Title • water wall

When I first processed this one, I really liked it, but now I'm not so sure. I think the problem is that I only had a very rough idea of how I wanted it to look when I took it, and I've not been able to come up with something that makes me entirely happy. I did try a straight colour version (which, because there's so much sand in the water as it bounces of the sea wall, just ended up looking muddy), and I also tried various black and white versions, but they all looked flat. What I think I probably need to do is rethink this one at some point, though that said: and I'm writing this bit after posting the entry, I have to say that I like it a lot better now I've seen it posted on chromasia ... not sure why.

Oh, and I should add that the amount of water coming over the wall in yesterday's shot was considerably less than in this one ;-)

On another matter: the new version of photoblogs.org went online recently and has switched from a system based on 'favourites', to one that uses tags and bookmarks. As most of you will probably know, the old version was based on i) the number of favourites a site accrued (which was used to generate the 'top 10' and 'top 100' lists), and ii) the frequency with which these favourites were added (this generated the 'hot photoblogs' list). The problem with the old system is that the top sites, chromasia included, were dominating the rankings, mostly because they were the sites that were most visible; i.e. someone would come along to photoblogs.org, take a look at a few of the top sites, and add them as favourites. What they didn't do, at least not as often, was explore the other 15K+ sites that were listed, many of which were/are very good, but, because they didn't have the same exposure as the top sites, they were much less likely to get picked as favourites. In other words, what started out as a fairly dynamic system had become stale.

The new version uses a different methodology, one based on bookmarks and tags. For example, if I come across a site that I like I can bookmark it, add a short description, and tag the site as I see fit. For example, I've tagged chromasia with things like beach, Blackpool, UK, sand, seascape, children, and so on. The 'top X' lists have gone, but the 'hot photoblogs' one remains, though it's been tamed somewhat by the inclusion of an algorithm that calculates how 'hot' a site is, not by just the frequency with which bookmarks are added, but the frequency in relation to how many bookmarks a site already has. In other words, a site with few bookmarks will rise up through the 'hot' list very quickly, in the first instance, but a site that already has a lot of bookmarks wouldn't rise as high unless it attracted a much larger number of new bookmarks. I'm sure there were clearer ways of explaining it, but I think that that's the gist of how the new system works.

So, the bottom-line, as I see it, is that photoblogs.org is now much more about finding types of particular types of photoblogs than it is about finding ones that are ranked higher than others. With that in mind I'm hoping that a fair few of you might drop by photoblogs.org and tag chromasia for me such that people interested in the sort of photography I do (style, subject matter and so on) will still be able to find chromasia in and among the 17,048 sites that are currently listed. If you'd like to do that my profile is here:

http://www.photoblogs.org/profile/chromasia.com/

Thanks.