Panoramic Portraits
Last weekend we spent some time at Volunteer Park in Plantation. I brought along my camera and tried to do something a little different. These are kind of like panoramic portraits. I even got a nice flattened image out of this little session.
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The tour of Fort Lauderdale expands
By John Potter
I didn’t initially set out to create a tour of the Riverwalk area of Fort Lauderdale, but it seems to be working out that way (see Panoramic Photography Portfolio).
It’s fun to do and I think more people will tend to find that part of the site interesting and/or useful if it is more comprehensive.
I wanted to photograph at least one venue last weekend, so on Saturday I set out to shoot the Gravity Clock at The Museum of Discovery and Science. While I was there I walked down to The River House Restaurant and the new Maritime Museum. I also photographed the Lone Sailor Statue, The Broward Center for The Performing Arts and the Sundial across the street from The Museum of Discovery and Science.
While I was on that side of town I decided to run up to the top of another parking garage and add a little bit to the Fort Lauderdale downtown area.
On Sunday my family and I decided to see “The Great Age of American Automobiles” exhibit at the Museum of Art of Fort Lauderdale. I had this idea that I would take a great panoramic photo in the middle of all these vintage concept cars. It was a great idea, but they didn’t allow photography in the exhibit, so that’s all it will ever be…an idea.
It was a great exhibit though and well worth checking out.
We ended up walking across the street and I took a panoramic photo by the fountain directly across Las Olas Boulevard from the museum (The Spirit of Fort Lauderdale Fountain). I went on to shoot some more in the park that is there, but I didn’t post them because I don’t want to get too carried away with minutia unless the photographs have some outstanding aesthetic quality that goes beyond it’s informational content.
I will probably continue to flesh out this part of the site since it provides a good example of the practical uses of panoramic photography as well as functioning as a nice research tool for tourists.
Here’s a look back at previous designs
By John Potter
It seems like only yesterday, but my last redesign was in July of last year.
I’ve been happy with the design, but blogging was new to me and It’s taken me close to a year to figure out what’s working for me and what’s just taking up space on the page for now. I was beginning to feel the look was a little cluttered and I just wanted a new cleaner feel in general. I’ve eliminated some of the bells and whistles, so if anyone has any complaints, please let me know.
Here is some background on the site…
In 1996 Intracorp Games had just closed it’s doors and it was time for me to find something else to do. Westwood Studios had just released Command & Conquer that Christmas and dominated the PC game field so decisively that a lot of game companies closed their doors (C&C was super cool though). I wouldn’t mention Intracorp, but you can see the influence of having just worked at a game company for two years in my early designs. Anyhow…the internet was big news at the time, but most people really didn’t know what it was. I had a pretty good idea because I had been BBSing (using Bulletin Board Systems) for some time, but I didn’t know anything about HTML. In fact I didn’t know any script languages at all. The internet seemed to be one of the next big things so I decided I would get into it (with absolutely no idea what I was doing).
Okay…so step one would probably be “learn to build a website”. I went out and bought Laura Lemay’s “HTML 3.2 in 14 Days” and went through it step by step and was competent with HTML in about 14 days just as Laura Lemay had promised.
The next obvious step was to create something so that I could show off what I had just learned, so I came up with the idea of Escape Key, but I had no clue what information to populate it with. It started out as kind of a vanity site, although the term didn’t exist yet. I posted my resume and basic information about myself.
I did put effort into the look and feel though. The screen capture from 1999 is pretty similar to the original (you can see that I also made the site into a small personal portal for a while). It was like an aerial view of a beach with little buildings you could click on. It did succeed in getting me my first job as a web designer.
Now you may have noticed that the site started out as EscapeKey.net. Later, in 2001, I decided to create EscapeKeyGraphics.com to market myself as a freelancer.
I kept EscapeKey.net and although there is always some content difference they usually mirror each other in look and feel. Right now I am using a REALLY stripped down layout for EscapeKey.net.
I hope you enjoy the new look and feel of the site, and please feel free to post comments.
