Tuesday. Better. Better is better. Had an email from a woman who liked one of my earlier photographs (the one below) asking if I had any of the parade itself snaking into the distance that she might use in a book project she was working on for a publisher. She liked the color. Ah, yes, the parade. I don't shoot the parade and I think this particular Cinco de Mayo parade was the only one in which I used Fuji Velvia to get the saturated color you see in the photograph.

After examining the images she mentioned, I dug out the original slides, scanned them again, made  prints and discovered the prints looked better than the images you see here. The dark muddy lower right of her dress is lighter and better balanced in the print. The image I ran in 1998 verges on the awful, so I guess, at least, I've learned something in four years. The color cast of the photograph at the top of this page is better in the print. The web optimization seems to throw it off. Which means I don't know what I'm doing. ("An opportunity to learn", said the man who doesn't study; "an opportunity to do better" said the man of no ambition, "another opportunity to repeat my theme", said the Sole Proprietor.)

I don't really fret about any of this, by the way. If I'm repeating, carping, whatever, well, that's what I'm doing. I assume even I will get tired of the repetition and I'll move on to something else. If I shoot enough pictures, I'll eventually shoot different if not better pictures. Sounds good, anyway. Might be right. And if I keep writing, the writing will improve and really swell themes will emerge and then, sometime, in the Fourth of Fifth Millenium, I'll be there.