hold back the sky is a photoblog by Martin Spain.
I started taking photos when I was very young, and the bug bit hard. I've been doing it ever since, with varying degrees of success. I started a photoblog many years ago called hostile17 which was intermittently updated. In 2009 I had some trouble gaining control of the hostile17.net domain from my registrar, and so I decided to retire it altogether and start afresh with a new name, a new domain and a new approach. I aim to update hold back the sky twice a week, sometimes more.
I take photographs for the love of it. Occasionally a friend will ask me to shoot something for them on a semi-professional basis, but at present I consider myself an enthusiastic amateur.
I try not to take pictures like anyone else but I admire many other photographers, both professional and amateur. You can see some of their work by following the links in the 'Inspiration' section on the right.
hold back the sky is powered by a custom version of Pixelpost, modified to allow search engine-friendly URLs and to update some of the generated HTML markup to better suit my purposes. The template is bespoke, and all HTML markup, CSS and JavaScript is valid and standards-compliant.
This is the gear I use to make my photographs. I keep no secrets regarding how my photographs are created so if you would like to know how a particular shot was achieved, please leave a comment or contact me.