It has been about two months since I decided to revive the site and also start OPAD. I had meant to do a post about my thoughts on OPAD specifically after 50 days, but I never ended up writing it. So I’ve instead decided to write a general update on the site as a whole, and include that as part of it. Let’s start with the site as a whole.
Thoughts on the Site
Firstly, the way I upload content is cumbersome and irritating. It’s the main reason I’m late updating sometimes for OPAD. I have a few ideas about how it could be improved, and I think now is a good time to try and do it as I’ve gotten a bit complacent. Secondly, I don’t really like the design of the site. I don’t think it needs any crazy overhauls or anything, but I’d like to tweak it somehow eventually. Finally, something more positive, I’m surprised how committed I’ve been to keeping this going. Even if I’ve been late with posts, or haven’t finished writing posts I wanted to do, I’ve kept it going somehow.
So what are my plans for the future of this now that I’ve kept with it for a few months?
- Finally work out a better system for posts. Including both uploading and storing them.
- Either remove or rework the changelog.
- Look into UI/UX improvements, as well as improvements to the general design of the site.
- Finish a few posts I have in the background that I’ve not completed. (Aerocolour, more trichromes, DIY redscale film, more harman red, and more)
60 Days of OPAD
I think the main point I’d like to include is that I’ve gotten this far with the project. Whatever criticisms I have of how it’s going, I’ve kept up with it every day. This is much more than I was expecting based on previous experience, and I think it’s been long enough now that I have to keep going.
Now there are some issues I have with the progress I’ve made though. The main one is how low effort some of the photos are. There have been some days where I either forget to do it, or I just can’t be bothered to go anywhere, and I just upload a lazy landscape from out the back of my house. The main way I could address this is to go out more, but I don’t think it’s something I’ll be able to get rid of entirely.
To counter that with another positive, I’ve tried types of photography I haven’t before, or haven’t tried extensively. The main example of this is macro photography:
There was also some astrophotography:
There is one other big issue I have though, and it does relate to the aforementioned one. My aims for this were to think more about my photography and do it more than I was. I feel I’ve done more photography, which is great. But I haven’t thought about it much more. A lot of days even when I get a nice photo uploaded, no thought has gone into it. I’ve just taken it to fill a gap and moved on. I think this could be remedied by, as I said before, going outside more. But I’m not sure how much that’ll help or how else to address this.
For now I’ll just keep on going with this as I have been, maybe with some more time put into each photo. I’ll see what happens. The next goal is 100 days. It sounds like a lot, but I’m over halfway there somehow.
-- Lolei <3