About

Background information regarding the author and this website

Hey, I'm Brian Gaid.

Based in Atlanta.
Hobbyist photographer,
bookworm
,
(cautious) technophile
,
popular culture enthusiast
.

This website is serves primarily as an online archive of my photos and related writing about photography. I also diligently track my reading habits.

The author, sunrise at Dowdell's Knob along Pine Mountain Trail in F.D. Roosevelt State Park (Sept. 2016).

On Photography, Briefly

History: I started taking photos as a hobby in 2008. I briefly spent time as an amateur then semi-professionally in the ensuing years, primarily shooting collegiate athletics. I've since returned my focus on photography as a passionate hobby and opportunity to explore new subject matter and practice.

Motivations: My photography primarily captures my interests, including automotive events like car shows and motorsports, views of nature and landscapes captured on hiking trips, general street scenes while traveling, and much more.

Publishing: I approach publishing photos here through an archival perspective—sharing a greater quantity of photos to tell a richer story and document my efforts rather than limiting myself artifically to more restrictive portfolio presentation. It's a more open display of my evolving photographic style and practice.

Gear: I began shooting with Canon cameras but switched entirely to Fujifilm's X Series in 2016 due to my preference for their camera ergonomics, lens performance, and color rendition.

Colophon

This website is built with the Jekyll static site generator using the Tachyons CSS framework. It's developed in VS Code with Git version control via AWS CodeCommit and automated deployment on AWS Amplify. AWS S3 serves as photo hosting managed via Cyberduck.

Disclaimers

I've built this website using modern tools and techniques, therefore, it is best accessed and viewed in a modern web browser. I'm constantly experimenting on and improving this website so minor bugs are to be expected on occasion.

This website serves no trackers and no ads. All fonts (and soon photos) are self-hosted. My privacy policy: I don't collect or retain any visitor data at all.

Metrics provided by my static hosting provider (which I never look at):
Requests
The total number of viewer requests received by Amplify Hosting, for all HTTP methods and for both HTTP and HTTPS requests.
Bytes downloaded
The total number of bytes downloaded by viewers for GET, HEAD, and OPTIONS requests.
Bytes uploaded
The total number of bytes that viewers uploaded to your origin with Amplify Hosting, using POST and PUT requests.
4xx errors
The total number of all viewer requests for which the response’s HTTP status code is 4xx.
5xx errors
The total number of all viewer requests for which the response’s HTTP status code is 5xx.
Time to first byte
The total time spent from when Amplify Hosting receives a request to when it starts providing a response to the network (not the viewer). This is also known as first byte latency.

Site last built:

Opinions expressed herein are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.