Recovered from the Wayback Machine.
I haven’t been out indulging in my photography as much. Both my contract and book have (had) the same set of deadlines so there were few days I could do more than take a quick walk in the park.
Now, I’m in the last stages of the contract, and the editing phase of the book, but the weather has been terribly hot and humid. I hope, knock on wood, to have some nice days later this week. I wouldn’t mind a longer road trip and some time just to be away from the computer.
What photos I have taken I’ve scattered about my other domains, primarily as filler until I can get the sites’ look all pulled together. Since much of my writing lately is in the web page development, I am experimenting with Ajax/DHTML effects. Using such intensive levels of JavaScript means they can’t go live until absolutely checked out. While that occurs, a plain page with a couple of photos is better than an empty directory.
(You can see a little of this with the Dojo tools fisheye effect I’ve used at ScriptTeaser. I need to add an accessible alternative for non-JavaScript users, but I am really fond of Dojo tool’s fisheye effect. I’ll have more on this in ScriptTeaser when it goes live.)
As for the photos, I did visit Johnson Shut-Ins after it opened, and put together a show of some of the photos. Eventually, I’ll pull all the photos into a long, multipage story on the Shut-Ins at MissouriGreen, but you can see what a billion gallons of water can do to a mountain at a temporary photo gallery here. I talked with a park employee and she mentioned how ecstatic the geologists in the region are, because they normally can’t ’see’ the layers of rock that make up the Ozarks. The flood cut a path down the mountain to the bedrock, and managed to scatter an amazing variety of rock all over.
Back to photos. Eventually, most of them, as well as my ’softer’ writing—stories, reflections, and so on—will go on to The Book of Colors site I’ve longed to put together. First, though, I have to figure out a format for the site, and how best to display both photos and stores. This has not been easy, as I’m having the devil of a time with site design. I’m tired of the same old looks, the centered pages, the conservative colors.
As if you can’t tell with my cockeyed, off-center look and sharp, pure colors. I must warn you, I’m in a mood for color. Bold vivid color. Odd shapes. Contrast. Rule breaking. It may get a little intense at times. Maybe even a little disconcerting. Perhaps I’ll design a special set of ‘rain mist’ glasses for my good friends to wear when viewing the sites.
