HOBBYIST VENTURE

Yellow Pretty Flower


Recent Changes in the Galleries
I went about and changed some things around here shortly after the New Year, 2008. Basically, I decided that the newest, most recently-updated galleries should have top-billing. As such, they needed to be moved to the top of the Gallery listings, so as to make it easier to see what’s been updated and what is newest that you may not have seen.

However this went contrary to my next thought, which was that pictures of my “Family” and “Favorites” ought to be given top billing. So I compromised. I decided to leave the “2 F’s” at the top, and move the others down just underneath them. Hopefully however, the “Family” & “Favorites” will be most-often updated, negating the apparent contradiction of interests. If not though, you can assume that the ones directly under “Favorites” contains the otherwise the newest additions.

New to the Photo Galleries!

I recently did a quick presto-change-o on the galleries, almost all at once. Previously, you clicked a thumbnail and then you were taken to a NEW page that showed you just the one photo you had clicked, with options like “Next,” “Previous,” and “Back.”

Not that they weren’t good options, but I found a better way. Using a photo page template
developed here, and using this technology, I have set up my album pics to automatically expand when you click them, right in the very same page! What’s more, they automatically resize to fit the available screen real estate, so if you have a small window, it won’t overpower it, and if you have a large view, the picture will take up as much as possible. Cool, huh? I think so!

So I invite you to try it out and tell me what you think. Also, check out the pics themselves; a lot of them are newer, and some new albums have gone up!



Tools of Choice
Until recently I had been shooting with a Canon Digital Rebel, their first-release, 6.3 Megapixel, consumer-level DSLR, and teaming that up with Aperture. I had immersed myself in the RAW workflow, seeking to get the most out of my photos that I could. And with hard work, I felt that I did!

However, good photogs don’t use “consumer-level” equipment, and I realized that I was nowhere near good enough to even begin to contemplate being anything but a perpetual Amateur, using decent equipment, trying to wring every ounce of quality I could out of what I had, making my pics a measure of a few points more extaordinary than a regular joe’s pics.

Having divested myself of all my extra free time, I decided that since my medium had become smallish website pics as opposed to professional-quality large-format prints, the time & money invested wasn’t doing anything for me returns-wise. And with that, I recently ditched the DSLR gig, and went to a
Canon SD1000 (yeah, that's quite a bit down the scale). For what it turns out I do with my photos, this little guy is more than enough, and quite honestly, even though I can tell a quality difference at per-pixel levels, you will not be able to tell this difference from what you would see here anyway.

Ahhhh! Welcome back, free time! I missed you!


Like What you See?
Let me know – drop an email using the link at the bottom of the page! Like everyone else on the web, I’m an attention whore and love to hear about how much other people enjoy my dinky lil’ stuff. And if you’re feeling real chipper, you can even own some of the pictures to hang on your own walls! Send me an email letting me know the file name of what interests you, and we can get something ordered (print dimensions up to 3ft x 2ft).

--- random bob, a.r.c.