unfortunately this will probably kill off my remaining traffic, but I need to clear my head to come back stronger as it were. The current situation is unsustainable. Mind you, AI might have killed off any kind of creative profession by then anyway, so who knows!

One last thing. There’s often a joke about not publicly talking about plans, because as soon as you do they change - so this may all change tomorrow - but for now this is what I’m thinking! But I may well change my mind in a few days!!!

Some resources and feedback

While I work on things, here are some useful resources that you may find useful.

• My Photo Stories Blog (This is my “Pure Photography” blog - check it out)
• Search this site using Google (this actually works properly)
• The Website Archives (goes all the way back to the beginning)
• My YouTube channel (some good tutorials and other content here - I want to do this more - but it’s hard to get the right balance)
• Facebook Group (I have discussions about things like that here)

Finally, when the reboot happens, I’m considering bringing back the mailing list. (I’d have to start again, as the old list was deleted to comply with GDPR) Let me know in the comments if you think that is something you’d like to see or not. Also, if you have any suggestions on how you’d like to see this site focussed, or what you’d like to see leave them in the comments below. Or if you think I should just let this end, and start a new site, I welcome that feedback also.