Becoming a Creative Professional

I worked on this blog for so long that I can no longer imagine my life without it. For the past seven years, I’ve been adding articles and software updates every week to ensure it functions just the way I envisioned it. But with time, that vision changed, and so have I.

In this essay, I’d like to take you on the journey of this creative project’s evolution — which ultimately transformed me from a software engineer into a full-time, independent film photographer.

In this essay: The early days. Technicalities that made a difference. A little bit of traction. The fight for the open web. A full-time job. What I’ve learned thus far. Support this blog & get premium features with GOLD memberships!

The early days.

I’d like to start at the beginning when I ventured to start a small blog about film photography while living and teaching English in Thailand.

Analog.Cafe was not my first website. Before then, I ran something called DaTube, a web app I built using Adobe Flash that exhibited user submissions in various interface layouts, some of which resembled pencil drawings and hand-made maps, spruced up with traditional animation. Then it was Dmitri’s Animation (what a lame name, right?), and, finally, it was ArtSocket — a domain I still own and use for my email address.

There’s also a version of my life that dates further back to my freshman college years when I started a few bands and made short films — all this to say that I’ve loved to express myself creatively for a long time.

Back to the topic at hand: Analog.Cafe, a website that led me to my creative career.

The first version of this blog is documented on Kickstarter (2017). Amongst a few derpy videos, there are drafts and illustrations I used as inspiration for its design. The final deliverable featured unconventional list layouts and a circular logo (see below).

Once it launched, I focused almost exclusively on publishing photo essays, which was a lot of fun. However, only a few of you found this website that way as most people on the internet tend to look for other things (like reviews and guides).

I still publish photo essays regularly, though most of the content on Analog.Cafe is now geared toward helping other photographers find answers and learn new techniques.

Technicalities that made a difference.

Early versions of Analog.Cafe were built in a way that wasn’t parseable by search engines. It worked like an app rather than a website. The first screen you’d see said “Loading…” — only after a short delay would the content appear.

Because Analog.Cafe was built like an app, it behaved as such. You may notice that most applications take time to load on your mobile device and “think” before the content appears on the page. But that wasn’t good enough for a website, which had to be available immediately — for readers and search engines.

I took a week off work to rewrite the blog’s software so that it would be more friendly to the open web. This change brought a few more readers, and other important websites, such as the Internet Archive, could finally store the content and begin recording the history of this little blog onto their hard drives.

A little bit of traction.

I’ve been experimenting with this website’s design since its launch. As you may’ve noticed, even the logo changed a few times. By 2021, I began to skew towards a slightly more traditional menu design while still showing article previews through funky vectorized masks (see below).

A year into the pandemic, this blog started getting more traffic as I shifted my focus slightly toward writing reviews, guides, and monthly Community Letters.

Community Letters is perhaps one of the most popular features on Analog.Cafe, which now has more than 10,000 subscribers. It summarizes everything I’ve learned about new products and drama (like the CineStill controversy) in the world of film photography for the month.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to Community Letters, you can do it now (it’s free).

The fight for the open web.

Having had the website up for so many years, you’d think I’d stop trying new design ideas, but no. Last year, I tried a few different font variations to make Analog.Cafe stand out in the sea of similar-looking WordPress themes. It had to, if it were to survive.

2022-onwards became a more challenging time for anyone with a blog. The new machine learning tools entered the market, making spam and slop easy to generate, flooding Google and other search engines with unhelpful articles. At the same time, social media’s walled gardens continued to eat the open web. The learning resources and entertainment search queries are now defaulting to YouTube and TikTok, where the content is tightly controlled by the corporations that own the platforms.

Analog.Cafe’s growth slowed as Google began to prioritize Reddit threads and place even more ads and info boxes at the top. This pushed this blog’s articles way below the fold and sometimes to the next page, practically hiding them from the most popular search queries.

I never invested time in placing ads on Analog.Cafe because, as a software engineer, I know the dangers of allowing third-party scripts on web pages. As a designer and photographer, I hate giving up control to hideous and distracting graphics. Oddly, this strategy worked: the diminishing traffic did not affect the contributions from generous readers.

A full-time job.

This blog has been my side hustle for six years. But by 2023, I realized that I needed a break from my software engineering career. So, my partner and I began saving more aggressively to afford my transition to working on Analog.Cafe full-time.

It’s been five months since I left my job. There, I wrote decent code and had an excellent relationship with my team. I loved working for my boss; the job was easy and well-paying. But at forty and nearly five years at the same desk, I could no longer wonder what my life could’ve been. So I submitted my notice.

This transition is easily one of the hardest things I’ve done.

I immigrated from Russia in 1999, which changed my identity over the course of just a few years; I don’t even think in the same language or terms as before. I travelled across a dozen countries with my partner for a year with nothing but a backpack to our names, using the savings from our low-paying jobs as recent graduates. We lived in Thailand as expats for five years. I also tried to run a startup with two of my friends in one of the most expensive cities in the world, away from the love of my life for months. Then, having moved back to Canada, I helped sell a technology business to WebMD. My partner and I bought a place and got a puppy who pooped and peed everywhere, eventually growing into an adorable, wonderful dog. Lest we forget, you and I are still living through the pandemic.

But this change I’m living through still feels more difficult than all of the above and I don’t know how it will progress.

I am grateful for the circumstances that led me here, and I acknowledge the various privileges that unfairly gave me priority over others on this path. But I don’t want to mince words when I say this: being an independent creative professional is fucking hard.

It’s not the writer’s block (not at this point, at least). It’s the money.

Whereas working for a boss performing one of the most in-demand jobs in the world (software engineering), I got paid handsomely for my time. Today, this concept no longer exists. I always write or think about writing, take photos, develop film, scan, edit, or compose code to make this website run. The earnings are incredibly slim, but taking contracts means I would have to spend less time growing the blog. And the current climate, whether it’s the economy or the degradation of the open web, makes that growth especially challenging.

Still, with more time dedicated to Analog.Cafe, others and I are starting to find its content more appealing. It’s growing, and there’s finally an opportunity to work on more ambitious ideas.

Alas, my full-time position as a blogger has an expiration date (limited by savings), which I am trying to push further with various incentives for generous readers to subscribe or donate small sums of money, film camera sales, and increasingly meticulous product reviews.

I am genuinely curious about how long I can keep this up.

What I’ve learned thus far.

There’s a fundamental difference between hearing advice and living the experience that advice was directed at.

I’ve talked to many business-minded and creative professionals seeking wisdom that would take this project to the next level. But their stories and ambitions differed from mine. Though some offered template solutions, they could never be fully compatible with how I run things.

As more time passed, I started to seek a balance between conforming to conventions and carving a new path. For example, I continue to focus on unusual creative techniques while building the platform that exhibits them (this website) in a way that would function in a familiar manner for new visitors (except ads).

Of course, I’ve also learned a lot about being a better film photographer. But these skills can’t be summarized in this post alone, as it’s the never-ending purpose of this blog. There is nearly one million words written (and counting) on this topic here.

I can offer no actionable advice to anyone looking to start a creative career besides showing my perspective (above) because it all depends, and I am still learning.

But I am happy to chat anytime. You can find me on this website, replying to your comments any day of the week, or at one of the monthly photography meetups in Vancouver, Canada.