003: Refrakt
Two newsletters down and I’ve already skipped a week. Classic. However I’ve been busy building out a proof of concept for what I spoke about last time.
For now, I’m calling it Refrakt.
I love the definition for refraction of light, which is the redirection of light waves as they move from one medium to another. Lenses refract light, the human eye refracts light. I also love the moving mediums—from camera to internet to other humans. I of course had to spell it differently though.
I’ve started to build out a proof of concept for the platform. I figure I’d start this newsletter by sharing the main values I’ve been trying to work towards, and then give a brief run down of the state of things. There’s a link to join the waitlist at the end if you’re interested in what I’m building.
Values
All about the photos
Refrakt is being built primarily for photographers. I know how important is it to be able to see a photo, to sit with it, and see it in it’s entirety. There should be as little distraction as possible. That means being very careful about screen real estate, and doing things that show the work off in the best way possible.
Not encouraging unhealthy habits
I want Refrakt to be a platform where people can go to get inspiration from other photographers, without it being a time sink. On today’s platforms, it’s all too easy to continuously consume content, even to the point where it’s demotivating to get out and shoot yourself. Refrakt won’t have infinite scrolling, it will be a conscious choice if you want to see more. Refrakt won’t show vanity metrics like the number of followers or likes a post has. Refrakt won’t have a million notifications so you don’t feel the need to check in all the time. To me, it feels like it should be an honest platform made primarily for authentic human interaction.
Encourage supporting others
Refrakt will allow photographers to offer paid subscriptions as a way of directly supporting them, a bit like Substack, Patreon, or Twitch, but it won’t be a requirement to use the platform. I also want there to be other ways to show support without it being financial, but those are less defined right now. Bottom line is that I want to foster a community of closer connections to other photographers beyond a quick like of a post.
Progress
So in the last two weeks, I’ve been building out a proof of concept between client work. It sounds like a straightforward product, but there’s actually a lot of moving parts, especially when I’m trying to do it alone. I’m also designing it as I build things out, so the UI and copy below is likely to change as other pieces get built. Worth noting that there’s no proper “branding” yet either. If you’re a brand designer and think you could come up with something, DM me!
Authentication
All the account creation flows use email authentication, no passwords, just magic links which is nice. I may add other providers later like signing in with Twitter, but keeping it simple for now.
Posting photos
When you add a photo, it automatically pulls in exif data if present to populate titles, descriptions, copyright information, tags, camera info, and location info. You can choose to hide exif and location data before you post.
You can also change the visibility settings of the post. Currently it’s just private/public but will expand to followers only, and subscribers only later on.
It remembers your settings for exif and post visibility for the next photo you post, e.g. if you never want to show exif info, you can turn it off once and it will be off by default for all posts thereafter.
Feeds
All feeds are in a reverse chronological order, no algos. There might be other sorting options in future, but again, keeping it simple.
There’s a following feed for accounts you follow (seems obvious), and a public feed for all photos shared with the visibility set to “public”. The public feed is also the default feed for logged out users.
Subscriptions
For now, you can link your Stripe account or create one if you don’t have one. I’m working on the actual paid subscribing bit now. At the moment there’s one plan with different intervals. $5 a month, or $50 yearly to the photographer. Refrakt will retain 10% to cover running costs (gets expensive). That number may change later.
Collections
There’s two types of collections, one to group your own work, and one to curate work you find interesting. I’m building the former for now, but maybe they will merge into one thing later. Imagine you want to curate a “Highlands” collection and include your own work alongside other photographers. There’ll likely be a collection feed too, but I need to figure that one out.
Upcoming
I’d say there’s probably another couple of weeks work involved in getting the basics down and the above features working nicely before I’m ready to have people try it out.
I also need to get in touch with a lawyer to help me write terms and conditions and privacy policy stuff, and to set up a proper business instead of doing it under my own studio business. All the boring bits.
If you join the waitlist, I’ll get an invite sent out when it’s ready.
Practice
Aside from building things, I’ve been forcing myself to go out more, even when the light is crap, or it’s too cold. I moved to a new city last year and I’ve only really been going to the same spots, so I’m using exploring as an excuse to get outside and find new things to shoot that aren’t the sea.
I’ve also been sticking to black and white, and I’ve been using the Arcos film simulation on my camera to see in black and white while I shoot. For some reason I find it easier to compose that way than in colour, like I can see the tonal range better.
Here’s a couple of shots from the weekend.
You can see more and in better detail over on my photo journal.
As always, thanks for reading!
Sam.
Supporting
I have no plans to monetise this newsletter, but if you found it useful in any way, then sharing with your friends would be amazing.
If you’d like to support me on my journey to becoming a full-time artist more directly, then the best way to do that is by sharing or purchasing some of my work. It really does mean the world to me, and I’m eternally grateful to any of you who already have!
I also have a new Limited Edition available for February which you can collect on the Roots website for 0.05 ETH.
Very interesting and great work thus far. Have you heard of Foto? They are doing some amazing things right now and I can only image the benefit if you join forces.
-Best