Tag Archives: tips

Photography in DC

Leave a comment | Posted by Patrick Calder on in photo

A good general rule of thumb for photography in DC:
“Get Closer”
It appears to be an almost universal impulse for tourists to stop when they see a famous building in DC, and take a picture or have their picture taken in front of it. And by in front of it, I mean 5 blocks away. So many people stop halfway down the mall, to take pictures of the Capitol building.
Stop it.
Get closer.
On an average camera with an average lens, you can literally be on the grass in front of the capitol before you fill the frame. And no one is going to be impressed by a photo of the White House taken from Scott Circle, 6 blocks away.
Get closer.
Combine this with the whole “stop centering people’s heads in your photos”, and you can actually get quite a lot in your pictures.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!

Bad Website Design Tip #134

Leave a comment | Posted by Patrick Calder on in rant

If you’re gonna put a form on your web page that checks to see what people are entering in the fields, and won’t let them move on to the next field unless they complete the first one properly, then…
…give the user feedback as to what they’re doing wrong so they can fix it!
Or… you know…. tell them how to do it right in the first place.
Otherwise, they may spend valuable time cursing you, trying multiple web browsers, and calling you, all to figure out why the hell they can’t use your form.

Please keep in mind that this post is more than 6 years old. Who the hell knows what I was thinking back then?! Damn kids... get off my lawn!