Random Excellence: Alex S. MacLean

Alex S. MacLean, Parking Lot Markings Overlap Basketball Courts, Waltham, Massachusetts

I've you've ever looked with fascination out the window of an airplane coming in low, you'll be fascinated by the beauty, horror, and vast sweep of Alex McLean's aerial views.

I thought this one was apropos as a nod to the ongoing Road to the Final Four*, but it's not any better than most of his other pictures. His whole site is worth an extended viewing. I loved it.

His latest book is Over: The American Landscape at the Tipping Point.

Mike

*An argument against efficiency: you could make basketball much more efficient by giving each team 90 points to start with and then limiting games to 5 minutes. I've always thought basketball could be greatly improved by playing separate 15-minute periods, best three out of five wins. Then, blowouts would only go on for 45 minutes, close games would get an automatic "overtime," and you'd have up to five exciting endings per game instead of just one.

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Comments

[Thiago Silva]

Really enthralling, almost hypnotic!

[Jeff]

Thanks for all the wonderful book info. I am wondering I usually add these books to my Amazon shopping cart and wishlist and they sit in there for awhile before I am able to buy them. Do you still get credit for that... or do I have to click through from your link right before I make a purchase? Maybe I just need to edit my Amazon link before I make a purchase with ?tag=theonlinephot-20. I love TOP and just about everything you and your fellow contributors post. Also the comments are a cut above the rest of the internet.

[Mike Johnston]

"I usually add these books to my Amazon shopping cart and wishlist and they sit in there for awhile before I am able to buy them. Do you still get credit for that... or do I have to click through from your link right before I make a purchase?"

Thanks for the kind words Jeff. I'm told that we get credit for anything you buy from Amazon (used, in your shopping cart, any department) as long as you go there from our links when you actually make the purchase.

And thanks for doing that, by the way. It's what keeps this whole shebang moving forward from day to day.

Mike

[Eolake Stobblehouse]

Really nice photos. Although as often, I wish they were larger. 98% of web photos are just too small, in my opinion.
I just today posted a new page of my own photos,
http://tr.im/hXBM
and the large size is 2000 pixels on the short side. That much is not necessary, admittedly.

[Riley]

Basketball - five times the excitement for the price of one

[David]

Alex MacLean has been a favorite of mine for a while now. I'd love to be able to get in a plane and take pictures like he does.

[Colin Work]

"Really nice photos. Although as often, I wish they were larger. 98% of web photos are just too small, in my opinion".

Always an issue - many people of course are wary of making an image too useful!

But what is the ideal size for a web image? Personally I hate having to scroll an image - if you can't see the whole thing on the screen, then a lot of the impact is lost.

Now on a number of sites (small/large, photographic/other) of which I have an admin role, I keep an eye on various aspects of our visitors - resolution being one of them. The majority (about 1/3) operate at a screen resolution of 1024x768. Another third are made up of 1280x users - but with a real mix of aspect ratios. The remaining third is a real mix from as low as 320x396 to 1920x1200.

I think the improved resolution/affordability of hi res monitors is offset by the increasing use of laptops/notepads with smaller screens. It seems the 1024x768 continues to be the sweet spot, and unless you want to dynamically resize images to match resolution, I would think an image 1000px wide is about the optimum size for web.

Cheers,

Colin

[Dennis]

Wow ... amazing ! Thanks for this recommendation.

(Go Huskies !)

[Ken Tanaka]

Wonderful work. A perfect example of how completely inadequate a Web presentation is for some types of photography.