Shalva Gegia is a software developer based in the Netherlands who reads analogue photography blogs. Each week he visits them separately. He opens multiple tabs and subscribes to the separate newsletter emails too. However, Shalva realised this system of following his favourite content has drawbacks.
“I have a list of several blogs I visit weekly, but opening several tabs in the browser every time is not a pleasant experience, and because of this, I miss some exciting posts. I’ve subscribed to the newsletter of these sites so that I don’t miss the new articles, but the emails are sometimes lost in the overflowing inbox.” – Shalva Gegia
So, he created Analog News, a new website that aggregates analogue photography blogs so you don’t have to!
Analog News Creation, Features, and Future
Being a software developer, Shalva said it wasn’t technically hard to create the site.
He said, “It only took a few hours. After assembling the prototype, I wrote to all the blogs that I was going to integrate into, and I was pleasantly surprised when I received positive feedback from all of them. They agreed to integrate their site with analog news, which gave me more incentive to turn the idea into a reality.”
The site is in the validation stage at the moment for Shalva but the idea is great and the reception has been good. It was initially set up for personal use but then launched for us all to enjoy. One potential future feature that Shalva mentions is adding a newsletter subscription.
A couple of features the site has now is the ability to modify the visual of the feed as well as search and filter by dates. You can chose to show or hide thumbnails and descriptive meta data for whichever way you like to see the feed best.
Who’s in the News?
At the moment, the blogs that have been added include 35mmc.com, Camera Go Camera, Emulsive, Kosmo Foto, Alex Luyckx, Analog Cafe, Japan Camera Hunter, Down the Road, My Favourite Lens, Casual Photophile, Fstoppers, Studio C41, Analogue Wonderland, Mike Eckman, and Random Camera Blog.
I asked Shalva if he would consider blog suggestions and he said, “I am open to any suggestions, and if there are any blogs that users want me to integrate I’ll do so with great pleasure!” So there you have it, if you have any suggestions, you can send them along.
The site works through RSS feeds so any site where RSS can be integrated can be added.
Check out the site here!
About the Creator
Shalva started in film photography with a Canon AE-1 Program after he moved to Amsterdam a few years ago and now has a mini darkroom.
He said, “I moved to this beautiful city three years ago, and about a year and a half ago, my teammate, who is into everything analog, like film photography, vinyl, and all that stuff, recommended a camera Canon AE-1 Program and encouraged me to try film. I had a digital camera in the past. I was familiar with aperture, shutter speed, iso, and those things, so I bought one, and since then, I have brought many cameras, mostly SLRs, and started to shoot negatives. I mainly develop and scan negatives for myself at home and even managed to build a mini darkroom for printing silver gelatin prints and RA-4 prints at home. I don’t have time to shoot as many as I want, but I enjoy film photography and want to get better at it.”
You can stay up to date on what Shalva is creating by following him on Twitter or better yet exploring his very cool “digital garden”, a concept that I was not aware of until reaching out for this article. In the garden, you can find many cool things, but one that stood out to me was a great blog about scanning film with a digital camera here.
Thanks for all the work in creating this site. You picked up all my active regulars except one. I also enjoy Urban Decay at https://worldofdecay.blogspot.com/
I’ve got you bookmarked at the top of my list now.
Oh oh, I write “Urban Decay”. Thanks for the vote of confidence!
Just added “Urban Decay” as well
Done
I’ve been using feedly.com to aggregate over 100 blog posts since years.
You could use any other RSS feed aggregators, selecting your own list of blogs, multiple list also.
Why do we need a dedicated website, without the possibility to select the blogs and without curation?
Hi Sandro, Feedly is a great site, but also comes with ads. For people who are not as technical or don’t want to get into setting up the RSS feeds, Analog News is a great site to use and doesn’t have ads! Some people would need it and some won’t which is okay and goes for everything 🙂
agree, great idea and great service. thanks!
Why did you re-invent the wheel? I have been reading blogs via RSS since RSS existed. No need for multiple tags or for this website to exist.
https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-an-rss-feed-4684568
I would be happy to provide an export of the list of the 50+ analogue photography blogs I read. You can import them into a FREE feedreader.
Hi Khurt, sounds like some could benefit from you sharing your blogs you read! There are a lot of folks that wouldn’t want to get into the RSS stuff or know about it, so Analog News is a nice site to use without having to bother setting up the feeds since its already done! Why not reinvent the wheel?
FYI, Jim Grey publishes a yearly hand-curated list. I add any new analogues blogs to my RSS list.
FYI, Jim Grey publishes a yearly hand-curated list. I add any new analogues blogs to my RSS list.
https://blog.jimgrey.net/2022/08/01/film-photography-blogs-you-should-follow-3/
Hi Shalva, brilliant idea! Thank you for providing such a useful service.
I wonder if you would consider including my blog https://thedailylumenbox.blog on Analog News?
thanks,
sonny rosenberg
Done
Hi Shalva,
I tried to contact you via email but I don’t know if you received it.
I’m not on twitter and prefer not to be, so I don’t think I can contact you through it.
My website The Daily Lumenbox has changed domains, it’s now https://thedailylumenbox.com
Would you mind changing the listing on Analog News? Thanks! Sonny