Pet Photoblog Peeve (PPP) #2 - photoblogs who post images
too large to view without scrolling. They make me feel like I've got to a popular
movie late and I'm stuck in the front row; they give me a crick in the neck
and leave me wondering what I'm missing that's currently out of my view. If
this were my fault for surfing the web on a poky 15" screen I wouldn't
be bothered by this so much but I'm out here at 1280x1024 on a pretty decent,
color profiled 21" CRT that gives me back problems whenever I have to
move it and cost me deep of my purse a few years ago. If I can't see the image
in one shot what is the minimum hardware configuration required by these sites?
I know one argument is that this is deliberate and that it gives the viewer
an active, immersive viewing experience but I don't buy it. For one thing
the amount of scrolling someone on a 23" Apple Cinema Display will experience
compared to someone on their web enabled phone is pretty significant so it
is far from a controlled effect. For another I feel like the
photoblogger is treating me like an idiot; I've spent a lot of time learning
how to read photographs - I don't need heavy-handed scrolling to get immersed
in the image or to be involved in the details. Either that, or its the photoblogger
is a techno-idiot, who hasn't worked out how to resize the images that his
megapixel camera delivers.
If an interactive experience
is truly what you're going for create an interactive quicktime or flash
movie with the image as its core. Go to a real world gallery or museum; even
with today's fashion for massive prints I've yet to experience a display space
where your nose is forced up to the glass and you don't have room to stand
back and take in the whole picture at once.
- the photoblog curmudgeon |
