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Can I put a link
to Donna's Virtual Realm or one of your travel photo
pages on my site? |
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Yes, please do! And if you'll let
me know which page(s) you're linking, I'll notify
you of any changes (moved/renamed pages, etc) that might
break the link in the future. |
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What happened to the Photo
Album (Photos of the Webmaster/other photos) page? |
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I haven't found a good spot for it
on my new site yet. Since it was mostly a collection
of photos from past iterations of this site, I may incorporate
it into the Site
History page at some point. |
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What happened to the "Where
am I going next" page? |
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I was woefully negligent about keeping
that page up to date. In fact, the "Where am I
going next" page was still referring to my 2001
trip to Australia (before I even knew for sure that's
where I was going!). I have decided to get rid of that
page for now. |
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When I click on a thumbnail
image, the larger picture opens up in a popup window.
Can I make it open in the current window instead? |
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Yes! Every one of my travel photo
pages as well as the Travel Gallery home page and the
Art Gallery page now contain a link that will let you
switch between viewing pictures "inline" (the
same window) or viewing them in a popup. The popup is
still the default, but once you change to inline viewing,
your setting will be saved for subsequent visits to
my site so long as your browser settings allow for cookies.
In addition, once you choose between popups or inline
viewing for one of my pages, that setting will apply
to all pages on my site unless you change it again. |
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I want to make a link to
one of the photo pages on Donna's Virtual Realm, but
I want "inline" viewing of pictures to be
the default instead of having pictures open in a popup
window. Can this be done? |
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Yes! Popups are normally the default
setting for users who have never visited my site before
or who have never explicitly chosen a display method.
It is this way because a sizable majority of folks
I asked about it said they prefer popups to "inline"
viewing. However, if you are making a link to a photo
page on my site, you can override the default by adding
?defaultImageDisplayType=inline to
the URL. For example, the following URL will link
to my Iceland photos page with "inline"
as the default viewing method:
http://www.virtual-realm.com/travel/html/iceland/photos.html?defaultImageDisplayType=inline
Note: The defaultImageDisplayType
parameter will not override a user's prior setting.
Thus, if you add the above link to your site and someone
clicks on it who has previously chosen popups as their
preferred viewing method, they will continue to get
popups unless they change it. |
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Can I use your photos on
my web site, in my research paper, etc.? |
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Probably, but I request that you
contact me before doing
so. I usually allow the use of my photos on non-commercial/non-political
web sites, school papers, etc. so long as you include
my name and copyright notice with the pictures, and
as long as the site/paper/whatever is in good taste
(e.g., not a porn site or a "hate" site,
etc). But please contact me first and let me know
which photos you would like to use and for what purpose.
I won't spam you, I promise! :) |
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What kind of camera do you
use? |
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The earliest photos in my Travel
Gallery (Iceland, Sweden, England, Asia, Nebraska, Montana,
South Dakota, Wyoming, Texas, Washtington DC, and the
Arizona pictures from 1997 and 1999) where taken with
an old Minolta point-and-shoot with a zoom lens. The
Australia photos were taken with a Nikon N65 except
for the under-water shots, which were taken with a disposable
waterproof camera available at any of the tourist shops
in Cairns. The photos from my 2003 trip to Arizona and
Nevada were taken with an Olympus C-740 Zoom digital
camera. Sometime before my next trip, I'll be purchasing
a digital SLR camera (most likely a Canon Digital Rebel
or similar). Future photos on this site will be taken
with that. |
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Are any of your photos for
sale? |
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Not yet. I'm planning to put up an
online store site later on this year or early next.
In the meantime, if there's someone out there who wants
to pay me to travel somewhere nice and take pictures,
I'd certainly be open to the idea. :) |
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What was the inspiration
for the pattern designs in your Art Gallery? |
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Somewhere in my desk drawer is a
yellow sheet of paper with a roughly 2-square-inch patch
of doodling from back in 1998. Around that same time,
my grandma spent several days telling me her life story.
I wanted to give her a gift in appreciation. I decided
to do a drawing. I started by tracing around a weird-shaped
dish I acquired from somewhere during college, then
filled in the shape with patterns from the doodling.
Over the years, I have introduced new patterns and refined
the old ones to the point where the designs I do today
bear little resemblance to this first one. I've been
told by a few of my Indian friends that my art resembles
Mehndi, but the truth is, I had never even heard of
Mehndi when I started doing these. They're just a product
of my imagination. :) |
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Are your pattern designs
computer generated? |
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Absolutely not! Except for the some
of the outer frames, everything is freehand. |
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How do you do all those tiny
little details? |
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I use 0.5mm mechanical pencils and
lots of concentration and patience. For more information,
see the next question. |
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What kind of art supplies
do you use? |
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I use 0.5mm mechanical pencils of
various hardnesses to do the details and the black-and-white
designs. The most important of these is the 2B pencil,
which I use for all the black. (I go through two or
three 2B leads for each drawing). I use Sanford Prismacolor
pencils for the colored designs. One of the most useful
recent additions to my "toolbox" is a colorless
blender pencil. I used it on my three most recent designs--it
really brings out the colors. And of course, I have
one of those nifty kneeded erasers, an absolute must
for any type of pencil drawing. For the outer frames,
I either come up with a shape of my own, or I use something
lying around the house, such as a dish or a lid (especially
for circles) and trace around it. Lastly, I use Blair
No Odor Spray Fix to keep the drawing from smearing.
If I'm doing a color drawing, I do all the detail work
first, then spray it down really well, do the color,
then spray again. |
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Are any of your drawings
for sale? |
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Not yet. I am planning to put up
an online store site later on this year or early next.
In the meantime, if you are interested in prints or
originals, please contact me,
and I'll let you know when I have something available. |
