Digital BW, The Print

Thanks, Derek, for your kind words about my work being selected for publication in 
LensWork.

I've had another "off-list" contact about my website's "small" images, so I thought I'd 
respond to this here, even if it's a bit off-topic.

My goal in designing the site was to have something with a fair amount of white space, 
and something that maintained at least a bit of that "open" look even on the relatively itty-
bitty space available to Windows users working at 1024x768 or even the holdouts with 
800x600 screen res.  

Given that about 50% or so of all web surfers are using 1024x768, and that there are still 
20% or so working with 800x600 and that the maximum "live window" size that a Windows 
user can get with a 1024x768 screen res is about 1019x668 (meaning sorta long and not 
very tall-- like a letter), I was aiming at something that would allow me to maintain a 
consistent interface of navigation options and not force most users to scroll to see the 
whole page. If a user is looking at the page with an 800x600 resolution, suddenly the live 
window size height switches to about 500 pixels tall at a maximum. So, any image much 
bigger than about 300 pixels needs to be scrolled to be seen (presuming other elements 
on the page, like links, logos or nav elements, etc). The smaller pages also have the 
advantage of being reasonably fast to download, even on slower connections.

All of this is sort of moot, though, because I have a section of the site with bigger images. 
It's sort of "hidden," as it was originally put up to accommodate art buyers, with whom I've 
done a fair amount of work. It's not intended to give the same sort of user experience that 
the rest of the site is, so I've only got one link to it on the site. The big pictures on the 
page are images that are 360 pixels on the long side. You can see it here: 
http://www.jeffcurto.com/catalog/

Of course, I could be totally out to lunch on this idea of using small images on my website. 
I just remember the first site that I designed on a 1024x768 Mac and then seeing how 
when it was viewed on an 800x600 Windows machine, it looked pretty awful, with very 
little being visible without scrolling a whole lot. My personal preference is to have a 
photograph that can be seen in its entirety, but mebbe I'm off-base on that idea.

-Jeff

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "Derek Ealy" <dealy663@h...> 
wrote:
> Jeff,
> 
> Congrats on getting into LensWork. It is my FAVORITE photography magazine. I 
> went to your website, looked at one picture and left though. Every time I 
> come across beautiful photographs that are barely bigger than a thumbnail, I 
> get pissed and just move on to other things.
> 
> What's the point of teasing us with your work? Do you really think you are 
> loosing any business to someone who tries to make a print of an 800x600 web 
> image?
> 
> Derek