2010-05-25, Tuesday

Here's to my first blog. Over the years I have posted an incredible number of web pages and additions to forums of various natures. http://www.iBreathMusic.com/ is a good place for musicians to discuss an array of technical problems with either hardware, software or music theory. There have been a couple forums, now in the cyber graveyard, that I've given many hours to. But this is my first blog, per se. Fact is, many web pages in which ideas are conveyed aren't much different that a blog, I suppose. Any enough of that.

I am trying to learn Microsoft's Expression Web design software. Everybody says get Dreamweaver or one of the freebies associated with this or that host. I'm not building a corporate site, doing buisness and communicating with clients. Expression Web ought to be just fine... when I get it learned. There's divs, layers, nested layers and a host of ways to create styles. It's a major learning curve from the old Microsoft FrontPage, basic html sites. I used to really like making frame sites, but for whatever reason, most people had a mental block about them. Well, that's all history. I put up sites with FrontPage using "shared borders." But for some reason unknown to me, everytime I created a new page, the site would mess up from the server.

The big deal with divs, containers, layers, etc. is in part due to the growing array of platforms used by surfers. Not only is there the gap between pc and Mac, there's a host of operating systems, monitor configurations, video cards with different attributes, some set by the user, browsers, some old versions still in use. Throw all these variables in the canister, shake 'em up and you begin to understand how far a designer has to go if he is intent on satisfying his desire for as many people as possible to see a site as intended. A site can look great in IE and in Firefox, some element may be on top of another. Well, that's one of my current concerns. I need to know how to overcome these issues.

Photography is a lot of fun. These days it seems everyone, of course that's a stretch, has a camera and is taking pictures even if with nothing else but a cell phone. Today's cameras have good lenses, the No. 1 requirement, at least in traditional thinking. They have electronic sensors instead of film and auto ... everything. Images come out stunningly crisp. With a plethora of pretty flowers using the macro setting, or butterflies, landscapes, etc., all looking super sharp and wowing friends, the term "photographer" has lost a lot of definition. Add to that, people can afford to buy a good cameray body or two, some good lenses and maybe even other professional accessories. They shoot a cousin's wedding and a niece's birthday party and they're ready to hang a shingle, advertise online and label themselves prefessional. Well, that's a realative term in that if it is what they're dong for a profession, then...

These photographers who have the time and money to get up and running learn all kind of neat things to do with their lighting; but more than that, they're wizards with PhotoShop... or even PhotoShop lite, called "Elements." And hey! Who doesn't? What annoys me the most is the lack of compositional skill so many display. Many such people post their work online and people, knowing a big word or two, start complimenting the composition, not having a clue what they're saying, other than a word that makes them sound smart.

Wow! What a way to start a blog... throwing darts. So, let's be fair and throw a few back this way. I've not had the expendible cash to go "big time" like so many are doing these days. I'm not able to travel to exotic places and get images that most of us on short leashes can only dream about. We may produce images that compositionally "rock." But if they're not of a mother eagle feeding chicks in a nest on a ledge in the Grand Tetons, they don't stand a chance in the average photo site competitions. A kid with big eyes and ice cream all over his face, looking up at the camera wins more points than a work of art. People like the subject and know little to nothing of composition. A few years ago, Yahoo/Reuters posted small images with captions, typically used as filler in newspapers and other periodicals. They allowed viewer ratings. Some well trained artist with a camera may have a picture that gets nearly no attention while a cheezy shot of some sexy celeb gets more votes than Al Gore and "W" put together. All that to say, I don't expect to ever be a renouned photographer, even locally. I do the best I can and like most everybody else, when I'm dead and gone, so will be my photographs, lol.

Probably the most popular subjects are children with pets running a close second. From there it spreads out to family, college parties, silly self-"portraits" with a friend or two included. That's the way it's been for decades. And vacation pictures. I think people are pretty well getting away from the "Here we are at..." shots to prove they actually were at this or that place. It's not that they took a picture there, they needed to be in the picture for their proof. There's still a lot of that, but not at the same glaring ratio it used to be.

Dad never learned the rules of art, but he was a master at exposing slide film, which is a serious discipline on its own. And the day came when he got an 8mm movie camera that had to be wound up every little bit. No batteries to buy. Mother wasn't happy if us kids weren't smack dab in front of the attraction. And whenever friends or relatives were misfortuned enough to be caught with dad casting slide images or "home" movies on the screen, there was a never ending repetition of "Here we are at...," narrated by mother.

And did I ever pull of some winners in days gone by. One day I determined to be creative, got right down on the sand, close to a leaning Pepsi can. The can positioned on the left vertical of the frame and the beach curving gently toward the right side of the frame in the far distance. Proabably a mile or so from me was some condo construction and the huge beam of a crane was so positioned in my photo that it gave the appearance of a soda straw standing in the can. Okay, not quite, but once I asked a real photographer to evaluate a couple pix, the first thing he saw was the boom of the crane. Until then, I was quite proud of that picture, lol.

Mistakes have been plentiful, but they've also been educational.

It's bed time. Maybe tomorrow I'll have something more interesting to ramble about and maybe an image or two.