Showing my age, the song "Do Re Mi" from Roger & Hammerstein's The Sound of Music starts off "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..."
And that's what today has principally been about.
Four days ago I noticed I was no longer getting e-mail from my studio4496 accounts. There have been occasional intermittent outages in the past, which usually self-corrected after a few hours, so I didn't think much of it. Second day, the same; so I sent an e-mail from my gmail account to the web host provider...no response. Odd, this fellow is both an old friend and one of the most conscientious people I've ever known in my life. If something is going wrong with any of the sites he manages, he's all over it until it's fixed. Then...my e-mail to him bounced back on the third day. Even stranger. So finally, Friday (yesterday) I took the unusual step of calling him on his landline.
The first words from his mouth, "You were the next person on my long list to call!"
As it turns out, the server farm from whom he leases his space, had been sold without any prior knowledge given to him. All the sites he manages literally had been pulled down from the Internet in the transfer. And none have repopulated. He didn't even have access to his own Web sites (hence the reason my e-mail to him bounced back -- no sites, no e-mail).
Today has been spent reconstructing the infrastructure of my Studio4496 web site. If you go to the site at the moment, there's just a place holder. I have a new DNS in place, new unique IP address, no e-mail as yet (other than here on gmail). After six hours of working on it all, I just ran out of steam. There is a backup copy of the legacy site which he'll be sending me; but -- in some ways -- this outage is forcing me to do what I've been planning to do for almost a whole year -- redesign the entire site. And, perhaps more importantly, retool my own skill sets in the process. I may or may not republish the legacy site -- just not sure yet.
So my two steps forward -- amazing shoots with the likes of Nathan (pictured above in his sheik scenario), Oocelot & Chad -- over the past six weeks. And my one step back -- no way to share them with the world at the moment.
Needless to say, there's a steep learning curve ahead. First I have to purchase the new Adobe Creative Suite (major investment I've been saving for) then I have to bring myself up to speed very quickly on Dreamweaver first (all the sites I'd built in the past were built in the now-defunct Frontpage) as well as some of the other new tools in the suite.
While this unexpected turn of events is delaying some of the things I'd hoped to be doing (like editing right now), it's also forcing me to retool myself more quickly for the next step in this journey toward producing a major porn site. I've had several near successes in the past; but now the confluence of a more mature photographic style, working with great models (and realizing how much I love the work), the disappearance of all my old work other than ModelMayhem and DeviantArt, and the immediate need to unlearn and relearn everything I ever knew about about Web design is the necessary kick in the proverbial pants I needed to get back to the "very beginning". Today's phone calls to godaddy to re-establish ownership of my domains, the work on the most basic server side stuff just to get a placeholder in place (I'll tackle e-mail tomorrow) is all very unglamorous; but a necessary part of the learning curve. It really is only one step back that, hopefully, will make the next steps forward much more functional and productive.
With regard to my throwaway statement above "journey toward producing a major porn site", I realize after reading and rereading my post "In for penny, in for a pound" that I was talking about my own ambivalence as much as Oocelot's. I've been so hung up on whether the work is art (or not) that I've prevented myself from fully engaging in what I enjoy. I just need to start thinking of it as a business -- that I enjoy as do the models -- and know full well there's a market for.
And I've finally figured out that no one is getting used in this business unless they allow themselves to be. Most models understand that the objectification that occurs in porn isn't about them as a person; but about their body. The body becomes a product; but not the person. For some it's dfficult to separate the two -- and, if that's the case, they probably aren't going to be particularly well suited for doing porn. On the other hand, for others it's an absolute blast seeing themselves in a totally light through different eyes. The objectification becomes a point of power.
So I also started the conversation today about totally re-thinking the old mansimage.com site, which was initially successful, but languished partially from my own hangups about "porn" and partially because my business partner got swept away for a period with a number of personal issues. We've reconnected and have found our relationship is just as strong as it ever was -- perhaps stronger because of what we've each experienced over the past three years. And, importantly, the infrastructure for that site is still intact and much of the old material is useable so we'll even have an initial inventory of photos, videos and behind-the-scenes interviews. We just need to rethink what works in the current market and redesign accordingly. The learning curve I'll go through to rebuild my own site will make that site even better.
Yesterday, it felt like a step back. Today, it's feeling like several steps forward. The beginning really is a very good place start.
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