Trying hard to get the last details done on membership features for the online studio website. I'm really pleased with them, honestly excited. I guess I'd better be -- why work so hard at it if I don't like it?
All the membership features will be free the first month. I truly want anyone who is interested to see them. I'm keeping the membership price really low -- the only reason there is a 'price' at all is that I have to charge for some things in order to keep doing what I do. And I'm so totally convinced it's worthwhile. The rural landscape needs a voice. People need to hear, people need to see. There's no more true and constant companion than the land you live on, the land you live in.
The centerpiece of the membership items is a weekly audio slideshow called "The Riffle". It took me a long time to settle on a name for something that I wanted to be primarily visual. I mean, "Looky Here" seemed just as good a name, for the longest time. But I decided the word "riffle" would link the feature with the river valley theme I've chosen for the studio work. (A riffle is just what it sounds like -- those pebbly, shallow areas where the water is noisy as it flows over.) And it also recalled to mind those flip-books of cartoons that I used to be able to get as a kid. A flip-book was the first thing I thought of as I started working on the Flash coding for the slideshows.
I knew I wanted to put audio with it, and for a long time, I thought radio models would be the right way to go. I listened hard, I read, I researched -- I tried it. But in the end, I decided that when you talk over pictures, the words take over. And if words were what I wanted, I could just write. So the Riffles come with sound, but it's the sound that was there when the images were collected.
The first Riffle is a visit to a nearby patch of old growth forest. We actually have old growth here in Ohio, and one of the nature preserve is just up the road from me. There are just tiny patches of it left, but they are remarkable places. I'm sure it won't be that last time I go there with camera in hand.
Other membership features will be jigsaw puzzles from my photo portfolio; discounts on courses, articles, and publications; and weekly links of interest. It shouldn't take me too long to get the wallpapers coded, and I want to develop some screensavers as well. The latter will take a little time, because I want to be sure I have a widely compatible format.
I've always felt faintly sheepish about the jigsaw puzzles. They seemed childish to me, even though I liked them a lot myself. And to my surprise, they've been very popular. There are a fair number of people who just show up for the puzzles, so I must not be alone.
Completely apart from all this, I decided to open a weblog on visual thinking. If you are a visual thinker yourself, or if you live with one, it might interest you. I'll post a link to it later today.
Linda
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