Newsletter #190 - Vibe Coding at the End of the World.
20 years of photography, three new websites, and a weather station
Hey everyone. How’s it going? I hope you’re doing alright.
I know. It’s been a few months. Sorry about that. I kinda got distracted by the collapse of society as we know it… as well as some photographic and video projects that had me focusing my energy on different internet platforms.
Despite everything feeling incredibly pointless, I wanted to jump back in here and show you a few things I’ve been working on because I am proud of them, and because I hope they will give you something new to think about or possibly even inspire you to make something new and beautiful yourself.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve gotten really into “vibe coding” using Claude as a way to make websites for my photographic projects. It’s been the best time I’ve had with a technology product in many years. Being able to talk to a robot and have it build websites in service of my photographic work has been a true game-changer for me.
I prefer photography websites that are very basic in form and function, which is perfect for vibe coding. The first website I made, as a way to dip my toes into this thing, was a new version of dominosugarfactory.com.
I’d had a website for my Domino Sugar Factory project hosted on Tumblr for ages, but the backend had broken a while back, so I stopped updating it online. I really wanted to revive the website and make it more modern.
Fundamentally, this is a very basic site that loads all 100+ of the photos I made between 2008-2012 in a randomized order and lets you scroll through them vertically. There's also a "now" button at the top left that brings up the most recent photographs of the factory site and construction. I’m happy with how the website turned out, and it was shockingly simple to make.
I talk a little bit about the process of making this website on my Patreon.
That was just a warmup, but it allowed me to discover the power of this software, and it got me thinking about all the different projects of mine that I’d love to get back online. The next project I decided to recover was my restaurant photography archive.
Some background, in case you are unfamiliar with this work: Twenty-five years ago, my very first regular photography job was photographing bars and restaurants in New York City. I wrote about it in Newsletter #35.
I have thousands of photographs of over 2,000 bars and restaurants in and around the New York City metropolitan area that I made between 2002 and 2008.
I spent hours editing them all down over the past week and got it down to 2,753 photos across 1,357 unique locations. Some are good. Some are really bad.
But to me, the point is more about making an archive of those spaces during a very particular time period in New York City history.
Looking back, I am amazed at the volume of the collection and was impressed by my drive to get out there and do all this work. I can also, in hindsight, very clearly see myself learning how photography works and getting better with time. So in a way, this website is also an archive of my own history of learning photography.
If you go deep into this site, you will find mistakes. This was a massive archive search from over 20 years ago, when I wasn’t as organized as I am now. Some of the names and dates might be wrong, misspelled or misidentified. But it’s a start! I intend to keep tweaking it over the coming weeks and months.
Please share this website with all your friends who lived in New York City in the mid aughts and loved reading Eater.
After making the restaurant archive, I thought, you know what, I need to make an archive of all my “real” pictures. You know, the photographs I have made over the past twenty years that I think are good. Although, what is good anyway?
Over the course of three nights, I built my Noah Kalina archive website, a collection of photographs which comprises of all of my personal work, assignments for magazines and commercial commissions. This means you’ll find pictures of friends, family, actors, artists, musicians, comedians, models, tech leaders, factory workers, farmers, and regular people I met along the way. If I’ve photographed you over the past twenty years, you’re probably in there somewhere.
It’s all mixed in with places and spaces I’ve had the opportunity to see and experience on my photographic journey.
I basically revisited every single photo shoot I’ve done over the past twenty years (2005-2026) and tried to find at least one or two good pictures from that day. I wound up with around 1,600, which works out to one good picture every 4-5 days.
Confronting my photographic archive has been an emotional experience on many levels. I see highs and lows. I see relationships that are no longer. I see things I could have done differently, better choices I could have made.
Honestly, it makes me a little sad.
But it also inspires me. I had some really great moments and some incredible experiences.
I probably will always wonder if I could have done things differently or better. But it makes me want to keep going, keep trying… keep trying to get better.
I plan to continue to add new photographs to this archive as time goes on, so please bookmark and check back whenever you feel like it!
Please note, archive.noahkalina.com is desktop or laptop only and will not work on your phone. The photos are intended to be seen on a bigger display. There are also NSFW pictures, so viewer discretion is advised.
Let me know what you think of the new websites. Do you happen to like any of my photographs in particular? I can make prints for you. I love doing that.
I’m also available for all types of photographic commissions: portraits, architecture, commercial, industrial, agricultural, you name it. I am always open to hearing about any and all commissions and collaborations. Going out into the world to make and take pictures remains my passion. Well, next to vibe coding.
While writing this newsletter, I got distracted and made a website that shows the current weather using data from my weather station.
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Thank you!
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I really love that you made the website not work on mobile. That’s the inspiring takeaway that I think I’m going to implement if I hop on some similar photo website vibe coding.
Thank you for sharing your archive Noah. Great pleasure watching some unknown and also well remembered work.