Basked in Sodium Glow: Atom feed as a pseudo-Instagram

[xwindows]

Many years ago, I found a guy named Giles, who made a little something that worked like Instagram but actually was an RSS feed. The project was met with some fanfare; but the run was short-lived, and the concept had become lost to the time...

Until two years ago, as the invasion of obnoxious LED streetlights started to creep near my home, I started my journey to take photographs of old-school sodium streetlights and scenes lit under them for posterity; so I decided to take upon the legacy of aforementioned project, and set up my ongoing Instagramic streetlight photography exhibition inside an Atom feed, with a title Basked in Sodium Glow:

https://xwindows.in.th/sodiumglow/

Reserved for people with small Internet "follow" tool (feed reader) only. If that's your thing, welcome to my humble gallery. As the project is ongoing, new photographs would be added now and then.

[di]

This is an incredible idea. First, I love the idea of documenting the subtle things about everyday life, in general. Second, I've always loved the orangey and warm "sodium glow" of streetlamps at night, as unnatural as streetlamps are, the dimness and gentleness of them on quiet streets felt as close to "natural" as possible. Night was still dark and eerie.

LED lights are even eerier. I have seen them on highways, but can't imagine them in a neighborhood. Like you mention, I'm worried about insomnia, and what it will mean for birds that depend on day-night cycles and stars. We naturally depend on those too! Humans need and deserve night time darkness. I know change is inevitable at times, but I don't understand why people make these decisions; it doesn't feel like progress, it just feels like a symptom of relentless industry and rigid industrial time.

Although I know the project is an RSS feed, the website presenting it is very well designed, perfectly dark orange, and easy to read. I am really looking forward to enjoying this in my feed reader

[Commodorn]

I really, really appreciate this existing. One thing I miss about the neighborhood I used to live in was that all the streetlamps where sodium-- I knew that they likely weren't going to stay that way, though. They had already started placing blindingly white LEDS along the sidewalks with nothing to keep the light from spilling out from the side and into someone's window. It's funny, because the people who had those placed there kept blaming "the kids!" whenever those snapped and never seemed to consider that they're cheap trash that can't even support their own weight. Sodium was/is my favorite type of lighting to take photos under, though, so I'll keep a note to leave a link to your project if I make a little sodium collection of my own :O)

This way more headlight focused that streetlight focused, but I was watching this just yesterday: [YOUTUBE LINK]. I thought I was the only one who was deeply bothered by LEDs, but that's starting to feel more and more wrong as time goes on. He also mentions https://www.softlights.org/ in the video-- it's basically a website of testimonials about the way LEDs negatively affect people.

[di]

This way more headlight focused than streetlight focused, but I was watching this just yesterday: [YOUTUBE LINK]. I thought I was the only one who was deeply bothered by LEDs, but that's starting to feel more and more wrong as time goes on. He also mentions https://www.softlights.org/ in the video-- it's basically a website of testimonials about the way LEDs negatively affect people.[/font]

You're not alone! I feel like LED headlights swallow the darkness around them. Then they leave marks in my eyes. It makes it so unpleasant to drive in the dark.

[candycanearter07]

You're not alone! I feel like LED headlights swallow the darkness around them. Then they leave marks in my eyes. It makes it so unpleasant to drive in the dark.

Agreed, especially if you have to use glasses to drive.. it gets nearly impossible to see sometimes.

[xwindows]

This...

Spoiler

[close]

I have not read what other people have linked in their replies yet; but I wrote the article I linked in my original thread-starter post, which I explained my project and motivations behind it; and I do NOT remember writing nor citing most of the things you are trying to argue over here.

With the way you're neither explicitly quoting nor linking each passage you're arguing with, you are misleading people to believe that I wrote things I didn't write in the article linked in original post and cited things I didn't cite there; then proceed to say as if my project was some sort of "nostalgia rubbish" according to these false premises.

I do not believe this was fair to me.

@DiffydaDude, Please fix your post. Do link, quote, and properly attribute (what, where, and who) at least the individual things you're trying to argue about, so such misunderstandings could not happen, and relevant tangents could be discussed in proper context. This is especially important when you yourself are asking other people to cite their sources.

[di]

I have been enjoying looking through the photos on my feed reader. They remind me of late nights out with friends. Venturing throughout different parts of the city at night to take photos sounds like a really cool pasttime.

As I looked through, I was wondering, @xwindows what made you choose to display it only in an RSS feed reader? Was it admiration for Giles' old project? Is keeping the photo gallery somewhat "under the radar" meant to represent the fleeting nature of sodium lights? or am I looking too far into it? 

Thank you again for sharing

[DiffydaDude]

This...


I do not believe this was fair to me.

@DiffydaDude, Please fix your post. Do link, quote, and properly attribute (what, where, and who) at least the individual things you're trying to argue about, so such misunderstandings could not happen, and relevant tangents could be discussed in proper context. This is especially important when you yourself are asking other people to cite their sources.

Hey, since I wasnt being fair to you for that, Im gonna delete that post and see if i can rewrite it better, if i rewrite it at all. I still stand by my position that led lights arent toxic but i wanna specify that i was talking about what the soft lights foundation had said, not what you said. I think im just gonna quash this here. im really sorry
Here is the article i was referencing https://www.softlights.org/why-dont-leds-save-energy/

[xwindows]

As I looked through, I was wondering, @xwindows what made you choose to display it only in an RSS feed reader? Was it admiration for Giles' old project? Is keeping the photo gallery somewhat "under the radar" meant to represent the fleeting nature of sodium lights? or am I looking too far into it?

For me, it was actually more of a "killing two birds with one stone" reason. I have known of Mr. Turnbull's "Black and White and RSS" project for some years already at the time, and it greatly frustrated me that there wasn't any more project like it; especially to counter the acts of many laypeople who would nonchalantly invite others to view and follow their photographic works by installing proprietary fentanylware-- like Meta's Instagram.

Basked in Sodium Glow actually wasn't the first subject I came up in an aim to apply this concept. I originally toyed with an idea of making a "speedpaint" gallery, which would be a more frequent sort of behind-the-scene "art dump" of my practice and test illustrations which were only available as some kind of Exclusive Privilege (TM) for feed reader users. I even drawn an elaborate promotional cover for the project; but it fizzled out because I found that I couldn't bring myself to randomly sketch like that on a blank canvas. (1)

Then not long after I ultimately decided that the speedpaint idea was a flop, the LED invasion started to significantly affect the areas I frequented to, which led me to start going on to immortalize the scenes of sodium lights, and display them on the Internet; obviously on my personal website, so that people could see such beauty under the lights which are considered the most un-photogenic by photographers and looked down upon by many.

As I was about to pen down the structure of Basked in Sodium Glow project site, these were the points I considered:

• My personal website is authored by hand, and I intend to keep it that way. Hand-authoring a full web gallery is doable (2), but it is a chore. Putting photographs in a feed meant there would be just one markup file to edit (3) when I post.
• This project could be a very good subject for such feed-exclusive publishing concept, as it basically follows the well-known content model of Instagram (4)-- thus I could simply introduce it to people as if it was Instagram but totally Internet standard viewable in existing "apps" of one's choosing, and people would immediately know what to expect.
• Because sodium streetlight-lit scene isn't a very widely-explored photographic subject, making it feedreaders' exclusives gives a bit more motivation for people to actually install a small-Internet "follow" tool to view "the good stuff" they don't see elsewhere; and hopefully, use it to follow other stuffs too. (5)
• But to advocate for sodium lights... or at very least, LED lights with low brightness, night-appropriate sub-2700K color temperature, proper diffuser and shielding; people should see or at least read about what such pleasant night could and should look like.
• Since I has been quite serious about my intention to get involved with this feedreaders' exclusives concept: if I didn't use this streetlight photography project as an opportunity to make it real; I had no other potential project lined up for it at all.

These have been reasons that made Basked in Sodium Glow a streetlight photographic gallery that one could only see using feed reader, while having a long article with in-theme design and color, as well as salacious previews and screenshot (6) to accompany it.

-----

(1) I'm a sort of outsider artist whose drawing time often measured in years, and need quite a prolonged dose of inspiration to even start drawing something.

(2) It is what I have been doing on a site which I publish my art-related stuff on; which is a different site that I operate under pseudonym.

(3) Actually 4 files in my case: because apart from the feed, there is an article webpage tracking it; which both have separate HTTP and HTTPS version.

(4) Others would be radio show series and vlogs; which such feed-exclusive form are known as podcast and video podcast accordingly. But I'm not the kind of person who aspired to be a radio host or TV presenter, to be honest.

(5) So we can finally have some hope of dismantling the slop society of algorithmic complacency and televised Internet.

(6) Unlike Mr. Turnbull's one which home page only shown a single picture in a feed reader screenshot; in Basked in Sodium Glow, you would see half-dozen of tiles in a dedicated Sample Photographs section that grows (slowly) as the project progresses, as well as a screenshot of feed reader that is updated every time new entries fully populated each screenful.

[di]

Very interesting to hear about your artistic process! Thank you for sharing!

[aletheos]

Hell yeah! I love sodium lights, too. Got myself an RSS feed reader extension for Firefox just so I could subscribe to the feed.

[di]

I love the latest update, the feel is so foreign to me. My country doesn't have tuk-tuks. The greenery and bent lights are so interesting So many great shots