A website in 2025?

So who really needs a website at this time of our life? and what can it bring that is more interesting than a Facebook profile, an Instagram account or a Bluesky account? I was not so sure myself. not a very good motivation to go through the trouble of building one, honestly. Obviously I will be still posting on Meta, because this is clearly the way to reach out to people who want to see what i do, but most importantly this is the place i can display what i do and what i ask for.

A website is also the opportunity to not be dependent on the changes of politics of Meta, and their possible censorship. I do not intend to post explicit sexual content on this site, but I have to admit that the politics of what is acceptable and what is not on their platform is inconsistent. They also may change the display format and crop pictures in ways I do not really appreciate, messing up well curated feed. And of course our pictures are being used to train AI, we give our consent, I don’t know how much having my picture only on my website would prevent AI from being trained with mines.

A website also gives me the possibility to open a web store and to directly try to sell some of my pictures that will also go to exhibitions. I am committed to share the benefits of sales with the model and the illustrators/painters on the project Lightclothing.

This summer while being in festivals or applying for jobs as a photographer, I was in need to share my portfolio, or a specific portfolio. I cannot always carry 5/6 books with me when I move around (maybe I should?) but pitching people on what I do has been difficult without my website/portfolio. I had taken down the previous one a couple of months ago and until now I had nothing to show people, even before, the previous website was not oriented so much on what I can do…

So who needs a website in 2025? I still don’t know, I have built this one, I will try to get some gigs , including building websites and web stores for people…Mentioning in passing , I got some serious help with the new logo from the talented Iris Tomaszewski.

The world is our playground!