More images from the Eckler’s Corvette Reunion in Celebration, Florida, Friday, March 7, 2008. All photos by docweasel..com. There were also a couple interesting vintage roadsters and a Rolls Royce, so we snapped those as well.
I broke this up into 2 posts so it won’t load too slowly. I like to make these types of “thumbs” (these are really bigger than thumbs) big enough so you can see the image without having to click on it unless you really want a close-up.
As a designer, I’m constantly arguing with clients that people generally don’t want to look at big images, nor wait for them to load. Put like 200 x 300 px images on your page at the biggest, and people will be able to see them well enough. Also, if you put tiny thumbs like 100 px wide, you’re basically just giving them a graphic for a link, you can’t really see what’s in the thumb.
This is a happy medium that loads pretty quick, but you don’t have to click a single one to basically see what cars were at the meet, if you don’t want to.
I do use .pngs, which are 3x plus bigger than jpgs, but after you’ve worked with png’s for a while you cannot stand the artifacts in jpgs, it just breaks your heart to see your good work corrupted.
I used to use Flickr, but they have a maddening habit of deleting accounts with no warning, I guess because of a few risqué images.
Its a shitty way to do business, and since their lame-ass format assigns 30+ character random names to the images, when they recently did that I played hell remembering which image was with which blog post and renaming and assigning them.
Also, you have to go through like 5 clicks from upload to finding out what the fuck the name of your image is so you can link it. Really fucked up system, plus there seems to be no notification nor appeal if one of your accounts gets axed. That’s why I quit using it.
I was about to use my Orfay account, but their cataloging system is the stupidest ever: you have to scroll through the months to find your images. There is no master gallery for your account. There is also a fairly tight-assed limit on monthly images.
Then I noticed WordPress gives you 3 gigs of space, which is a lot of space when we usually only use one small image per post. These 2 posts are the exception, they are the biggest use of space of any post. The Afghanistan post uses like 2 dozen images, this one uses almost 300.
So many blogs are almost 100% text. We’ve always believed webpages are so felicitously suited for images, you should always include one at least to break up the daunting solid blocks of text, plus an image lends a theme to your post, almost like a CD cover gives atmosphere to an album.
I always noticed that an album cover had a great deal of influence to how I felt about and listened to the music, it almost set a tone. Same with images, they not only complement the text, they are an integral part of it.
Plus, we try to create a unique image or a (marginally) clever photoshop for every post. It gives you a bit more of an investment in the post, so many bloggers just rattle off one liners or even merely link to another blog. That’s not a fucking post. Its useless. If you aren’t adding your 2 cents to someone else’s thoughts on the matter, what the fuck good are you? Nothing more than a link aggregater?
I despise bloggers like Atrios the Wanker who do that almost exclusively. Its the moron’s method of blogging. Link to someone else’s work or a news story and add an asinine, snarky comment that 9 times out of 10 isn’t even valid. Plus, the fact that the guy running Atrios is a fucking dick with ears.
So, I uploaded over 200 images (the amount in one Flickr account, the one that got axed) to the WordPress account for this blog, and even with all the Corvette images, have only used 8%.
Plus, I assume that the other blogs on this account also have 3 gigs. If not, its easy enough to make another shell account and use that space. The only question is, how strict are the user terms about adult images (of which we have a lot).
Originally we tried to be stringent about keeping those on the http://docweasel.com server, but it was just too much of a pain in the ass. Plus, our boss is somewhat unwilling to let us burn bandwidth for a pure vanity site like the blog (zero income).
Further, there have been blog-o-lanches like the Bobby Calvan thing where we got 60k hits a day for a week or more. Its not a huge amount, but it adds up, and the docweasel.com site already does a shipload of bandwidth as it is.
This doesn’t have a lot to do with Corvettes, but I don’t really have much to say about them.
Anyone who might have a relevant and entertaining commentary to go with these pics, which I admittedly failed to provide, if you are willing to work just for the glory of a mention or a link, email it to me and if it looks entertaining and informative I’ll include it between the pics. I don’t really have anything to add myself, so here are the pics, unencumbered with text.
