I found myself today spending, well, all day working on a project for my job. It is Sunday (well, now it’s technically an hour into Monday, but who’s keeping track?) Sunday is my day off. This particular Sunday followed an incredibly long Saturday which consisted of 7 hours of class, three hours of working an outdoor event in 100-degree weather, and an hour drive home as I darted through the backstreets of SE Portland trying to find away to get across Division street, which was filled with naked cyclists (sorry I couldn’t join you this year!)

My point is that for all intensive porpoises, nobody would have blamed me for taking this particular Sunday to do nothing but relax in front of the fan with a glass of ice water in my underwear. I mean, not that the glass of water would be in my underwear, but… you get it. Instead, I decided to log in to WordPress to take a stab at troubleshooting the new camera review layout I’ve been working on for the past week at Pro Photo. It turned in to a full day of experimenting dangerously with things that are likely detrimental to my health, like CSS, which stands for Cool Shirt Society, as far as I know. I may have even made a spreadsheet that calculates things because apparently that’s what I do now that I’m in business school.

Anyway, we updated our WordPress theme last week and it allows us to create some really stunning layouts for blog posts. Or at least I think they’re stunning. Inspired by articles like this one and this one, I had always wanted to create camera reviews with beautiful layouts that stood out from all the boring-looking ones that litter the Internet (like this one). The thing is, those articles serving as my inspiration aren’t about things—they’re about stories, and they are important, meaningful, impactful, and emotional. But photographers, and humans in general, are inherently visual creatures. I believe that any content we consume should be presented in such a way as to appeal to our senses in as pleasant a manner as possible.

And things tell stories, too. The first article using the new layout is on the highest-resolution 35mm-format camera ever. I felt it deserved special treatment, with large images that help convey a sense of detail (even though any camera can take a picture to fill your computer screen). It’s not my best bit of writing, but I’ve found a new passion for creating layouts—yeah, that sounds nerdy to me, too. I agonized over text placement and image size, grew frustrated about things I still can’t properly control, second-guessed every decision I made (is it too cluttered? Is it too plain?).

In the end, I finally arrived at a point where I feel satisfied: the full Canon 5DS R review is live at Pro Photo Supply. I’m stupidly excited about creating more content now, even if it is just about cameras. Plus, I got to go on a walk through the woods to do it, and that never hurts.