Sunday, July 23, 2006

Sharing Photographs in the 21st Century



In the "good old days" you shared photos by sitting with a friend or family member and opening an envelope from the drug store and passing around your hot, fresh snapshots. The black and white prints used to have something called a deckle edge.

Now it's possible to snap a digital photo then quickly look at the screen on the back of the camera to make sure everyone had their eyes open and double check that no background objects had become weird additions to the person being photographed. Telephone poles often grew out of heads in the old fashioned film camera = eventual paper prints days.

A recent trip up to Chicago gave me ample opportunity to use my digital camera and I wanted to share so many pictures that I created an album online. I used SNAPFISH, a division of Hewlett-Packard.

Several companies provide this type of extreme compression service so lots and lots and lots of pictures can be included in a file so small that even a person with a slow dial-up connection could receive them. It also is better than trying to send an e-mail with 10 or 15 photo attachments.

Just off Michigan Avenue, in the middle of Grant Park's newest addition - Millennium Park - there is a huge shiny monument/sculpture shaped like a giant bean. It's called CLOUD GATE because, from a distance, it reflects the fluffy clouds above and the very blue sky. When you come closer, you see parts of the skyline slightly askew and, coming even closer, distorted images of you and all the people around you.

It is an actual "gate" too in that you can walk through it and beneath it. Underneath, when you look upward, the sensory overload is truly awesome! You appear to be part of something created by the insane mind of Salvador Dali. That of course is the image I positioned at the top of this posting. I figured it would grab your attention and that's what a good photograph should do.

I believe I read, understood and followed all the directions on creating a link. Now my blog page says Chicago Album and that should get you there when you click on it. So take a moment and enjoy my/your July trip to Chicagoland.

VERY 21st Century!

2 Comments:

At Mon Jul 24, 05:07:00 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Very cool writeup on ChicagoLand there, and also a very good idea about mentioning the online services avalable for sharing snapshots with friends and family. Thanks for pointing it out to me - that'd make a good subject for a future post on the SC-Photog blog.

 
At Tue Jul 25, 11:33:00 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

That is an incredibly cool picture.

 

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