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"Images of Beautiful Places" Main PageThe Making of "Images of Beautiful Places" Web
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The Complete Story, As Never Told Before!
Written and Produced by Don Klosterman
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"Images of Beautiful Places" Main Page
The Making Of "Images of Beautiful Places" Web Site
© 1997 by Don Klosterman, Ph.D., Dayton, Ohio
The idea of producing a feature on the making of "Images of Beautiful Places" came to me sometime in early 1997. I remember sketching out most of the original ideas while on a jet to San Francisco at the end of March (enroute to the San Francisco photo shoot). The web site had recently "taken off", logging it's 1,000th visitor in about a month after the counter was installed in December of '96, and soon after was logging 2000-3000 visitors per month. Public response in the form of email was also very positive. Clearly, this web site was receiving world-wide exposure and was accomplishing its mission of bringing beauty and inspiration to web surfers around the world. Thus, I thought that it would be appropriate to provide a little background information for those browsers who might be interested.
But nothing is ever simple. To capture the complete story of how the web site evolved, I soon realized that a massive production was needed. A layout would have to be planned, a script written, archival pictures and memorabilia located, etc, etc. Due the demands of work and family life, the document was slow to come together. But surely enough, I was able to complete the document without making any omissions or compromises. As I finished the final chapters in December of 1997, I thought back to that plane trip in March, 9 months ago! Then, it occurred to me that any work requiring 9 months to complete should deserve a preface and dedication also.
So here it is. I present you with "The Making of Images of Beautiful Places",
complete with preface and dedication. Now that it is finished, I'm going to Disney!
To all those searching for more out of life: meaning, beauty, excitement, passion, and achievement.
The idea of creating a website such as "Images of Beautiful Places" came to me as I was browsing the web in the spring of ’96. I was intrigued by websites featuring pictures of beautiful places and people. However, it seemed to me that not many of these sites explored their subjects to an adequate depth. I was also motivated in a negative way by the seemingly endless supply of untasteful, inappropriate, and unintelligent sites. Therefore, I wanted to create a place of beauty that people could access around the world, 24 hours per day for various reasons: a place of momentary respite from the stress of day-to-day life; a preview of a vacation that one might be taking; or just a chance to look at some pretty pictures.
At first, I wanted to span a much wider scope than just beautiful places. My initial idea was to create a page with subject "Beauty". The page would encompass beautiful places, people, and music. Beautiful people would be featured for their ideas, actions, physical appearance, voice, or other talents. However, early in the brainstorming phase, it became clear to me that such a task would be too daunting for any one person to tackle. For example, the site would have to contain, among others, pictures of: Montana, Utah, California, African Savana, rainforest, Mozart, Bach, Simon and Garfunkle, the Pope, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, Claudia Schiffer, Daniella Pestova, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Pavoratti, Whitney Houston, Patrick Stewart , the Space Shuttle, the Andromena Galaxy, ….. get the picture? In addition, I would have to violate copyright law in order to obtain most of these pictures. For these reasons, I decided to limit my subject to "places", and in particular, pictures that I have personally taken throughout my journeys.
The mission of Images of Beautiful Places is several fold. Mainly, it is intended to be a "nice place" to visit, especially for people whose jobs keep them indoors confined to a desk, i.e. most of the people surfing the web. I believe that just looking at pictures of these places can temporarily, to some degree, transport one’s being to these places and provide a refreshing break. In addition, the web site can serve as a trip preview for those who are planning on or interested in visiting these places. I make no claim to be a professional photographer. In fact, the goal of the site doesn’t require professional quality.
One of the most fascinating aspects of the internet that I was trying to exploit was the ability to offer glimpses of various parts of the world to average people around the world, especially for those who like to or wish to travel. In essence, the internet gives us the ability to "shrink" the planet. Moreover, access is not limited to the privileged, the rich, or the powerful. So maybe we, as "average" people, cannot physically visit every place that we would like, but at least we can share photos and experiences, and enrich ourselves in the process.
Finally, the site is meant to be a monument to all that is beautiful in this world and
a counter measure to ignorance, mediocrity, and chaos. You will notice that most of the
places are in a natural state, untouched by man. However, there are a few places (cities)
that have been included because they are places that have been well planned and well
maintained and therefore provide a fitting environment for Man to inhabit.
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Although "Images" was inspired by the lofty ideals of beauty, nature, and passion, I would not have been able to produce it without modern optical and computer technology. The following is a brief run-down of the various elements that made the web site possible.
Of course the foundation of "Images" is the camera. Most of the photographs were taken with a Canon Rebel SII camera with a 32 to 200 mm Tamron zoom lens. And most of the time I use Kodak 200 speed film or Kodak Ektachrome 100 speed slide film. I tried Kodak Kodachrome 64 film once, but I think I prefer Ektrachrome for its bright color quality.
Other than the camera, the most critical element was the picture scanner. Fortunately, an HP ScanJet IIcx color scanner was available at my place of employment. All photographs were scanned with 150 dpi resolution. The slides were scanned with a Nikon LS1000 slide scanner with 900 dpi resolution. I was very disappointed in the quality of the slide scanning from this piece of equipment. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I heard that slide scanners in general are not very good. The best way to go is to send your slides to a shop that has Kodak Photo CD service and let them do it. This is the way I do all my slides now. The major drawback is expense: you'll pay $2 per slide or more.
Adobe Photoshop software was used to size the digital images, and it was required for slight touch up and manipulation of a few of the images (e.g. piecing together two pictures). Adobe Photoshop also served another critical purpose: file compression. The original file size of an average picture is 1-2 MB, which would take too long to transfer over the internet. By compromising the picture quality, the file size can be compressed. I used the JPEG format: the average file size in now 30-50 kB, or 1/20th to 1/40th of the original size. I thought that this file size was the best compromise between reasonable picture quality and speedy file transfer.
I have a Pentium type computer with a 17" color monitor. Another key issue was based on my monitor: how large to size the photographs. I wanted to have the pictures as large as possible but without overflowing the screen. Therefore, I sized all my photographs to fill up the screen of a 17" monitor running Netscape. I apologize to those with smaller monitors who will have to scroll around the picture to see the entire photograph.
Finally, "Images" is hosted by the University of Dayton Research Institute server. This arrangement is fortunate for two reasons: because the host service is free of charge to me and computer memory is not an issue.
I wanted to keep the overall layout simple. I didn’t want the site cluttered with
all kinds of fancy thumbnails, buttons, and other gimmicks. The main attraction was
supposed to be the pictures, therefore a streamlined layout was critical. The site as it
stands now has not evolved much from the original design (see
sketch), nor do I expect that it will in the foreseeable future. I always liked the
idea of one main picture to greet people, and then a list or table of the various links,
each one leading to a different subject. The layout is functional and very fast,
another critical consideration.
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To put it politely, programming one’s own web site is a challenging learning experience. I found that the major hurdle was learning how to use the various pieces of equipment and software. Complicating the situation was learning the interaction between these pieces of equipment. For example, there were three different ways with which I could adjust total picture size: with the scanning software, with Adobe Photoshop, and with the HTML code. I decided to adjust the size in Adobe Photoshop while using the default size in the other two. However, the total size of the picture is also affected by the resolution, which is set with the scan software and in Adobe. The final resolution, but not size, can also be adjusted by the JPEG conversion, yet another variable to contend with. To make a long story short, I had to do a lot of "playing around" or "tweaking" before I came up with a reasonable set of parameters for all the equipment and software. In the end, I was able to standardize my procedure for scanning pictures and preparing them for the web. This chapter of the story frustrated me a lot because I didn’t anticipate these complications. To bring the first intallment on-line, it took about 40 hours of labor, all of which I had to work at night in my office and hence to the chagrin of my wife.
Another challenge was learning how to splice two pictures together. This is the kind of thing I often do in my photo albums, and I wanted to implement it in an electronic format too. The difficult part is not splicing the pictures together, but blending them at the interface. See exhibit. All of the sizing, splicing and blending was done with Adobe Photoshop. The Wild Goose Island picture, which is probably my best splice, is amateur at best. I just don't have the time to learn how to do it professionally. However, the overall goal of the web site has not been violated: viewer can still get a pretty good idea of how the scene looks. The Wild Goose Island picture is actually about a 150° panarama.
As with any project, it takes a while to work out the "bugs". In the first few months, to my embarrassment, I received a lot of email and comments pointing out details of the web site that were confusing, misleading, or erroneous. So here is the top 5 list of bloopers, all of which have been corrected since then.
Things began to catch on like wild fire in the fall of 1996. Email began to pour in.
The most surprising finding came in December 1996/January 1997. Contrary to what is
displayed on the commemorative plaque, I didn't implement the counter until December 18,
1996. Thus, for the first 6 months of the web site, I really had no idea how many people
were visiting the site. I checked the counter about a week after installing it. To my
surprise, a couple hundred people visited my site during that time. I thought that it must
be a fluke. But surely enough, after a one month period, I had logged 800 visitors. And
the traffic has steadily increase since then. At the time I am writing this (December
1997), I can estimate that the counter will easily surpass the 40,000 mark by December 18,
1997. This figure translates to a staggering average of over 3000 visitors per month ---
about 100 per day! Of course, I have no way of tracking how long people stay and to what
extent they browse, but still, that number is quite satisfying.
I am continually trying to upgrade the web site. If you compare today's web site to the initial web site, you will see that there have been quite a few additions. Among the most significant additions are described below:
The response from the public has been overwhelming and astounding! Well, not really, but I needed a good lead-in line to this chapter. Actually, I have received about 40-45 email comments on the website as of December 2, 1997. According to the counter (38,880), that works out to about 0.1%. In other words, only one out of every 1000 persons is willing to send in a comment. However, I have been very grateful that most of the comments have been encouraging, and they have come in from all parts of the globe including Japan, Europe, Austrailia, South America, Indonesia, India, and Oklahoma. This leads me to conclude that the web site is indeed achieving its monumental and noble mission.
Here is a sample of comments that I have received over the past year or so:
If I have one hope, it is that this web site never be finished, for that would certainly mean that I have relinquished my personal quest for beautiful places and the beautiful people that may inhabit them. Nay, I do not foresee this happening, and I am committed to undertaking new travels to be documented through the double lenses of past experience and the automatic SLR camera. High on my wish list are Alaska, more Germany, Colorado, and more desert Southwest. And maybe someday, I'll reach the moon - the ultimate quest indeed!
And thus, the quest continues.
It must, because the quest is life itself!
(Que the inspirational music now)
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