A week in the life of a server

I'm always fascinated to see which photos are the most popular 'round here. It's mostly a function of which photos are ranked highly on Google Image Search, but it increasingly depends on how many Xanga / MySpace bloggers choose a particular photo for their background image (which, of course, they find using Google).

Sunsets, waterfalls, and bikinis are still hugely popular. Shocking, I know.

Anyway, each of these tweleve photos is being viewed more than 500 times per month at high-res. The top few are viewed thousands of times each month.

You can click to see the collections from which they originate.

Odds and Ends

Rummaging through the archives this week, where I found a few miscellaneous bits and pieces that may eventually be of interest to somebody.

Even having shared my photos on the web since 1998, it still amazes me to find things like my college buddy Alex appearing on the front page of a newsletter in Winnipeg.

So if you happen to see my iPod in some article about a road trip, or recognize this pair of anonymous laptop users (my dad and brother) from somebody's blog, let me know.

Zoom zoom zoom

So that EF 100mm f/2.8 macro lens I bought... it has an effective focal length of 160mm on my 20D, which can be a bit overwhelming for ordinary use. But it worked wonderfully in the Haleakala crater on Maui last weekend, without even taking a single Macro shot. Compressing the perspective on geothermic landscapes creates interesting effects, whereas the 20mm lens I took to Iceland in 2003 was too wide to capture the volcanic scenery.

It's too extreme to carry around as my one-and-only lens, which is my usual style, but nice to have around when I can afford the weight. And great to practice with, since I've never played much with a telephoto.

Colors

Spent the weekend on a short backpacking trip in Colorado, with some decent photos of the family, but almost no landscape / scenery pics that impressed me. I took just my old trusty 50mm f/1.4 lens, which I seldom use these days, and felt restricted by its focal length (effectively 80mm). Which explains why the portraits came out fine but little else... I'm only publishing these two specimens.

Also, having backpacked in New Zealand a few months ago, I have to say, I wasn't overly inspired by the scenery. I'm not good enough to work with dry, rocky, monochromatic terrain... my heroic moments come from green trees, clear water, and blue skies. They're crutches, I know. Maybe one day.