15 responses so far ↓

• 1 Holly // Feb 17, 2006 at 6:39 am

  OOOoooh! I totally dig it! My favorite of all the banners you’ve tried so far.

• 2 Holly // Feb 17, 2006 at 6:41 am

  OOOoooops–didn’t describe the photo. It was of the bright red asian gateway. THAT was the cool one.

  Now I’m looking at a pair of eyes with a cross over the sixth chakra–I don’t like this one. I find it creepy.

• 3 Holly // Feb 17, 2006 at 6:42 am

  The chick in black offering the apple is too obvious.

  I’ve got to quit looking at these, because I could give you comments all day.

• 4 PodMonkeys // Feb 17, 2006 at 1:21 pm

  Pretty cool! I rather like all the ones I’ve seen, including the creepy eyes, and especially the “chick in black offering the apple”… uh.. huh huh… [/Butthead]

  Now for some constructive criticism. I knw you just put this in, but how about non-repeating captions. I think I saw 2 different images with the same caption. Twice. Or are the captions random seperate from the random images?

• 5 Amber // Feb 17, 2006 at 1:38 pm

  I agree with Holly on the apple one. It’s just not that cool.

• 6 Amber // Feb 17, 2006 at 1:40 pm

  I like all of the rest.

• 7 J // Feb 17, 2006 at 2:14 pm

  I feel vindicated.

  I told John to axe the apple girl. He liked the whole Eve thing. I hate her midsection. Glad everyone else agrees! My 2nd least favorite is the creepy eyes girl. Ha…

  The tori gate, text pages, and pews are the best, IMO.

• 8 John // Feb 17, 2006 at 4:48 pm

  Thanks for the feedback! Can anyone give me more detailed impressions with the apple image?

  Personally, I really like it because it evokes a modern Eve (my perception of Eve is that she was the one who took initiative in the Garden) and the connection to the temptation of knowledge and disobediently partaking–to risk good and evil rather than to remain in ignorance. All this kind of runs through my head when I see that image, but I guess that’s just me. I may swap it out if I can come up with something better.

  I like the “creepy eyes” image ’cause I had lots of fun playing with stock images and Photoshop. Anybody notice the faint Emily Dickinson lines running through it?

  My least favorite is the Buddha image. I like all of the orange in it, and the transparency of the head, but I think I can do better.

• 9 PodMonkeys // Feb 17, 2006 at 5:39 pm

  I rather like the apple girl. Its simple, and has an obvious connotation. Like John said, the modern look it good too. Of course it’d have been even better if she had tatoos, piercings, etc. But that could just be me.

• 10 Josh // Feb 17, 2006 at 11:50 pm

  I like the pictures. I do sense a favoring of the mystic religions with a slight mockery of the christian related images given the comments that come up with the given pictures. Perhaps not so much reflective of your obsession with religions, but rather more reflective of your skew towards other than christian religions at this time in your life.

  As for the actual pictures. The cross is very catchy, and the off-center gives a more natural feel.

  The eyes is not so appealing. Not very clean picture. Kinda busy. And I would have thought someting to do with bhuddism rather than a cross, would have been a good picture to go with the “opiate of the masses” since it was Mao who liked to say that so much. The swirlies look like really bad hair day for the eyes in the middle with a manson thing goin haing the cross between the eyes. Or is that supposed to look like crosshairs?
  The apple thing is ok. high contrast. Maybe a fading to the edges to add some color at the sides just for a more balanced weight acrossed the top. “fortified with knowledge” title seems to go well with what I have been told of the mormon perception of the apple that it was really a good thing rather than a sin. I’ve also heard Jews say (when I was jewish) that it was a good thing because it brought us into the ability to do Good by knowing the contrast of evil which we shouldnt do.

  The bhudda picture is nice, balanced, and eye-pleasing.

  All the shinto pics are the same as well and help to reflect your japanese heritage, as well as slightly mixed up world-view.
  The funky power is a little too much contrast between the hands, but the concept is cool. Have you seen that famous picture of a guy looking like he is holding the moon up in his hands, or the setting sun being held in his hands. similar idea but more clear view of something unatainable being held.

  Anyway, thats my opinions. Hope I dont seem too insensitive.

• 11 E // Feb 18, 2006 at 10:13 am

  i like the one with the hands holding the light. i like the one with the cross thing on red, but it would look better with orange for your site. as ive told you before

• 12 John // Feb 18, 2006 at 10:35 am

  The taglines are problematic–they’re only casually paired with the images. Working on coming up with better ones. “with a twist of Shinto” and “saving the world…” I’ve had since 2001 and come from two of my more popular posts back then.

  Josh, I’m not trying to mock Christianity–but I’m appropriating the symbols to reflect my own approaches, concerns, issues, which probably differ greatly from your own use of the same symbols.

  The “opiate of the masses” is meant to refer more to my site *grin* while evoking a sense that this guy’s going to talk religion but in an unorthodox way. Again, not supposed to be an overt criticism of Christianity.

  But Josh, you make a good point. I am more cynical about Christianity (especially the Mormon bit) because it’s the one I’m close enough to to see all of its warts. It’s the one I have a problematic relationship with. I would put a Mormon image up, but there weren’t any stock images on my stock photography source.

• 13 John // Feb 18, 2006 at 10:36 am

  Thanks, E–you have such a good eye for color! Maybe we can try to add more orange to the image in Photoshop this weekend.

• 14 Holly // Feb 20, 2006 at 7:55 am

  Just dropped by again and was greeted by the headless chick in black offering the apple. It makes my stomach hurt. It’s so worn and obvious: we all understand that it’s a modern Eve, but it deals with the most tired and least enlightened elements of the Eve myth. I might like the invocation of a modern Eve perfectly well if it included the woman’s head and if she was doing something like eating the apple alone, enjoying it, and reading a book–that would suggest knowledge and informed disobedience. But it’s not. It’s of a headless woman in a tight black t-shirt extending a shiny red apple to what mythology tells us is an innocent man.

  As you know, in Mormon theology Adam and Eve didn’t understand sex until after the fall, and in Milton, as soon as Adam has had a bite of the apple, the two of them get right to getting it on. So I’m a bit surprised that you can’t figure out why that image is not such a great welcome to a feminist-friendly blog, but I’ll spell it out: It’s A FREAKIN’ HEADLESS WOMAN IN A TIGHT BLACK T-SHIRT EXTENDING WHAT IS OFTEN INTERPRETED IN ART A SHINY RED METAPHOR FOR AN INVITATION TO SEX.

  It’s a depiction of archetypal Woman as hot, anonymous and universally willing. Gee, why would a number of women find that upsetting, and why would men find it appealing?

  The fact that you cut her head off is what really kills it. There’s a long history of obscuring women’s faces in porn (check out “The Origin of the World” by Gustav Courbet, oil on canvas and fastidiously detailed, and now owned by the Louvre) and the whole point is that it means the men who look at her from the neck down don’t have to confront her individuality and her personality. Your image might not be so annoying if you included your Eve’s face so the viewer could get some sense of her take on this offer she’s making: is she sardonic? challenging? earnest? playful? Dear god, I hope she’s not trying to look sexually seductive….

  OK?

  On the other hand, I also saw what for me is a new image, and one I like a lot: a pair of hands cupped around the fiery orb of the setting sun as it reflects off the ocean. The symbolism there is pretty straight-forward, but it’s empowering and cool.

• 15 John // Feb 20, 2006 at 9:34 am

  Thanks for the explication–from our tiny sampling, I could see that in general the women didn’t like it and the men did, but nobody was giving me any more than vague impressions. It still doesn’t change my impressions of the image, but I’ll consider more seriously replacing it now.

  The original stockphoto came headless and legless; I cropped it a bit more to put more of the focus on the apple. I’ve also thought about blurring the woman to put almost all of the focus on the hand and fruit, which is where I’d like the emphasis to be.

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