what coldpixel is
coldpixel is a personal photography archive running on a small computer in a house in Manchester.
The name is literal. Cold storage of pixels — a deliberate archive rather than a feed. Photography that sits still and waits to be found rather than pushing itself in front of you.
I have been shooting for over twenty years. Film, digital, Nikon Z, Soviet glass, phone cameras when nothing else was to hand. coldpixel is where I am putting it — not all of it, not automatically, but the images worth sharing. Every upload is a considered act. Everything else stays private.
The site is intentionally slow and intentionally limited. If ten people visit in a week and one of them spends twenty minutes, that is success. The limitation is not an apology — it is the point.
how to use it
The gallery is the whole site. Images are sorted by when they were shot or when they were added — toggle between the two top right.
Click any image to open it full screen. Arrow keys or swipe to move between images. Escape to close.
From any open image you can pivot: the colour swatches filter by palette, the tag pills filter by subject, same shoot shows everything from that upload. The random button opens a random image from anywhere in the archive.
That is everything. There is nothing else to learn.
access
coldpixel is free to visit. Public visitors get twenty image views per week, resetting Monday at midnight. The daily image — posted each morning to Instagram — is always free regardless of your count.
If someone has sent you a guest link, you have been given temporary unlimited access. Guest links expire after the period shown when you first use them.
If you have made a donation via Ko-fi, you have seven days of unlimited access from the moment of purchase.
When your weekly views run out, come back Monday. Or leave a tip and look as long as you like.
support coldpixel
The site costs roughly what a coffee costs each month to run. If you found something here worth looking at, a small donation keeps the lights on and is genuinely appreciated.
privacy
coldpixel uses no analytics, no advertising, and no third-party trackers. Views are counted anonymously and reset weekly. Access tokens contain no personal information.
Full details: privacy