April 2004 – March 2005
10 April 2004, in a suburb called Enmore, New South Wales, Australia, the very first photo was published on Out to Space. It was the beginning of the twelve-long year of my own space I share with the world.
Primary, I wanted my own blog to show my photos online. 2004 was before Flickr, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or even MySpace. Why the blog?
Long story short, life in Sydney didn’t serve my creativity. Before I moved to Australia to be with Stilgherrian, my career was going well with a freelance job in even management. Creativity has always been my superpower but it was barely needed in Sydney hospitality. That was soul-draining.
I knew I had been a visual guy but my previous creative works involved more of the conceptualisation and writing. I took a formal photography class in the university but didn’t really take it seriously until digital photography and I got hooked.
We got the first point-and-shoot digital camera, Nikon Coolpix 775 in 2002. It was the main tool to release my creative tension. I walked along the streets of Sydney and sometimes set up some still life shots from what was available then. The photos were mostly uploaded on DPChallenge and PhotoSIG.
One night, I was by myself in the house, under influence, listening to some chilling music and browsing through the photos I had taken so far. A lot of them were quite trippy especially abstract ones. When it built up to the set of the city’s office building reflection, the term Out to Space popped up in my head. I realised I wanted a photoblog under that name.
Initially, it was built on Moveable Type with the huge help of Stilgherrian to get the domain name and host the website. It was the first time for me to work on CSS for its design. The first crack was a bit corny, not so noteworthy and lasted for about just a couple of months. Then it was revamped later to a nicer look and it stayed longer.
The early posts mostly were from the old stuff from the first camera that I took while wandering the city in 2002-2003. It reached the limit for me to take images I envisioned until we got a DSLR, Nikon D70. The new toy freed me to play with and explore more of Sydney.
The last photo exploration of 2004 got me into trouble with authority. It became a big stress in the following year but didn’t stop me from taking photos.
A lot happened in the first year of Out to Space. It was wrapped up with a nice conclusion. I wish I did that every year. Anyhow, I was really pleased with it. I rediscovered myself with photography. It saved me.
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