Basement, Joe Brown Hall, University of Georgia.

In case you missed it today, Fresh Air’s Terri Goss interviewed Canadian photojournalist Paul Watson, whose photo of the dead American soldier being dragged through the streets of Somolia won the ‘94 Pulitzer for Spot News.

He’s also covered Rwanda, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, and according to Watson, he’s now suffering from chronic PTS. Recently he was named head of the L.A. Times bureau in Indonesia.

In the interview he speaks pretty frankly about the photo and how it’s impacted his life and the lives of his family, and it’s impact on politics.

Anyway, interview is worth a listen.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=13970206

Just in from the Way Stinkin’ Cool Department… the 9.9 gigapixel Italian fresco.

HAL9000, an Italian group specializing in art preservation and restoration, used a Nikon D2X to make a super high-resolution composite image of a fresco on the roof of a church in Rome.

I stumbled across the article on Rob Galbraith’s page, and he’s got it covered. No sense in repetition here. LINK

Even cooler part…the phone is viewable online at full resolution, in a nifty zoomable navigatable flippable flashy package, and it is amazing. LINK TO HAL9000 AND THAT FRESCO

I was worried the ultra high resolution + craptastic “cable” internet would make my MacBook explode or something, but it handled quite well. Hardly any load time, and once the flash content had loaded, hardly no lag when zooming or moving around the fresco.

The website claims this is the largest photo on the web. I’d believe it. Site also has all the tech specs from shooting and related details. Also has a rather lo-res gallery of photos of their setup taken during the project.

Yeah, so go see it. Now. And ooo and ahhh accordingly.

Just a reminder to keep your eyes open.

Yesterday I got conned into driving from Athens to Milledgeville to a family reunion. Actually, I went to two.

Who’d-a thunk there would be TWO Jackson family reunions on the same lake, on the same road, on the same day, and both marked with signs and balloons?

Obviously I hit the wrong one first. Given how many people I actually knew at the real family reunion, I might have hung out at Jackson Reunion #1 for quite a while, had not every single person at Jackson Reunion #1 been black. That sort of tipped me off.

After great search and much cursing of the cellphone non-service, I finally found Jackson Reunion #2. I hate things like this. Most of my family (on both sides) is like a redneck version of the Royal Tennebaums. These people I’d never met. But Gramma was an only child, so these people are about the only family she has left, and she asked me to come so I figured I’d oblige.

There weren’t “normal” family. There were the stuffy middle-class Methodist slightly-overweight henpecky sorts of people that you’ve trouble telling if they’re dead or alive part of the time. I instantly knew I’d be having more fun at Jackson Reunion #1 but Gramma wasn’t there so oh well.

Then they wouldn’t talk to us unless Gramma instigated conversation, they hadn’t made name tags or us like they had everyone else, and we weren’t allowed to take a plate of leftovers with us

Name tag? Not for you. No, not yours.

And then Dad got pie in his hair, I knocked over an old man with a door, and Paw Paw announced to the entire group that is was about time I started providing him with some great-grandbabies.

I tried to avoid busting out the camera because I wanted to relax and there were about twenty other cameras circulating around, and I didn’t want to de-emasculate the entire room just by flashing a little camera. I got bored and there was no beer and so I busted it out later anyway…

There was a lake. It had mud, as Kate discovered.

This is my uncle. He’s an asshole. But we aren’t going to talk about that right now.

They were fishing for fish… with plastic cups. While walking. We’re related, I’m told.

Gramma brought mom a bushel of pears from Florida.

Recently, Dad discovered that Gramma’s granddad signed the widow’s Confederate soldier pension papers for PawPaw’s great granddad. My grandparents aren’t even from the same state. What a coinky-dink.

Dad was pretending the watermelon was his butt, and he was being Mom, thus insinuating that Mom had a big rear. I think. Either way, Mom was not amused.

It’s been a busy week. I’ve been so busy, in fact, that… I forgot to register for football tickets.

Like, Holy Cow, man. I mean… agh….how?!…

Anyway. I’ll be shooting at least four of the games, and I’d rather be shooting it than in the stands. I had about enough trying to avoid ducking flying Crown Royal bottles and not knocking over the Pee Cup last year anyway.

That being said..

“Would you like to do a photo story about horses??”

…I discovered the over-the-cubicle-wall angle at work.

PS - I don’t like horses.

Google Press Center has announced there’s now a quick and easy way to embed fully-interactive Google map into your page or blog. All you’ve got to do is copy and paste a piece of HTML, just like you would an image or YouTube video, which they give you.

http://www.google.com/intl/en/press/annc/embed_maps.html

I’m still trying to get this to work in WordPress. So far no go. Actually, it’s sort of half-go, but my template can be a little cranky so who knows.

Apparently I’m not the only person who’s having this problem though. There’s a fresh new thread on WordPress.org:

• http://wordpress.org/support/topic/131103

…
However some people are getting it to work. Aparently this guy got it to work, and he suggests disabling WYSIWYG for WordPress. I had no idea what that was, but with a little research… What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get.

I found WYSIWYG plugin for WordPress that overrides the default WYSIWYG editor and gives you an advanced version, and it was updated in June 2007 for WordPress 2.2. Almost might be something to check out. Or it could be a load of crap.

• http://mudbomb.com/archives/2005/02/02/wysiwyg-plugin-for-wordpress/

Someone else suggest the Google Mapper Plugin.

I’ve noticed a lot of 2- and 3-year-old tutorials floating around, which might be worth looking into, but considering the bazillion or so updates of anything to do with the Internet, computers and media technology in the past three years, I think I’d prefer the newest (functional) way.

I’d be interested to know how well this is working on Blogger. Actually I’d be interested to know how any of this is working, but today is a busy day and I’ve gotta run so I don’t have time to play around with it much now. I keep working on it.

They moved our Happy Hour. It’s gone from the Transmet to the Globe. I asked my photo editor via email where the Globe is, since there are upwards 30 bars/clubs in the immediate downtown area and I have no life anyway, so no surprise really that I hadn’t followed the beer fairies to that particular establishment.

She emails me back with this:

© Kelly Wegel 2007

I’m currently two days into a new media technology course, and I’m not sure, but I can only assume that in part this is what the instructor was talking about. Quick communication via Apple Photo Booth and web cam. New ways to communicate with old technology, new ways to communicate with new technology.

Genius.

I don’t think I’d ever thought of that. Also, I am a big fan of sticky notes. And Stickies.

My response, as I also have a built in web cam:

Chicken on a stick. Woo!

Know the best thing about commercial freelance jobs? It’s not the pay. It’s that you can eat the food they offer, and sometimes, it’s really good…

Mmmmm…. salsa….and those scoopy chips…mmm…

From the 25 minutes of afternoon football practice that was open to the media last Friday:

Late afternoon and it was damn hot. I don’t know how they do it. Magic.

This ran yesterday as a last-minute addendum to a package about how freakin’ hot it is and how people are dealing with it (the watermelons were part of this too). It wasn’t shot for that purpose, but they had some space on the front they needed to fill, so I went poking through what I’d shot recently and came up with this image. It was sort of a surprise on the contact sheet - I don’t even remember noticing it the first time or two I perused said photos - but I liked how it turned out. Nice layers, well exposed, nobody walking into image (happens a lot at practice I’ve noticed) (the latter two having been challenging in the football respect lately).