Russel Fouts on fri 2 may 03
I have a question for you.
I'll have a section on the World Crafts Council - Belgium Francophone's
site soon. I'm a member and everyone gets a place. I was up till 3 the
other night getting stuff together for it. Should be up soon at
http://www.wcc-bf.org.
They want a strange format for the pictures, almost square (620 x 600,
220 x 200, 200 x 200, etc). You can see examples at the site above. I've
only seen it used on one other site where I have pictures.
It's not bad but it suits round things better. You can work it if you
plan the placement of your objects in the frame differently or if you
shoot with a LOT of space around them. Have you ever run across this
format?
Russel
--
Russel Fouts
Mes Potes & Mes Pots
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 2 223 02 75
Mobile: +32 476 55 38 75
Http://www.mypots.com
Home of "The Potters Portal"
Over 1800 Pottery Links!
Updated frequently
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only
unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American
public." --U.S. President (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Theodore
Roosevelt.
Janet Kaiser on sat 3 may 03
To answer your question in a word, no, cannot say that I have, Russel.
However, I can think of at least two good reasons why -- as I am sure you
can yourself... That is apart from the elementary design decision made by
some committee, somewhere on the overall appearance of the site... A single
format for images, being just one factor alongside the other other choices
such as background colour, typeface, etc.
Why square? Firstly, the webmaster can set up zillions of pages in the same
format and only has to do a minimal amount of extra work upon receipt of
each set of information... i.e. insert name of .jpg or .gif, alt text, etc.
plus add text in a pre-defined area. Makes life a lot easier, apart from
the design issue already mentioned.
Quicker, easier "production" in turn makes it cheaper -- always an
important factor for any individual or group who are not relying on donated
time and expertise. Professional web developers are charging anything from
=A3100 to =A3500 per page here and I almost faint each time I think our
site would cost at least =A315,000 to produce, let alone keep up to date!
OK... professionally produced pages generally look better, but who can
afford that sort of investment?
Secondly, the "organisers" are forcing people to look really closely at the
images they are submitting, by requiring an uncommon format. This is a
great consideration... So often old or not very good images are sent,
because they are laying around, were taken X time ago and are just taken
for granted by the artist. Having to reformat wakes people up to what they
actually look like... May even "inspire" a new set of shots? In which case,
the site suddenly becomes more "fresh and interesting" because there are
many more entirely new, unpublished, as yet unseen and up-to-date images
than would otherwise be the case. Even the old ones which have been
"cleaned up" to meet these precise dimensions, will appear somewhat better,
because they will have been cropped "to order" instead of being "one size
suits all".
Square images are probably the fairest way to achieve visual uniformity on
a web site... Tall, skinny pots and low, wide pots are equally at a
disadvantage over pots which fit better into the square format, however,
who knows what the "hidden agenda" is of whoever chose square in the first
place? Perhaps they want to discourage the two "extremes" of form?
Being the World Craft Council site, I suppose there is a lot more than pots
to take into consideration? With all that diversity, maybe the square
format is even "fairer" than it first appeared?
Sincerely
Janet Kaiser - trying to decide whether I want to take part in a research
study on the role of a new drug in preventing muscle loss in rheumatoid
arthritis. At least I now know I do not have Lupus... Only took two months
for the results of blood tests!
*** IN REPLY TO THE FOLLOWING MAIL:
*** From: Russel Fouts
>They want a strange format for the pictures, almost square (620 x 600,
>220 x 200, 200 x 200, etc).
>It's not bad but it suits round things better. You can work it if you
>plan the placement of your objects in the frame differently or if you
>shoot with a LOT of space around them. Have you ever run across this
>format?
*** THE MAIL FROM Russel Fouts ENDS HERE ***
**********************************************************************
TRUTH is too precious to tell every fool who asks for it...
****** This post was sent to you today by Janet Kaiser *******
The Chapel of Art / Capel Celfyddyd
8 Marine Crescent, Criccieth LL52 0EA, Wales, UK
Tel: ++44 (01766) 523570 URL: http://www.the-coa.org.uk
**********************************************************************
j e motzkin on sat 3 may 03
Russel,
It looks like the format has led to some very nice
cropping choices on that page. I like it. Good
opportunity for some creative imaging...warmly,
Jude
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Russel Fouts on sun 4 may 03
Jude,
>> It looks like the format has led to some very nice cropping choices on that page. I like it. Good opportunity for some creative imaging...warmly, <<
Even though I've never seen the format before, I do find it attactive.
Sometimes it makes a more effective image to only show 3/4 of the
object. There are some nice photographs on the site, particularly the
jewlery.
And I liked Janet and Suzanne Tourtillott's comment that the format puts
just about everyone at the same disadvantage.
I took and reworked some of my imagages in Photoshop to add the required
space either on the sides or above (the cloning tool is cool!) The space
adds some drama. I like it. Have a look at
http://users.skynet.be/russel.fouts/clayart.htm, the altered pictures
are at the bottom of the page.
I'm considering using that format for my images, however, it means
leaving a lot of air around the object in the slide (I almost always
start with a slide, scan it to CD then crop, clean-up in Photoshop).
This would mean that the slides, which I use to submit to juries and
publications might not be as good. Too much air. Publication wouldn't be
so bad because they'll crop them as much as they need to.
I suppose I could take them both ways and see how it worked out.
I could also move to a medium format camera...naahh.
Maybe I'll learn to format my pictures so they can be cropped according
to the "golden mean", must be some psychological value in that. The key
to getting into every show you submit too!! (as Cat says "Woo Woo, spin
on head")
Russel
--
Russel Fouts
Mes Potes & Mes Pots
Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 2 223 02 75
Mobile: +32 476 55 38 75
Http://www.mypots.com
Home of "The Potters Portal"
Over 1800 Pottery Links!
Updated frequently
"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president,
or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong,
is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public."
U.S. President (and Nobel Peace Prize winner) Theodore Roosevelt.
Janet Kaiser on mon 5 may 03
You see, Russel! It is as I suspected and mooted...
You (and probably the majority of the other artists/makers involved) were
forced into producing "new" images and concentrating on the image for the
first time in ages. Pretty clever on the part of the association if it was
a conscious decision! We all get a bit slap-dash when it comes to pictorial
representation of our work, so this is an excellent way of making
individuals take a serious look at what they are presenting to both their
old and new audiences... Bravo!
Sincerely
Janet Kaiser - who has to force artists and makers by fair means and foul
to provide images, let alone good ones of their work...
*** IN REPLY TO THE FOLLOWING MAIL:
>I took and reworked some of my imagages in Photoshop to add the required
>space either on the sides or above (the cloning tool is cool!) The space
>adds some drama. I like it. Have a look at
>http://users.skynet.be/russel.fouts/clayart.htm, the altered pictures
>are at the bottom of the page.
>
>I'm considering using that format for my images, however, it means
>leaving a lot of air around the object in the slide (I almost always
>start with a slide, scan it to CD then crop, clean-up in Photoshop).
>
>This would mean that the slides, which I use to submit to juries and
>publications might not be as good. Too much air. Publication wouldn't be
>so bad because they'll crop them as much as they need to.
*** THE MAIL FROM Russel Fouts ENDS HERE ***
**********************************************************************
TRUTH is too precious to tell every fool who asks for it...
****** This post was sent to you today by Janet Kaiser *******
The Chapel of Art / Capel Celfyddyd
8 Marine Crescent, Criccieth LL52 0EA, Wales, UK
Tel: ++44 (01766) 523570 URL: http://www.the-coa.org.uk
**********************************************************************
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