Banner photos

When I launched my new web site design in 2007, I had a “placeholder” banner across the top—just a green pattern. I’ve now begun the process of turning that into something I hope will prove to be an interesting experiment.

The banner is now a rotating selection of narrowly-cropped photographs from my library. Currently there are only a handful of photos from a few cities on our Mediterranean cruise, but I hope to add more and change the theme from time to time.

I find this to be a particularly interesting, and rewarding, process. I’m accustomed to looking at an entire squarish photo, and this gives me the chance to view photos in a whole new way. Many photos that aren’t particularly interesting as a whole take on a new personality when I’m forced to choose a region only 100 pixels high. It also gives me an opportunity to play the “what is this a picture of?” games from my youth, where a small part of a picture is shown zoomed-in and the reader’s goal is to determine what the picture is.

For those who have been playing the game by watching my banner, here are the current batch of photos. Click on each to view the original, full-frame version.