Bungalow 104
Despite the wonderful MT-Blacklist/Comment Spam Clearinghouse project, I'm tired of dealing with comment spam and have turned comments off.
Meanwhile, please feel free to contact me directly.
August 18, 2005
I wondered what was behind this door photographed on a narrow street in Florence, so I made up my own story…
August 16, 2005
Today is my mother's birthday. She is an artist, and a wonderful cook. So I made her a website, and some pickled asparagus. Happy birthday to us!
Two design constraints I set for this project:
1. Accessibility: a horizontal menu which would expand and flow /behind/ the logotype if text is enlarged, and;
2. SEO: use absolute positioning in the CSS to keep primary content at the top of the source order and place navigation last in the markup.
March 24, 2005
For Halloween, an image of Witch Hazel.
The leaves turn bright yellow and drop off in autumn; then yellow flowers appear here in late October. Medicinal properties include “astringent, tonic, sedative, valuable in checking internal and external haemorrhage, most efficacious in the treatment of piles, a good pain-killer for the same, useful for bruises and inflammatory swellings, also for diarrhoea, dysentery and mucous discharges,” according to a text from the 1800s. (I wonder if that's why it's called “witch” hazel?)
Native to both North America and East Asia, the latter perhaps justifies this somewhat oriental rendering. The image is a composite of two photos using various Photoshop layer blending modes and filters.
“Witch Hazel” is also “a fictional character made by The Walt Disney Company. She first appears in the Donald Duck cartoon Trick or Treat in 1952 where she helps Huey, Dewey and Louie get candy from Donald.” —Wikipedia.
October 27, 2004
If you're concerned about using Internet Explorer because of recent security alerts, but aren't sure what your options are or how to switch to a different browser, visit Browse Happy created by The Web Standards Project.
Mozilla is my primary browser, and I especially like the tabbed browsing feature—also included in other free browsers—which eliminates the clutter of multiple windows but lets me have any number of Web pages open to view with a single click.
August 22, 2004
Fantasia: experiments with scans of dried fantasia flowers led to the following images:
- a triptych of the original scans;
- a triptych of closeups;
- and an enlarged, extreme closeup.
August 08, 2004
Photos of Greece: Searching for articles on underpainting, I came across the Mische Technique and wondered if it could be applied using Photoshop.
Each photograph was converted to line art, which served as a base for the underpainting.
The original image was then posterized, and used as a source for overpainting with Art History brushes from Adobe® Photoshop® 7 One Click Wow!
July 12, 2004
Though this photograph was taken late autumn, and the leaves have fallen, the berries remain bright red against the first winter snow in our garden.
December 15, 2002
I've been developing a new certificate program for the Institute of Professional Development at DePaul University: Standards-based Web Design. The 6-week program begins January 28, 2003.
November 18, 2002
Despite my plans, the most interesting results often occur by accident. Photoshop's Auto Levels lent a surprising, but I think effective, blue shift to a gray stucco background in this photograph of lilies.
July 30, 2002
In “Photoshop 7 Down and Dirty Tricks,” Scott Kelby describes a technique for simulating shallow depth of field in a digital photograph. Using the Gradient Tool in Quick Mask mode to create a selection, feathering, and then applying a Gaussian Blur resulted in this image of a Golden Light Azalea bloom isolated from the background.
June 9, 2002
Spring brings an update to the Bungalow's color scheme, using swatches from a photograph of our garden. ImageReady 3.0 and/or Photoshop make it easy to create custom palettes from the dominant colors in any image.
With this entry, the tutorial format has been shifted from a table-based layout into pure CSS. Hopefully, some kind soul on a Mac will let me know if they see any problems.
March 24, 2002
Fun with CSS and typographic layouts: according to my tests under Windows, this quotation should hold its styling in a variety of browsers despite the visitor's font size setting. View a screen shot for comparison.
Opera 5 doesn't recognize the character entity for the leading ellipses, but Opera 6 gets it right.
March 17, 2002
The start of a new year seemed a good time to translate this site from its old table-based layout to a presentation which relies instead on Cascading Style Sheets (along with a winter color scheme).
The display in Netscape 4.x will be a bit different than in newer, more standards-compliant browsers, such as: Netscape 6, Opera 6, and Internet Explorer 6 (PC) or Internet Explorer 5 (Mac).
January 8, 2002
Incorporating Harold Goldstein's excellent technique, Changing Two Frames at Once w/Nesting, I've updated the markup for the Bungalow Garden Flagstone Terrace and Southwest Room. The result no longer depends on Javascript to function, and will be much easier to maintain.
December 15, 2001
Still Life: apropos of absolutely nothing except for two perfect fruits in the kitchen which caught my eye. I scanned them individually, covered with a black shirt to block stray light, and began to play in Photoshop.
View the process.
December 12, 2001
Try a Photoshop Levels adjustment technique that's been part of my arsenal for years.
November 25, 2001
Another room has been added to the Bungalow Garden (first posted 11/18/01): the Flagstone Terrace includes photographs of a Pagoda Dogwood, Yellow Stonecrop, and Chives along with a recipe for Chive Blossom Butter.
November 23, 2001
The Bungalow Garden is a website work in progress.
In developing this personal site, I decided to sacrifice some download speed for the visuals. Therefore, it's best viewed with a fast connection.
November 18, 2001
Autumn: another experiment with sandwiched exposures and Gaussian blur overlays (see previous entries). This time a mortise cut into the image reveals more depth of field from the original photograph layered below.
November 6, 2001
Chicago Conservatory Gardens, photographed at the height of summer.
The images were enhanced using a combination of Gaussian blur overlays and sandwiched exposures, much like the Doorways series posted 10/31. View a sample image before and after modification.
November 1, 2001
On “Hitting Resistance” from the book Photographic Possibilities by Robert Hirsch:
“When hand-altering work, do not be afraid to push and pull the materials until you meet resistance. Go to the limit, push against the wall of familiarity…. When you hit resistance to new ideas and methods, it means you are entering uncharted waters. There are no guides, instructions, or maps to offer advice. You are on your own. …
“There are far fewer rules and standards in hand-altered work than in conventional photographic methods. So how do you find satisfaction and success? Your mind will quit circling and say yes to what you have created.”
November 1, 2001
Doorways of row houses lining the narrow streets in Florence, Italy, except the final image which is the front door of a winery in Castlello Volpaia.
To bring out their personality and enhance the sense of mystery, Gaussian blur overlays were used in Photoshop. View the procedure.
October 31, 2001
Villa a Sesta: photos of a small village in Tuscany, population 60, which boasts a fabulous Michelin-star restaurant, cooking school, their own olive oil and Chianti wine.
While it was nearly impossible to take a bad photo in this picturesque town, they did benefit from contrast masking in Photoshop.
October 26, 2001
Rudbeckia in our garden, surrounded by Japanese Fountain Grass. View a description of how the image was photographed and processed in Photoshop 6.
October 21, 2001