Web Profiles

The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.—Marshall McLuhan

As I’ve mentioned many times, there are lots of Internet browsers to choose from and now 3B (www.3b.net) has produced a method for creating your own digital “village,” using a combination of a proprietary browser and online software that lets you construct an online 3D gallery of your photographs. The Windows-only product includes lots of templates, some of which have a style similar to a previous version of my automobile photography website (www.joefaraceshootscars.com), but is infinitely easier to construct with 3B’s online tools. The digital village templates work with URLs not JPEG files and links to files already hosted somewhere else on the Internet, but it’s free (for now anyway) and fun to use. One of my first uses was to create a village for Mary’s and my little race team, Tortuga Racing (http://village.3B.net/joefarace/tortuga-racing.bbb). You’ll need to download and install the 3B browser to see it but with any luck a real site (www.tortugaracing.com) will soon be online to announce our participation in a major automotive event in 2006.

One of my first uses of 3B was to create this village for Mary’s and my little race team, Tortuga Racing. © 2005, Joe Farace, All Rights Reserved

A True Picture…Unposed
Julia Perkins’ website (www.juliaperkins.com) opens with a quote from W. Eugene Smith so that should tell you what to expect: an uncompromising yet artistic photojournalist’s view of reality. Perkins is a photographer for The Weekly News in Walnut, California, a job that brings her in contact with photo ops that let her fill the site’s Sports, Features, and News galleries. Yet her collections also contain an eclectic assortment of images of nature in “Desert Bighorn Sheep” and controversy with her images showing both sides of the debate on “Same-Sex Marriage.”

Perkins’ Sports gallery is full of photographs capturing the agony and ecstasy of high school sports, yet photographed as if she were shooting the Olympics for Sports Illustrated. “Path to Freedom” includes nature images, reportorial shots, along with photographs of bugs and plants. If you are wondering what all that has to do with freedom, take the time to read the captions accompanying the images. If there is any homage to the sainted Smith, it’s found in Features where Perkins manages to accomplish in color what Smith did in monochrome—stark, graphic, and realistic imagery that tells a story. Ontrix (www.ontrix.com) designed the Flash-based, yet sparse site. Their talent in this area is quite evident in their treatment of Perkins’ site.

Julia Perkins’ website opens with a quote from W. Eugene Smith so that should tell you what to expect: an uncompromising yet artistic photojournalist’s view of reality. © 2005, Julia Christine Perkins, All Rights Reserved

Pieces Of April
April Rocha’s (www.aprilrocha.com) goal in her photography is to create a creative and comfortable atmosphere that brings out the essence of a living being, whether it’s a child, an animal, or an actor. She prefers to use natural light for most of her work and it shows in the soft images of kids, dogs, and events. Rocha’s monochrome pet and puppy portraits are truly wondrous; my favorite being the image of a perky Yorkie posing next to a birdbath where a Siamese cat is sitting! Both are paying rapt attention to the photographer and giving her “attitude.”

I just wish these jewel-like images were slightly larger, such as the photos found in the Headshots section. That’s where Rocha proves that the same-old, same-old won’t do for her and she provides these thespians with wonderfully dramatic images in what is often, in less skilled hands, a hackneyed format. There is a cinematic quality to her monochrome and color wedding photography and not just in the way that the images are presented in the gallery, where you can view several weddings from beginning to end. While the site design might be called diverse—there is no shared leitmotif between galleries—the work displayed is consistently engaging for the viewer. In all of her photography, Rocha’s talent rises above the mundane and focuses on the inner being—human or otherwise.

April Rocha’s goal with her photography is to create a creative and comfortable atmosphere that brings out the essence of a living being, whether it’s a child, an animal, or an actor. © 2005, April Rocha, All Rights Reserved