Notes from the Lab is a newsletter that delves deep into the creative process, rituals, and thought process behind being a photographer and filmmaker.
It is published almost weekly and focuses on my conceptual and technical choices and my day-to-day routines as a father and creative. The newsletter is a journal of my projects and a logbook of everything I learn.
Occasionally, it’s also a good old photo blog.
I’m a big friend of the word “new".
But on the flip side, chasing the “new” can also mean a severe addiction, hunting the high of the fresh gaze upon your work by superimposing your original thoughts with new techniques, gear, or new concepts without finishing older ones. However, a considerable part of the creative process is consistency. Fighting through the hardships of boredom and repetitiveness to come out of the other side with a bolder concept than scratching only the surface.
But…here are the three genuinely new things in my life:
I just left my 30s behind, celebrating the big number 4 with a few good friends in my backyard and an extended rooftop bar session with my wife, gazing at an incoming storm and intensely talking about life and work.
A fellow photographer told me his best time creatively was between 40 and 50. While the 20s seem ideally reserved for experimenting as the formative years, your 30s to find your place in life and work, the 40s are to build upon the things you learned and pass them on. And I’m looking forward to doing so, hopefully well beyond any imagined or physical age limit. Cheers to that.
In other news:
Notes From The Lab has a physical pendant now, a space to experiment, to work, a tiny studio, and a place for coffee and chats. I will give you a proper tour in the next issue of this newsletter, but let’s talk about the next new thing first:
I gifted myself with a brand new Portfolio website.
Still, with all the social media buzz, I’m convinced your portfolio website is essential to showcase your work and market yourself to clients. It’s a curated window into your practice and ideally shows your dedication and variety.
An old friend wrote me a message recently that it seems like I’m changing my websites and layouts more than I’m changing my underwear, which is partially true (except for the underwear part…). But, this time, I wanted to do it right and hired Anna as a developer to build a new site from scratch.
No pre-made layouts, no slow backend, no chunky Wordpress-build.
I’ve got an educational and practical background in web- and graphic design, so I came up with a concept and layout by myself, and we had a few talks back and forth before the actual development started. Anna did a great job implementing my ideas and coming up with her suggestions for the site, and I am more than happy with the result. Here are some of the concepts and core requirements for the new portfolio:
01 - An ever-growing and changing archive
My main goal for my website was to have a robust, easily updateable backend and a sortable frontend to handle an ever-growing collection of projects. It is Easy to edit and re-edit, to have a system that reflects my work and has a certain evolution in itself. I wanted the website to stand back and feel much more like a well-designed app than something designed to be temporal, with a few slight hints of personality, like tiny type animations and a careful selection of fonts.
After much research, I decided to go with Söhne by Klim because it’s the closest to a modern yet very clean grotesque font that works very well in small sizes.
The individual projects are designed to make as much space for the images and videos, including a full-screen option for maximized picture real estate, a custom video player, and multi-color slide backgrounds.
02 - Easy access and subtle design features
I wanted the site to be as easily maneuverable as possible, with a central overview as an entry point to get a quick idea of my work the first time you open the page. The design should be as intuitive and accessible as possible, using intuitive methods of sorting and browsing.
I firmly believe that a photographer’s website should support the work first without trying to enhance mediocre work with fancy layouts or distracting design elements. I received a lot of feedback from art buyers, agents, and art directors, and one core requirement was to be able to navigate and find the images they were looking for fast and hassle-free.
In the end, from a commercial standpoint, the best thing that can happen to you as a photographer is to land your pictures on as many mood boards and pitch decks as possible, and one of the main levers, besides great work, is to present your work on a website that makes it easy to access and filter for specific images. I never understood why some photographers disabled the right-click on their website, especially as it’s easy to screenshot and share the photos anyway, but with much more hassle.
03 - Fast and easy updates
Anna suggested using Sanity as the CMS for the site. Mainly because it’s fast and easy to upgrade, and at the same time, proof for any new features the site might get over time. Preparing and uploading a project to the website takes only a few minutes, including video directly within Sanity.
04 - Speed!
There is a massive problem with standard website builders. Speed.
Usually, an extensive feature set is included in these website templates, but you might only need a fraction of the features for your site. Usually, the whole system gets loaded when people visit your website, thus generating longer loading times than necessary. Custom-built websites are tailored to the features you need and use.
But speed is crucial. Nothing is more annoying than slow-loading websites; nothing will scare away your audience faster.
05 - No Cookies!
I don’t like Cookie consent banners and buttons, and it’s just one click more that distracts the visitor from discovering the work. Using Plausible as our analytics tool, it was possible in the development to go with a completely Cookie-free approach. All are within full GDPR compliance.
Find the new website here:
www.ramonhaindl.com
Thanks for reading!
xoxo — Ramon
thanks for sharing this! The site does load fast! I hadn't heard of Sanity before look interesting!