When Steve Hall took his DEVA website off line I was fearful he'd closed that chapter in his life to move on to more world adventure locations. Well, I was only partly correct so check out his new website highlighting his engaging and award winning new career as a film-video documentarian but also note his plans for more adventuring in Death Valley National Park. I find his productions inspiring and worthwhile and am grateful he takes me many places that I'll never frequent myself. 

https://stevehallfilms.com/

https://www.youtube.com/SteveHallDV

I really like Steve's films. He certainly gets around.

Thank you for the news and the links. I owe so much to Steve's trip reports getting me interested in Death Valley and helping me visit so many beautiful places. Without his website, I might only have seen the tourist stuff and never realized how much adventure lies beneath the obvious sights. I hope and pray for the best for him and his family.

(2022-01-07, 07:38 PM)DeathValleyDazed Wrote: When Steve Hall took his DEVA website off line I was fearful he'd closed that chapter in his life to move on to more world adventure locations.

Here's an interview of Steve Hall that sheds some light on why he shut down his prior site: panamintcity.com 
Hall Interview

These snips explain the situation. His interest transitioned from still photography to video. I can see where trying to do both would be difficult. That said, I don't understand why the website had to be taken down. Let it stay up frozen in place as a perpetual reference guide. If it doesn't work with some future version of Windows or Android or iOS, so what?

Quote: However, I realized that photography alone was not very good at capturing the essence of visiting a unique place and going through experiences.

Quote:And it got to the point where I found it burdensome to document hikes by writing accounts and sharing photographs. At the same time, my enjoyment of filming on video was growing and blossoming.

I can understand his feelings of burden as to writing reports and sharing photos. I once had a large website (1999-2012), burned out not once but twice and pulled the plug (though I gave the files of the core part to my host, who continued to keep it online before his site went dark about three years ago).

Creating, proof reading, editing and formatting web pages and trip reports can be quite laborious and time consuming. It can cause tension in the family. And the list goes on.

When I dabbled in professional photography in the early 1980s, I enjoyed it immensely until I had to address the technical aspects of photography. I was told by another professional photographer that my talents lie in the composition. So when I tried to be technical, I quickly lost interest in taking photos.

I’ve dabbled in video, even now. In the old days, computer video editing machines were archaic and results look silly today. In time they became better. My last computer based computer editing program was an Adobe Photoshop for video version. Today I can import phone video into my iPad and it’s far easier and quicker, but not as full of tools as Photoshop. But it’s time consuming and I quickly tire of it and only do personal videos now and then.

I agree that he could leave his website online. But does he pay for his website? If so, then depending on cost it might be a financial burden. It appears he’s still relatively young. His interests and priorities appear to have changed and he’s going with them. And if he can profit from them, I hope he succeeds. I’ve tried to profit, but those years I was active in writing it was between the old way of doing things and the new web based way of publishing one’s self.

I guess the underlying questions are 1) what is one's motivation for making a web site (or any form of publication) and then 2) how do you feel about it being more or less immortal (which can be as easy as letting archive.org crawl it). I posted many things on the old forum and, frankly, I am pi**ed that those things, which I posted for the world at large, were taken away. Steve clearly built a site which was more then his personal photo galleries; there was a goal of explaining things to people. Is that what all publication is about? I dunno. No point in over thinking it all though. I am happy when someone can benefit from something that I have learned, but I'm not in the business of writing guide books

Actually I know some folks who have an excellent web site about Zion area hiking, and they did turn the site into a book. I hope they sold some of it, especially because they left the web site up; it is still there. But now I gather that many of the obscure routes they described, which before then may have been described nowhere else, are now on alltrails. Go figure.

(2022-01-17, 08:18 PM)DAW89446 Wrote: I agree that he could leave his website online. But does he pay for his website? If so, then depending on cost it might be a financial burden. It appears he’s still relatively young. His interests and priorities appear to have changed and he’s going with them. And if he can profit from them, I hope he succeeds. I’ve tried to profit, but those years I was active in writing it was between the old way of doing things and the new web based way of publishing one’s self.

Yes, he was paying for hosting. But he received multiple offers to have the site mirrored and/or hosted elsewhere at no cost, and he turned them all down.

(2022-01-17, 09:15 PM)netllama Wrote:

(2022-01-17, 08:18 PM)DAW89446 Wrote: I agree that he could leave his website online. But does he pay for his website? If so, then depending on cost it might be a financial burden. It appears he’s still relatively young. His interests and priorities appear to have changed and he’s going with them. And if he can profit from them, I hope he succeeds. I’ve tried to profit, but those years I was active in writing it was between the old way of doing things and the new web based way of publishing one’s self.

Yes, he was paying for hosting.  But he received multiple offers to have the site mirrored and/or hosted elsewhere at no cost, and he turned them all down.

And offers for donations to pay for hosting the website over the years where turned down.

It makes me inmensely sad. I havent gotten over it yet.

(2022-01-18, 11:54 AM)Daymoth Wrote:

(2022-01-17, 09:15 PM)netllama Wrote:

(2022-01-17, 08:18 PM)DAW89446 Wrote: I agree that he could leave his website online. But does he pay for his website? If so, then depending on cost it might be a financial burden. It appears he’s still relatively young. His interests and priorities appear to have changed and he’s going with them. And if he can profit from them, I hope he succeeds. I’ve tried to profit, but those years I was active in writing it was between the old way of doing things and the new web based way of publishing one’s self.

Yes, he was paying for hosting.  But he received multiple offers to have the site mirrored and/or hosted elsewhere at no cost, and he turned them all down.

And offers for donations to pay for hosting the website over the years where turned down.

It makes me inmensely sad. I havent gotten over it yet.

That's quite understandable. Steve's explanation & justification for taking down the content has been wildly inconsistent to say the least. It doesn't feel like he's been honest about his motivations. At this point, this feels like he's driven by a desire to monetize the content via some book deal, which wouldn't be viable if the free web version remained available.