The New Sign Arrives!

TOP's new sign was delivered and installed this morning. It was designed and made by Chris Gary at Top Dog Design Studio in Hammondsport, with, of course, input from lots of TOP readers! So, thank you for your suggestions.

I'm very pleased. The sign had to look a bit old-fashioned to match the c. 1880 Gothic Revival house. I think it strikes the right balance for the setting. It helps that Chris, who specializes in hard-carved, gilded wooden signs (including the big welcome sign for the town of Hammondsport itself), designed pretty much half the signs—of all kinds—in this entire area.

Thanks too to all the people who "subscribe" (make a small regular recurring donation) to TOP—your contributions paid for this. You are very kind.

Oh, and by the way—Chris's shop has no sign out front. Ain't that the way?

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Comments

[Bob Rosinsky]

Bob Rosinsky, erstwhile sole-proprietor of Top Dog Imaging, wholeheartedly admires Top Dog Design's handiwork.

It's a spiffy sign, and I wish you health, happiness, and success in your new digs.

[Dave Karp]

It looks great!

[Ken James]

I see you got your leaves blown away 😉

[Anthony Shaughnessy]

In these days of the virtual cloud it seems very odd to "place" a web site in a house in this way. I can imagine driving a little way down the road and finding another house with a sign outside (made by Chris) saying "Amazon" :-)

[Michael]

I am so pleased the sign came out looking so good. Wow! I want one!

[Roger Bradbury]

Classy and restrained.

I'm pleased to be a contributor. Worth every penny,

[Dave Riedel]

Nice looking sign! Elegant and in B&W to boot!

[ernie nitka]

Are you expecting drop by traffic? I used to live in Upstate NY and wouldn't mind paying a visit to the kids in Syracuse and stopping by.

[MikeR]

I really like it!

[Kurt Kramer]

It's beautiful. Not much more to say, except that I went to college in Upstate New York and went out with a Keuka girl once or twice. The sign fits the regional ambiance perfectly.

[k4kafka]

New sign looks terrific...Enjoy!

[Jack Luke]

The idea of balancing 19th century design with the word 'Online' tickles me so.

[Rick Popham]

That looks great! I'm glad you left off the ".com".

[David Zivic]

I'm glad it doesn't have a (.com) on it.....very classy looking sign.

[David Zivic]

I live in Mountain Time (Cabo San Lucas, Mexico) and can’t help notice that your postings previously occurred late mornings, afternoons, and even occasionally the next day.

I often thought that of the 30,000 (?) or so hits you get per day a lot of them were like mine….checking several times from coffee through lunch for something new from your extensive repertoire to inspire my great photographs…….

I am going to assume the market value of the advertising on the two sidebars of the post is effected by # of hits.
Now your postings are consistently earlier and I wonder if it in fact that will negatively impact your advertising value.

I’m just sayin’……

Z

[Eric Rose]

Very nice sign! Classic, classy and just all around spiffy. Now make sure you get a good security system with video surveillance since you are advertising "hey gobs of expensive camera gear here".

[Joel Becker]

Oh, boy, Mike! That sign looks fantastic!! Congratulations!

Joel

[Peter Barnes]

Good looking sign. Putting that sign up outside a physical business place means of course that you are now The Mainly Online Photographer.

"Chris's shop has no sign out front. Ain't that the way?" My brother designs an builds specialist antenna for research and military use. A brilliant self-taught expert. Last time I saw it, his TV boasted a wire coat hanger stuck in the antenna socket.

[Stephen S. Mack]

A very handsome sign indeed!

With best regards,

Stephen

[Bill Wheeler]

Looks good.

[toto]

Haha, first thing I did was look for typos.

[Michael Cytrynowicz]

Looking great! Congrats!

[Darren]

Hangin' yer shingle out at last. Cool.

[Craig A. Lee]

The "Online" Photographer website gets a physical sign.

Amazon just opened up a brick & mortar book store.

What is happening to the world? It's going all topsy-turvy.

But seriously, it is a nice sign.

[Bob Blakley]

Very nice, Mike. And I love the nod to the fact that "online" and "offline" are no longer in any sense separate worlds.

[Steve G]

Mike:

Excellent! Had a fine moment visualizing driving up in Squirt, the 1991 Lance camper I restored earlier this year. Someday, maybe - but it's a long way from California to the New TOP HQ.

Nice stuff on the way, though....

[Bryce Lee]

A "sign" of the times?
Mike has hung his shingle!
For the first since when?

Is the sign far enough back from the local road so the snows of winter and the wing of the snowplough don't take out the sign, as much as the same wing might take out all the mailboxes by the side of the road!

Is the sign far enough on to your property so vehicles turning in the drive don't disturb it?

The sign is wonderful; have often seen similar signs and wonder how long it will remain so until the local yokels brandishing shotguns shoot holes in the sign. Have seen it happen, sadly. Ditto rural sheet metal mailboxes, peppered with holes and that are not rusted.

A late uncle, living in rural Ontario did not like seeing his mailbox and the sign for his tractor repair business mowed down by the the county snowplough driver who seemed to delight in removing signs and mailboxes.

He mounted his sign on six inch I beans mounted deep down in concrete. His mailbox he did the same; the mailbox was made of glass-fibre and munted on a swivel so the rural mail delivery could easily reach the box.
The next winter the rural snowplough came along and as usual dropped the wing to remove the mailbox and the sign as in the past. This time, the
snowplough crumpled when it struck the vertical I beams and in short order the entire rig was buried in the ditch,; it had to be removed by the local tow servie, quite well damaged. The operator was charged he no longer drives anything to this day; he lost his job

A word to the wise, perhaps.

[Stephen Scharf]

The new sign looks fantastic! Congrats! I'm glad you took the .com off the original draft design.

[Gildas]

Wouldn't "An Online Photographer" be more accurate?
(tongue firmly in cheek)

[David Bennett]

Love it!

[robert e]

Congratulations! I like the vintage look, though I hope it does not presage a waxed-mustached proprietor on a big wheel bike. Well, I guess I could live with that.

A propos the new/old sign, news that digital sensors are about to go analog, in a sense:

http://www.cnet.com/news/startup-invisage-aims-to-revolutionize-smartphone-photography/

If I read this right, rather than a fixed matrix like CCD or CMOS, super-tiny (<5nm) quantum dots are laid down as a film (QuantumFilm). The dots vary in size and light/color sensitivity and the result is a sensor of variable resolution/sensitivity that has roughly 3 stops more dynamic range (the way they describe it sounds a lot like a shoulder on a response curve). Sound familiar?

And QF promises another holy grail: global shutter.

The article actually defines stops correctly, which is startling all by itself. It's 5 years overdue, but QF will be in cell phones next year, so we'll see soon enough.

[John Krumm]

Looks great. It does make me wonder if the occasional local will knock on your door looking for someone to shoot senior portraits, but that's no real bother.

[Armand]

Congrats! Looks great.

[Alan Carmody]

It's perfect.

If that beautiful sign gets stolen, you'll know where it will be? With me.

PS: This is the first sign-liberating larcenous thought that has crossed my mind since my college days in the tolerant 1970s.