June 3, 2008 [LINK / comment]
Photo gallery spring cleaning
After a long period of neglect, I have reformatted and updated the Photo gallery page. It now loads more quickly, as there is only one montage image displayed at first, and is replaced by appropriate montages for each year as you scroll up and down the page. There is also a new Spring 2008 photo gallery page. Nearly all of the old photo gallery pages now conform to a standardized format, with captions being positioned consistently, and with the "Photo Gallery" banner image at the top of the page serving as the navigational link to the main photo gallery page. I will be deleting a lot of old photos, and for past years, there will generally be only one photo gallery page per year, except for trips overseas or to other special places.
This upgrade of the photo galleries is in part motivated by a recent "hardware" acquisition, of which the photo below is the first example. We had been shopping for a digital camera for several months, and I wasn't sure if we should get one of those tiny pocket-size cameras or a higher-quality one. In making my selection, I relied upon Consumer Reports and MacLife magazines, as well as advice from various people such as Brian Vangor, whom I met recently at Nationals Park in Washington. (He took that photo of us.) Last week, finally, we opted for the latter, and bought a Nikon D40 digital SLR camera, and so far, I am extremely impressed with the results. It will take a long time before I learn all the features of this new technological "marvel." It has an 18mm-55mm wide angle zoom lens, rather than a telephoto lens, so I won't be able to use it to take wild bird photographs for the time being. I plan to get a spotting scope and adapter eventually, at which point I might be able to take bird photos of comparable quality to those taken by Brenda Tekin or by my brother John.

The very first photo I took with our new Nikon D40 digital SLR camera, using manual focus but automatic exposure controls. This purple orchid is of the Phalaenopsis genus.