Greasy-Kid-Graphics
I wrote an entry last weekend where I said I was experiencing an urge to conquer the world, which is a way of saying I'm up for something more ambitious than choosing each morning between walking or driving to work. I write about this more often than I care to think about, and then, generally, as I'm drifting off to sleep at night, I think: "What the hell are you talking about? You never follow through on any of this stuff!".
Which is true, and it makes me wonder if maybe I need to go on a Prozac regimen or find an analyst's couch. But this seems different. This seems, I don't know, authentic. How inconvenient. Authentic, in the past, has led to excitement. I'm too old for excitement.
I've been talking about putting up another web site for the last million months and now, I think, I'm going to do it. Basically photographs grouped by the parades and festivals and cities I've photographed over these last few years. Maybe it will give me more focus in my shooting, make me think about where they're going and what sort of story they should tell. The advantage of shooting as an amateur is you don't have an editor to please. The disadvantage of shooting as an amateur is you don't have an editor to please. And you need an editor. You need standards. Some people say you need love, understanding, three meals and a cot, but an editor is right up there with meals. People forget to mention that.
I did a search on the San Francisco "Carnival" Parade (I've been misspelling it "Carnival" instead of "Carnaval", which is what? The Portuguese spelling? The Spanish?) and discovered two of my entries at the top. What's so unique about this? New site, photographs? Doesn't this connection seem a bit obvious Prop? Well, it's the oomph I feel behind it. This one's got oomph.
So, we'll see. I worked earlier on the home page. Clean, one click away from any page on the site.
Some problems with execution: the color of the links, whether to use roll-overs or not, shadows in the photographs, incompetence dribbling out over the pages at inconvenient moments, but I can fix all that. Really. Steal good stuff I find on the web. Make it zippy, but fifty year old guy zippy, none of this just out of the bottle greasy-kid-graphics stuff. Something clean and cool and comfortable to the coming avalanche of old soon to be decrepit baby boomers hunkered down behind the walls of their retirement communities, surfing the web looking for excitement. It's not overly clear to me what that excitement might be, but when I find it, I'll be sure to shoot photographs. "You're getting this all down, doctor?"
"Yes, my dear Prop. Now tell me more about the walled communities, this salmon business and the greasy-kid-graphics stuff."
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