UPDATE: New site is live, you can check it out here.
#changeisgoodchangeisgrowth
New Year new outlook?
The year is just about coming to an end. If you know me, you know I’ve taken a bit of a step back from web work, to gather my thoughts, all the while putting more focus on photography. For the first time ever, I actually showcased some work at a RAW: Artists popup gallery, down in Brooklyn about a month ago (November ’16).
It’s been a long process so far, but I’ve learned a ton, and appreciate this journey so much. Learning about photography, video, my likes, dislikes … life … my life that is. You know, “finding myself,” after a huge mental adjustment and life change.
Finding peace, being more understanding, open to new ideas, finding my happy, the good ole cliche stuff. You get the picture. I do, I did it … well, doing it. It’s working. By making these changes, especially placing work lower on the priority list for a while, I’ve been able to put some amazing amount of effort in rebuilding, rebranding, re-everything.
If you were there during the beginning of Variety Studios, you know I constantly changed the design of our website. It was more to develop my skills as a developer, playing around with new tricks and techniques I found online. The business site was my playground to learn more, to see what works, and what doesn’t. I think we went through 7 or 8 iterations, and are in dire need of another haha. Soon? … Yea, soon!
Eventually I extended my playground to vsmarcuslewis. I think this one went through about 4 or 5 iterations. It started out as a place to share fun personal projects, conduct experiments in Photoshop and photography (haha, i’m a scientist), blogging, etc. A proper/safe learning space, if you will.
I also started my second blog, during the third or fourth rebranding, in an attempt to build an aggregate website for everything design. All these attempts inevitably failed, but I found some amazing work out of it. In the end, none of the ideas had a solid/genuine foundation to grow. Expectations were high, motivations were in the wrong place, relied too much on support from others, I can go on … Bottom line, I wasn’t ready, but all these mistakes were well worth it in the end.
Mistakes are still being made, and I’m still just “winging” things, but how else will you learn? The best fun is going through the process and I think I’m on the right track.
Earlier this year, after refocusing, I created my first site geared solely toward my photography adventures. This is the current state of vsmarcuslewis.com. I can’t even begin to explain the amount of coding I learned during development, and how much I started to enjoy photography. I love the site, love how it functions, love how in your face the home page is. It’s only been alive for a short while now, but … it’s gotta go! I don’t exactly know why, well I do, but I don’t, it’s just time.
Mind you, this decision happened randomly about a week or two ago, within a couple hours of mental debates. We just have to go with these feelings sometimes, ya know? A great decision I think.
It’s my playground, any decision is a great decision!
I’m loving the new functionality and layout of the redesign. There’s also a larger focus on selling prints than the current version is outfitted for. I feel really good about it.
The site is not live yet, but I have a few screenshots to give you a quick preview. Check out the gallery below, and let me know what you think.
Stay tuned for when it’s all finished and ready to go!
Have an idea, or goals you keep pushing off because of some type of excuse? Just go with it, you’ll learn a ton along the way, I promise!
