I'm going to do something with my graphics. This page only looks good if you see where it came from (where it came from), but now, maybe, I have to think about taking another step. I will talk this to death before I actually do it, but its time to start. I like having menu choices at the left, but the bird photograpic sandwich top and bottom doesn't work with the photographs within the text. The frame slider at the right is ugly. Ugly, distracting and way too wide. This column is too wide. I do like those menu choices at the left and I'm probably going to add more. Maybe somebody will go out and look at the web cam if they get bored or check out the book list or the "favorite journals", which I will put together real soon (reference above). I like them because they let me bomb out of here at will. (Who could possibly want to bomb out of this work of wonder? Well I, for one.)

So, we'll see. Whole sections of this site are gathering dust and there's no way I'm going to get to them if I keep writing. If I do a redesign, maybe I'll do an across the board redesign. Focus on the journal and the photos and bag the rest.

I mentioned the problems I had with the photographs of the senior executives at work. Ugly incompetent work on my part. They were for the Maritime Something or Other's Annual Report, just little color head shots to be run in the back. I shot the first photographs on Kodachrome 25 since I had some in the camera. I was playing with it and I didn't want to axe the roll in the middle and load something more appropriate when I got the call. Mistake.

I finished reshooting today on Vericolor III and managed to get a decent shot of each using just one strobe held off to the side which is good, ducking the bullet and all, but this is a time to change: Pick up some more tripods, learn to use the little do-whacky buttons on the strobes (on, off, manual, automatic, weird color shit manual and weird color shit automatic) and start playing with Fuji films for portraits. Kodak Vericolor III was hot stuff back in the dark ages. This is the grey dawn.

My first experience with photography was back in the dark ages and I spent a lot of time with the Kodak yellow boxes, in the camera and in the darkroom. I still remember the smell of glacial acetic acid and fixer. Kodak was it, the beginning, the middle and the end, but there's been a war between Kodak and Fuji since then (and Ilford and Agfa and Konica and Veronica and Polaroid) and Fuji has created some incredible film. I've used Velvia for non-people shots and now I need to try Astia and Sensia in the chromes and experiment with Ilford Delta and Kodak TMAX 100 in black and white. There was a time that I only shot Kodak Tri-X black and white, no color at all. Guess those days are gone.

I ran into a professional photographer who was set up to shoot some business portraits for one of our divisions today around noon. I said hello and explained that I'd done a couple off the cuff at the last minute (for another division, we're a big company) portraits and we talked gear and film for a while. That more than anything made me want to try the new films. He was using a Canon 35mm with three studio strobes in light boxes with a painted canvas background clipped to a frame. A background in a box.

This stuff doesn't cost all that much and its time to get it and do it. I have been saying this for over a year, but by the end of next week it will be done. I now know how to set up multiple strobes using the infrared triggers. Now where's the cat? I need a model and a couple miles of film. It's got me pumped. I want to shoot pictures, but its raining. They say all weekend.