jeffmilner.com

When I heard about Flickr’s new layout changes, I was excited to see what improvements they were making. (For scale, the images below are 500px wide — that is the actual width of the photo in the old view.)

The old view:

The new view:

Things I dislike about the new Flickr preview.

• They removed the helpful url links when viewing “all sizes”.
• They no longer have a “browse” link to take you to the flickr stream page where that photo appears Looks like they fixed this, the photostream link now takes you to a specific page.
• The map on the side is way to prominent. Seriously, is the map more important than the other photos?
• They removed speed options, viewing of descriptions, and ability to see what’s coming up in their new lightbox mode (instead of slideshow – I don’t love flash, but I liked the slideshow feature.).
• They turned the quick links above a photo into pull down menus. One more click to get what you want is never preferable.
• The spacing between photos on the photostream view is too wide. Just because some people have large monitors, doesn’t mean that the photos should look unbalanced to fill up the space.
• Titles need to go above photos, not below them.
• “Click here to add a title” no longer disappears, but sits there cluttering untitled images. (At least for my own photos when I’m logged in.)
• The column width for comments is now wider making comments harder to read.
• The commenter’s icon is smaller and doesn’t look as nice. Ironic considering they could have used the icon to fill up the space so that the text column wouldn’t need to be quite as wide.

Things I like:

• I like the new 640px default size, though things load a bit slower.

I admit, when viewing the small images above, I like the look of the new version because the bigger photo is nicer. However, all the other concerns make me feel like this one positive is not worth all the other negatives.

In my opinion, Flickr should hire the type of people that started the company: people passionate about photography and user interfaces.

My “pro” account is expiring next week. I am thinking about migrating my photos to Picasa before then. That doesn’t leave me much time.

In honour of earth day, the Boston Globe has a great collection of photos well worth checking out: Earth Day 2010 Photos.

The most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth created to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer of our planet. Much of the information contained in this image came from a single remote-sensing device-NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS. Flying over 700 km above the Earth onboard the Terra satellite. (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)

My cousin Don has started a photography business on the side. He’s got a website up showing some of his work. If you’re looking for a photographer in the Kootenays BC, give him a shout.

My friend Shannon Phillips is a freelance writer and journalist. When she asked me to take some photos for her new story, I jumped at the chance. I’m happy to say, the editors at Alberta Views used two of my images for the October edition article.

The article is available online (sans photos).

A week ago I was up early at 4:30am to ride down to the States with some friends to enjoy the festivities at the Sasquatch! Music Festival. After nearly 12 hours on the road, we arrived at the festival grounds, set up camp and watched as thousands of others did the same.

The Festival takes place in the most beautiful venue I’ve ever seen. It’s a gigantic amphitheatre called The Gorge. There were so many interesting people and so many great artists—check out some of the photos and videos I captured from the event:

[Sasquatch! Music Festival Slideshow - Flickr]

Last Saturday, March 28, the world turned off the lights in recognition of the environment and global climate change. Somehow I couldn’t convince my roommate that it mattered and so he spent earth hour in the glow of his room amidst a dark house on a dark street. I wondered if he would regret missing the opportunity later—as I did last year. I like to think the Earth Hour is as much about missed opportunities as taking part. Think about it.

I have to admit turning off the lights for an hour won’t do much to save the environment. It does, however, stimulate a spirit of unity and puts the problem into the forefront of our minds.

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture has posted an inspiring collection of before and after shots from Earth Hour with the lights on and off at famous locations around the world. Don’t forget to click to see the images with the lights off.

Boston Globe’s Earth Hour 2009 Photos.

A flickr set of the first photos from the Jonze/Eggers project Where The Wild Things Are.

Enjoy the trailer.

On February 9th I took part in a Strobist shoot at the U of L pool.

(video by Michael Warf)

Here are a couple of composites I made from the photos I shot that day:

A collection of writers, including my favourite, Malcolm Gladwell, offer praise to the power and poignancy of Barack Obama’s inaugural address in this worthwhile LA Times article

Also, San Fransisco’s Bush Street gets an update:

Sources 1 and 2.

Last week I went to Jamaica for a little fun in the sun. Here are some photos I took while I was there:

See my Jamaica Flickr set for more.