Cincinnati Magazine May 2011: Super Natural article
I am tackling a couple of subjects with this post. One is just sharing an article I recently licensed some images for in Cincinnati Magazine’s May 2011 issue. The other is how much I am enjoying getting magazines electronically now. These two things came together when I just noticed today the article I contributed images to appeared in Zinio’s featured articles. (Zinio is a digital subscription service, like a giant news stand, that has essentially become a leader in offering many publications in electronic form. Their Featured Articles are essentially free samples of selected articles to get you interested in various publications.)
I think I shared the news of the article on Facebook a few weeks back. If you are not tuned into my Facebook page, and would like to, be sure to stop by and give it a “Like” if you are so inclined. Sometimes I post short updates there that aren’t mentioned on my blog. To be honest, I often find it hard to keep up with all of these outlets.
Cincinnati Magazine May 2011: Smoky Mountains
Anyway, the article was about getaways to nature in the Midwest. I was contacted by the editor who found me through Google, and asked if I had images of various midwest destinations. I submitted an electronic lightbox to her to review what I had, and she selected a Pictured Rocks image and a Smoky Mountains image to represent those particular areas in the article. I was pleased to be part of such a piece, it was nicely done. Those layouts are shown here, but I have blurred the text to avoid stepping on any copyrights of the writers or the magazine. Since this was a sample article on Zinio, and it is a great tribute to all the getaways in the Midwest, you can read it in its entirety here.
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Jacob's Falls, Michigan U.P | The MacGuffin, Spring-Summer 2011, Cover photograph by Mark Graf
I recently had an image of mine selected for the Spring-Summer 2011 cover of a local college’s art journal, called the MacGuffin. It is a journal that features short stories, poems and a few photographs from 32 other contributors. It is quite an old image, the original exposure was made in July 1997 in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula of Jacob’s Creek. That seems like so long ago, so many photographs ago, now in thinking about it.
Because of the age of this image, it had me thinking about the intersections a photograph can have with various people over time. It may be just a use for business purposes, or it can be something displayed on a wall that many people see every day. In this case, it became part of 32 artists’ lives in this edition of having their work published, perhaps many for the first time. Perhaps some readers of this journal will make a connection with it, or it may be just another picture sitting on someone’s table with other reading materials. I find those various connections and intersections interesting to think about, whether they are positive ones, or benign.
For me as the photographer, my connection and memory about it is when and how the photo was made because it was so long ago, early on in my pursuit of photography. I remember climbing out in the middle of this rocky stream so I could face straight on to the waterfall, precariously perching my tripod on whatever solid surface I could find. I was just enamored with how lush and rich the environment seemed to be. Michigan’s Western U.P is much like this, with hundreds of waterfalls and small streams worth exploring.
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Michigan Blue Magazine, Winter 2010, cover photo by Mark Graf
I am pleased to have the cover of the Winter 2o10 issue of Michigan Blue magazine. I just received my copies the other day.
The image is of ice blocks on Lake St. Clair at one of my favorite winter spots to photograph. Morning colors can be spectacular, and if I am lucky, I will find some great translucent ice blocks to work into the scene. Another aspect I like about this area is that there is very little clutter on the horizon, contributing to the overall “vastness” or remoteness of the photographs. It can be rare to find in Southeastern Michigan. But there is a downside! Given the lack of sheltering trees or structures, the winter wind can be brutal.
Every year it is a different scene depending on so many different factors. That is why I keep going back… despite the wind. Most, if not all, of my frozen lake winter photos are from this spot. You can see more images in my winter landscape photo gallery.
Read MoreA number of things have changed since I last took on a website redesign 5 or 6 years ago. First was that I am now designing on a Mac given my switch from PC’s back in 2008. This can make it difficult to debug unless you have access to PC’s with various versions of Internet Explorer. Secondly, mobile devices cannot be just an afterthought anymore. Significantly more people are accessing web content via iPhone, iPad, Android, etc. Lastly, web browsers have had several revisions – each version can make changes that can really screw with your layout, and there are certainly more web browsers to contend with now.
How big is too big?
One of the first questions to answer is basically how big your layout is going to be. Especially for a photography website, the size of the images then becomes a key factor in this. I originally started off thinking I could go much larger in my layout and image sizing than I had previously. My Google Analytics stats tell me that a vast majority of my visitors are on resolutions of 1024×768 or greater. Then I discovered this cool tool in the Google Labs area called Browser Size.
This site gives you an onion skin overlay of any website, and shows you the percentage of users that will see that area without scrolling and the corresponding display size in pixels. It is particularly important that key information is placed in areas most people will see. In addition, I believe horizontal scrolling is still generally a no-no unless it is a specific feature of the site design. I had to redo some of my original layout and image sizing upon discovering that a significant amount of people would have to also horizontal scroll to see the entire page. From the overlay, you will see that the optimal width is between 950 and 1000 pixels.
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Apple iPad
Unless you have been comfortably tucked away yesterday reading one of those old fashioned, bound paper things or simply refused to listen to any one of 10,000 different media sources – you probably know that Apple unveiled their latest gizmo today called the iPad. The hype has been building for months and the rumors can finally be squashed.
For photographers, no doubt there will be interest in portfolio displays, book publishing, and access to more tools to share our work. As consumers, some will embrace, some will drool, and of course pundits will take their shots. What I find most amazing is the transformation digital media and tools are shaping the way we communicate and interact with the world around us. Apple presented this as the “gap filler” to fill what is between a device like the iPhone and a full blown computer. Our lives are pelleted with so many data streams, from so many different sources, do we need every little gap filled with yet another device?
The iPad looks like it can do a lot of very cool things – games and movies stand out to me, as well as possible new methods for distributing photographs, and possibly eliminating the piles of magazines I rarely have time to read anyway. I am certainly running out of space for them. I do wonder however, when does it become enough?
I love technology and gadgets, but lately I am finding myself just wanting to sit by a tree in my woods and listen to the birds sing, even if I may need my iPhone to identify them occasionally. 
How do you think this new gadget will fit in with photographers?
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