This might sound obvious, but I now have an entirely new website. Not just a facelift or a visual tweak—it’s been built from the ground up. Why start from scratch? Simply put, I couldn’t make the old one evolve into something that reflected where I am today anymore.
Without diving too deep into technical details, the old setup had been patched and updated over time, but it had a fundamental flaw: it was split in two. My portfolio/gallery was hosted on a third-party (paid) service, while my blog ran on a self-hosted WordPress installation.
That split never really worked. The two parts felt disconnected, like they belonged to different worlds. And neither truly did what I needed. The gallery felt clunky and limited—I could never showcase my work in a way I was happy with, and I was constantly working around features meant for photographers focused on selling. But selling prints and licensing images has never really been my main goal, and over time I’ve done less and less of both.
The blog had its own issues. I found myself logging into WordPress mainly to update plugins—for security more than content. When a plugin vulnerability led to an actual security breach, that was the final push I needed.
So the goal became clear: merge everything into one, simpler site. Something lighter, faster, and easier to manage. This new site is built with Hugo, a static site generator. That means everything runs off plain Markdown files—no database, no bloat. It’s fast, clean, and low-maintenance.
What’s gone? Blog comments (they were never very active anyway), the online store (I wasn’t really selling, but feel free to reach out if you want a print), and a bunch of other small, unnecessary bits.
What’s left? Just the essentials:
- A few essays and long-form projects
- Selected galleries showing the kind of work I do
- Updates on what I’ve been up to
Let’s see if this version fits me better, if it will be easier to keep it updated, if it will be easier to everyone to navigate it. Still, this will always be a work in progress.