7th Sept '19 - Occasions you forget together...

[MartinG]

...challenges you set together,
Choices you regret together,
Wallowing in debt together,

...How'd you ever get together?? 

Well we both forgot our 28th anniversary today. Usually I remember, but it's been a trying week.

Never mind, at least I can wish @scenicdesign71 a Happy Birthday, hopefully before you wake up.

Horrible day out there - so much for gardening.

[scenicdesign71]

Thank you, Martin -- and Happy Anniversary!  (It's now already Sunday the 8th where you are, but I just checked in).

It's been an uneventful day, but I'm still working on the website -- a never-ending work-in-progress -- trying to get it to "a certain level" (note the intentional vagueness) before I go back to work on Mme. Sec'y on Monday.

In fact, here's an open invitation: the site is here, so if anyone has any feedback, I'm all ears.

[KathyB]

At first glance, I'd definitely hire you based on your website--it looks very professional. I'm going to spend some time on it, and I'll let you know what else I think after delving deeper.

[scenicdesign71]

Thanks, Kathy!

Though I'm not sure I can realistically hope to accomplish a whole lot before the weekend is over, I do have a punch list -- starting with the three placeholder pages that currently say "Coming Soon": my bio page, and the show pages for Sweeney and A Christmas Carol.  The latter two are pages that I really want to look good, but I'm a little stymied by the comparative dearth of really good photos of either show.  (I have a ton of pics of each, but surprisingly few that really show off the sets well; photographically speaking, it probably didn't help that both were very [literally] dark shows.  So I'm going to end up Photoshopping the hell out of the pics I do have, which takes time).

Those two shows also have renderings, currently shown on their respective placeholder pages and/or in the slideshow on the homepage, that feature generic scale figures that I'd like to replace with something a little more show- (or at least period-)appropriate.  All too often during production, I run out of time for such niceties -- bare lighting grids and seating-less audience risers also occur more frequently in my renderings than I'd like.  So I'm going to try to make a habit, in my spare time whenever I would usually be tooling around on the web accomplishing very little, of picking a random rendering to polish from among the many that could use it.

Although, speaking of renderings, they present a whole general issue that I haven't really resolved in my own mind.  As much as I try to make mine pretty, when it comes down to it, beautiful drawings aren't what I'm ostensibly selling.  If I were to banish them from my portfolio entirely and only show photos of the finished sets, as many designers do, I'm afraid the loss would be rather steep; barring that, deciding how many renderings to include, and how prominently to feature them, is an ongoing quandary.

The other wide-ranging conundrum on a project like this is: how permissible is it to use Photoshop as a crutch for suboptimal photography (see above)?  On both issues, it's tempting to err on the "wrong" side (too many renderings, too much 'shopping), out of insecurity.  So if you see a photo that looks suspiciously retouched; or a rendering that seems to "protest too much" -- promising something that the corresponding photos, even allowing for some evolution between initial concept and finished product, just don't persuasively deliver -- by all means PM me.

Meanwhile, I've been wasting time working on a snazzy new animated version of the Sparkley Clean coffin trick, to replace the slideshow currently featured on that show's page.  It's sort of a test case for what could be an even snazzier animation of the Sweeney chair, though that won't happen anytime soon, since I'll have a lot less time after I go back to M.Sec. tomorrow.

Also: how did you know? chocolate cupcakes with vanilla or chocolate icing are my favoritest kind of cake. 

[KathyB]

More website comments:

1. "resumé" should be "résumé."

2. I noticed a technical issue on all the portfolio pages, where, when I'm trying to scroll up-and-down on my MacBook, the page also scrolls left-and-right. I notice this because I'm scrolling with two fingers on a trackpad, rather than with a scrollwheel on a mouse. Each portfolio page, I've noticed, has a photo credit for the top photo way off to the right (several inches right of the actual right side of the page), which I think is causing the pages to be seen as "wider" than they actually are. It's only mildly annoying. I'm not sure how much sense that all makes, but if you go to a portfolio page and scroll all the way to the top right, you'll see what I'm talking about.

Other than that, I think it looks great. The images look wonderful, regardless of whether they're photos or renderings, and I don't think anything looks "overly Photoshopped."

[scenicdesign71]

Thank you!!

I rarely finger-scroll, so the tracking issue you mentioned was news to me -- but at one point I was vaguely aware that some photo credits had drifted offscreen-right, and the result you describe makes sense as the logical consequence of that.  Thanks for bringing it to my attention; I went back just now and I think I got 'em all.

And thanks especially for the encouragement, re: the images.  There are schools of thought according to which any photo-retouching or showcasing of renderings in a portfolio are both considered ill-advised in principle, though in the 21st century those attitudes may have softened to some degree.  And in any case, to the extent that they do persist, I've probably internalized them enough by now to have a decent sense of where the line is.

..., says the guy who's busy animating photos and renderings of trick props, years after the fact.   

Nevertheless, your response was very reassuring, and I appreciate your taking the time to visit and look around.  I fixed "résumé", and I'm pretty sure the scrolling issue is taken care of, too:  I was initially able to recreate it per your instructions (finger-scroll to the top right), and after finding and deleting those stray photo credits the problem seems fixed.

[Chris L]

@MartinG - Just out of curiosity, what's it the 28th anniversary of? You and your spouse/partner? Anyway, congratulations!