Dedicated to the Writing Craft

What I wish Barack Obama would say

2012-09-15T12:12:00.002-07:00

     As President of the United States, I have had a challenging four years. People of many faiths come to my office expecting me to lead them. I have to follow the dictates of my conscience as a Christian. I have been taught life begins before birth. God has called prophets from the womb and foretold his son's birth. He knew them in their mother's womb. This I believe.
     Yet women come to my office looking for freedom. Shall I impose my religious beliefs on them or give them justice according to the laws of this great country? I have struggled with that, deciding even though I am president, to keep the Christian belief to honor those in authority and to obey the law of the land.
     As a Christian, I believe, Muslims believe, Orthodox Jewry teaches marriage and the sexual act itself are reserved for a man and a woman within the confines of a marriage. Shall I dominate the bedroom of Americans with my faith or recognize even we fall short and fight for justice where injustice, lawful or not, occurs? Is the union of two people of the same sex lawful? Under God? Under law? You must understand I as president consider those two questions separately. I have struggled with this.
     As your president, I will continue to struggle to bring justice under the law to all: Black, White, rich, poor, Hispanic, Latino, Gay, Straight, citizen, immigrant, Muslim, Jew, Christian, and all faiths, colors, creeds, nationalities and anyone to whom my office owes.
     Thank you.

John Hussey's JQuery Tutorial

2011-10-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

by Kenneth Bossard

I found Jon L. Hussey's JQuery tutorial to be a fascinating read. He keeps the viewer engaged through use of timely video and written instruction. His writing style is personable, allowing him to break complex concepts into readable form.

     The demo, video, and pictorial prompts helped overcome a hurdle I had initially—grasping what the tutorial is about. It seems geared towards the many iPod users, a membership to which I do not belong. Jon's explanation of the tutorial's purpose was:
     "Using JQuery to hide an element, I created a dropdown within my portfolio that mimics the behavior of an iPod when a user clicks on a group of apps bundled together (pictured right)."
     As my hand reached to scratch my head for the "element" and "portfolio" context files, I instead clicked the brilliantly placed link below the explanation:
     CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE DEMO.

Video camera icon drops down to embedded video.

Excellent! Jon was going to show me how to use JQuery to open a video as a drop down from a big, old, even-I-Can-understand icon, and start playing video onto an easily recognizable background, such as his iPod. His beautifully done video dropped down and began playing. Clearly, this was a technique valuable to users of many types of devices, not just the iPod crowd..

Thoughts raced to mind of an actor using the backdrop of the Emmy® Awards acceptance podium. An Emmy statue icon could drop down to a video of the actor's latest audition piece. A restaurant could use the technique to drop down to detailed video descriptions and user experiences for menu items.

The idea-triggering iPod drop down format.

I viewed Jon's JQuery and appreciated his explanation of the purpose of each line of code. He went step-by-step through both the HTML and CSS needed to implement the effect.

The code, concept, and execution where well formulated and understandable to anyone with an intermediate knowledge web design.

Good job.

Publish Documents for Kindle Reader

2011-10-22T06:41:00.000-07:00

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by: Kenneth Bossard

This tutorial teaches how to use Adobe InDesign to publish a document for reading on a Kindle. It is written for InDesign beginners and shown on InDesign CS5.

We will take the text of Edgar Allan Poe's, "The Raven", and transfer it into InDesign CS5 for formatting. We will then export it as a .mobi file readable on Kindle devices. This tutorial will also provide the tools to material for sale on the Amazon.com platform and other markets selling eBooks.

Formatting guidelines for Kindle are not the same as for the web, though the process uses HTML and CSS. Please see the booklet, "Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines" to be fully aware differences when preparing EBooks for the Kindle platform. We will cover the basics today.

For setup, you will need to format the text. You may also need the Kindle Plugin for Adobe InDesign.

For our text, go to www.younggents.com/raven/raven.doc and download the document.

"The Raven" text

Original text from website http://www.poestories.com/read/raven

Once you have downloaded the text for "The Raven", check to see whether you already have the Kindle plugin. Open InDesign and go to the File dropdown menu. Look for the "Export for Kindle" option.

Export for Kindle must be in File Menu

If so, you are ready to go. If not, go to Amazon.com's InDesign plugin for Kindle page: http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000234621

Kindle InDesign plugin

In the middle of Kindle's Publishing Programs page, find the InDesign plugin download.

Check, after reading the terms of use, "I agree." Download the plugin and follow directions to install. While you are awaiting install, if you do not have a Kindle reader, download a free Kindle reader for your PC or Mac.

Kindle for PC Download

Kindle for Mac Download

Now that you are an official Kindle publisher, let's transfer raven.doc to the Kindle .mobi format.

Open InDesign. In InDesign, go to FILE, then NEW to open a New Document formatting window.

Set Document Preset to "Custom" and Intent to "Print." Our document is fairly short, so set Number of Pages to 10. We will later delete unused pages. Set the Start Page number to 1. Check "Facing Pages" to produce left and right printed pages.

Open Page Size to see all the options. You can set your document for any printable size or for web page output. InDesign is used by professional layout designers such as magazine or book publishers and also by web designers.

Set Page Size to Letter and Width will default to 8.5 inches by 11 inches. Set orientation to Portrait (first picture). Set Column to 1 and gutter width to .33 in(ches) and Margins to .5 in all around. Click "OK" to input these settings.

A new window opens with our blank document. The Tool Bar should be on your left. If not, go to the WINDOW drop down menu and click on TOOLS.

The "T" for Type tool has two uses. With your cursor, hold down the area in the bottom right of the "T" on your tool bar. You will see two uses: "Type," and "Type on a Path." We will be using the "Type" option.

Hold down your cursor inside the interior purple box inside the blank document. We are going to create a text box to hold "The Raven" text. As you hold the cursor, a cross appears. Place the Type tool down in the top left corner and pull—still holding the cursor down—a text box all the way to the bottom right corner. You shold now have a text box on your page.

Save this document onto your computer as, "raven.indd". The .indd indicates an InDesign document. I recommend saving after every step.

Open "The Raven" text in Microsoft Word. Go to EDIT, then SELECT ALL, then COPY. Close Word and return to InDesign. Under InDesign's EDIT drop down menu, click PASTE. The Raven text should load. If not, click in the text box to activate and retry.

Notice the red box in the bottom right. This is InDesign telling us there is additional text not being shown. InDesign also has an error checker at the bottom of the page. Doubleclick the bottom circle next to the "1 error" notice. Our "Preflight Checker," which reviews the document for errors before export, has detected the"overset text" indicated by the red text box.

To correct this, we will have to extract the remaining text from the red box and flow this through the rest of the document.

In the tool bar, click to activate the top arrow Selection Tool. Place the Selection Tool in the top left corner of the red overset text box on the bottom right of your page. Click once. This will capture the text in overset.

The text will stay attached to the arrow as you scroll down to the next page. As you scroll down, you will see facing pages 2 and 3. We want to insert our text on the left page, page 2.

Place the arrow so that the top corner of the text fits into the top left corner of our page two text box. Don't worry if you don't place it perfectly. You can adjust placement by highlighting the text box with the Selection Tool and moving into place on your page.

While holding down SHIFT and OPTION (Mac OS), or SHIFT and ALT (Windows) keys, click once to insert the overset text into the text box on page two. If you do not hold down SHIFT and OPTION, the text will only fill into page 2. SHIFT-OPTION flows all of the remaining text into the rest of your document.

Now, we can beging formatting our document. Your error button should be green with "No errors."

InDesign uses "Master Pages" to control formatting for all page documents. Go to the WINDOW drop down menu and click PAGES to open the Pages formatting window. In the Pages Window, double-click the left of the two A-Master page icons in the top section. This will open a A-Master template as a new page.

A key component of converting a document to EBook format is inserting character styles and paragraph styles. EBook readers formulate their tables of contents and recognize formatting through imbeeded styles.

We are going to add header titles to our Raven EBook. Master pages are used to input recurring information such as page numbers, headers, or footers.

Go to the WINDOW drop down menu and click on STYLES then CHARACTER STYLES. Characterstyles will allow us to format the header text we'll create.

Create a new CHARACTER STYLE by clicking on the CREATE NEW STYLE box at the bottom of the CHARACTER STYLE WINDOW.

"Character Style 1" will appear in blue on a new line. We will change the name to "title" in the next step. Doubleclick to open the Character Style Options window.

Click on the second menu item, Basic Character Formats. Change Style Name to title, Font Family to Georgia, Font Style to Bold, and Size to 10 pt.

Click OK to close the Character Style Options window.

In the open A-MASTER window, click on the "T" Type Tool. In the top header area, over your text box outline, create a text box and type in, "The Raven: Edgar Allan Poe." Highlight this text and click on the newly created "title" character style in your Character Styles window. This will embed the "title" character style format.

Click on to activate the top arrow Selector Tool. Click on the the header text box you just created and resize as necessary. Do the same on the right side, but insert "Cohort 13: American University" to appear on your right side page.

Return to the pages window. Since this is an EBook we will not add page numbers to appear on our pages. Click on page 1 in the lower section of the PAGES Window. This opens page one of our Raven document.

Now we can begin formatting. Because EBooks are resizable, they are not sectioned as printed books. Your EBook's page length will vary by size of the reader and their current window size.

An EBook's primary navigation is through Table of Contents. To formulate a Table of Contents, we must include PARAGRAPH STYLES.

Go to the WINDOW drop down and click STYLES, then PARAGRAPH STYLES.

Click on the CREATE NEW STYLE button on the bottom of the opened window.

A new blue Paragraph Style 1 will appear. Double click the new Paragraph Style 1 to open the Paragraph Styles Option window.

Click "Basic Character Formats" on the left. Change Style Name to h1, Font Family to Georgia, Font Style to Bold, Size to 18 pt, and Auto for Leading. If your measurement is different, enter the measurement given and InDesign will make the adjustment.

Click to open the Indents and Spacing window. Set Alignment to Center. Set Space After to .2 in. This will insert distance or "padding" between h1 text and text underneath. Make sure "First Line Indent" and all other values are set to "0".

Click OK to close the Paragraph Styles Options Window.

Create another new paragraph style, this one named h2. These are the two styles that will appear in our table of contents. Open the Paragraph Styles Options window and under Basic Character Formats enter h2 for Style Name, Georgia for Font Family, Bold for Font Style, 14 pt for Size, and Auto for Leading.

Click to open the Indents and Spacing Window. We are going to make two changes. Set Alignment to Center, and Space Before, and Space After, to .2 in. Ensure all other values are 0.

Click OK to close the Paragraph Styles Options Window.
Create a new paragraph style named text. Input Arial, Regular, 12 Pt, and Auto. In the Indents and Spacing tab, set Alignment to Left, and the First Line Indent to .2917 in. All other values should be 0. Close the Paragraph Style Options window.

Create one more paragraph style. Insert byline, Arial, Italic, 10 pt, and Auto. In the Indents and Spacing Tab, set Alignment to Center, check all other values are 0. Close.

We now have the character and paragraph styles to format our Kindle document. We are missing subheads for the table of contents. Type in Stanza 1 as a subheading over the first stanza. Insert numbered subheads over all eighteen stanzas. Remember when you scroll down to the next page, page two will be on the left of your screen so you may have to scroll to the left.

Go back to stanza 1 and, using the Type tool, highlight it. Click on h2 in the Paragraph Styles menu to apply the subheading attributes to your new subhead. Continue to apply the h2 style to all Stanzas.

Now we will apply h1 to our heading. Highlight The Raven text at the top with the Type tool and check h1 to apply the heading paragraph style.

Now, highlight the remaining header text applying the byline paragraph style.

Finally, highlight each of the 18 sections of poetry and apply the text style.

Almost done. Now we have to format the table of contents. Before we do, let's insert chapter divisions to show the table of contents navigation better.

After stanza 6, type, "Chapter 2," on a new line. Do the same after stanza 12, inserting "Chapter 3" on a new line. Give both the h1 paragraph style.

Now to finish and export.

Go to the LAYOUT drop down menu, click PAGES, then DELETE PAGES and insert 5-10, to delete unsed pages. Click OK.

Also in the LAYOUT menu at the bottom, click Table of Contents Styles. When the Styles box opens, click New (right side).

In TOC Style, type, "raven." Next to Title, type, "Table of Contents." In the Style drop down menu, click on TOC Title.

The next section is, "Styles in Table of Contents." Our paragraph and character styles are loaded. Click "h1" and the "<<Add" button to move h1 to the Include Paragraph Styles box. Next, click h2 and "<<Add."

Be sure to click OK. The Table of Contents Style window will close.

Go to FILE, and click EXPORT FOR KINDLE. We will be prompted to save our Kindle readable raven.mobi. Save to your desktop.

A new screen will open. Leave Book Title as raven. Check Include InDesign TOC (Table of Contents) entries. In the TOC Style drop down menu, check raven. At TOT Title, type in Table of Contents. TOC Format is Indented. Click the button next to Cover Image and upload "cohortcover." Check View eBook after Exporting.

Click Export.

Your eBook will open if a Kindle is on your device.

Click on the fourth table, "Go To Another Location," tab and click on Table of Contents. You can jump to the beginning or our inserted chapters by clicking them.

Congratulations. You've found a new way to communicate through Kindle.

Final Raven Kindle .mobi File

Final Raven InDesign file

Big Bang for the Buck: Mafia Wars

2011-10-15T06:43:00.000-07:00

by: Kenneth Bossard

My favorite game is attached to my favorite social site: Mafia Wars on Facebook. Zynga, the game developer, has made me a multi-billionaire. Their 20 million users have, like me, supplied the financial basis for Zynga's potential $1 - $2 billion initial public offering.

My bank balance on Mafia Wars, currently $113 billion for my New York operation.

I was one of the early users of Mafia Wars, starting to build my criminal enterprise about two years ago. A friend, an attractive female friend, was gaining my attention through automatic Facebook posts touting her gangland victories and growing criminal notoriety. I asked her about the app and she recommended I, "Do a few jobs and get back to me."

It is addictive. Users must build a mafia by inviting other Facebook users to "join" their family. I quickly learned I would be robbed, attacked, and otherwise victimized by others on my level with larger mafia families. I loved it.

Mafia Wars has spawned hundreds of independent websites offering clues, tips, volunteers to "join your family", and site updates. Intially, the site offered jobs in New York, but has since spread to opportunities to expand your criminal enterprise to Cuba, Las Vegas, Brazil, and Italy. Russia and Hong Kong are no longer offered. Each city offers users the opportunity to "level up" once they have gained experience through criminal activities (jobs), attacks on other users (fights), and operations (properties or businesses owned).

Zynga has proliferated to 15 separate games, including Mafia Wars 2, offering visitors the chance to buy tools to gain advantage over enemies and achieve level "promotions" faster.


Zynga's Mafia Wars support site offering game updates and access to their other games.

My mafia has grown to 500, the maximum allowed, and I have attained level 235, far surpassing my attractive female recruiter, but tame compared to true enthusiasts boasting levels in the 1 to 3 thousands. The top member of my worldwide mafia family, Dips Dipan, is level 1572. I have to get stronger members. It's time for a war.

Across From The West Wing

2011-10-14T15:20:00.000-07:00

by: Kenneth Bossard

On my way back from the CorcoranGallery of Art, I stumbled across a strategically located and timely exhibition.

Entrance to FDIC main headquarters 550 17th St. NW DC

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), responsible for insuring our nation's banking system from failure, is located directly across from renovations on the Old Executive OfficeBuilding, which is, literally, the west wing of the White House.

The exhibit, "The FDIC: A History of Confidence and Stability," drew me by the stateliness of the building and the invitation to public showing. I checked off good signage as one merit of the showing and went inside.

Though touted as "an exhibit open to the public," I was warned not to take pictures by the new security guard supervisor. Before I could get into my litany of complaints—public showing, display in unsecured, prescreening area, journalism student—the more experienced junior officers pled my case. I was allowed to shoot.

75-year history exhibit inside lobby of FDIC headquarters.

The centrally located big screen display promised interactivity, the goal of my exhibition analysis assignment. I was greeted by an already active screen displaying scenes from our country's financial past. The display offered brochure guides on the left as I entered.

The screen was a disappointment. There was no guide to contents being shown either in the general information brochure or onscreen. I was left to watch scenes from old FDIC promotional videos touting the agency's creation in 1933 to quell fears spawned by the financial system failures that lead to the great depression.

The main display screen offered no controls for selection or program information.

Actors portrayed made-up scenes of panicked calls spreading the news of bank failures and mounting monetary loss. It made me want to see actual scenes from the era, but none appeared. I did not stay to see if there would be any end to the commercials, frustrated by my inability to choose content.

The statistics on the walls were informative. 9,000 bank failures lead to FDR's decision to form the FDIC to insure deposits. As I walked I saw towards the back of the central screen display I saw a phone—interactivity!

One of two phones intended to offer audio clips of FDR's response to the banking crisis.

There was FDR waiting at the fireside to tell me about, I supposed, his decision to form the agency and bail out our banking system. Unfortunately, I'll have to add him to the list of presidents I have yet to receive a clear explanation for their bank bailout strategy, because I could not hear him. I picked up the phone and sure enough sound came through, but it was low volume and practically inaudible over the panicked actors blaring from the display's front.

The display—both audio and video—needed a simple menu allowing visitors to choose what they wanted to hear or see. Volume adjustment would have helped. A wireless internet connection would have brought the entire display to life.

The most simplified display on one of the 17 approximately 8-foot display boards, and the only display information actually referenced in the brochure, was a diagram of what happens when a bank fails.

Wall display outlining FDIC steps involved in takeover of failed banks

This graphic typified the advantage simple web access would have allowed viewers. The agency's website features current bank closing and consumer and community information on its homepage. Even a printed wheel chart showing "Your State Coverage" would have made this graphic more personal.

I was glad I stopped in. Despite being unable to see actual footage of the depression era or even current agency actions in the midst of this similar crisis, I enjoyed the abundance of little-known agency and U.S. history facts. Learning among other things the country was subject to many bank panics before the creation of the FDIC in 1933 and that the agency has reimbursed depositors over $115 billion since Lydia Lobsiger received the first check in 1934 was worth the stop.

Rear display: oversized check symbolizing FDIC total reimbursements to depositors.

Clean Portfolio Layout in Photoshop

2011-10-08T14:44:00.000-07:00

This 1st Delicious Create a Simple Clean Portfolio Layout in Photoshop by Michael John Burns was a challenge. The instructions, unlike many tutorials, were considerate of newcomers to the craft. The illustrations were helpful and detailed. Here is Michael's screenshot of the final product:

Final layout from Photoshop Tutorial

The site lent itself to customization. This finished tutorial embodies a web design for myself and some variations to color.

Finished tutorial customized for a Web Design Consultant

Redesign of Detroit Free Press Newsite

2011-09-22T08:22:00.000-07:00

This redesign of the Detroit Free Press website: http://freep.com starts with admiration for their mobile site. It does have an aesthetically pleasing layout design, free of clutter and unnecessary devices. There are only tow banner ads from the same company, Xfinity, in the entire page (page 1 of 13 shown).
This design is closer to what we would like to see in an interactive website redesign.

This current Detroit Free Press website's buries a key header information against a black background, ignores reader's F-pattern browsing by placing non-essentials in the browse path, and wastes load space with nonnews, nonprofit items such as weather and a three-days old Metromix picture of popstar Kelly Rowland visiting Detroit (picture turned up blank, lower right corner in screen capture).

The current Detroit Free Press www.freep.com web page on customer load.

The redesign site on the right adds color, emphasizes the Detroit Free Press brand, realigns high traffic items into the viewer's F-shaped quick glance line of vision, and spaces popular items such as Mitch Albom's column, popular posts, and favored columns and topics (Detroit Tigers, local politics and news, and jobs etc.) to increase reader interest and advertising value.
Links are employed more heavily to create user control and targeted traffic for marketability.

Redesigned Detroit Free Press Load Page

OriginalLoad Page of Detroit Free Press Website Sept. 22, 2011

The redesigned site lends itself more freely to a mobile (.mobi) format.

The Detroit Free Press www.freep.com redesigned website as seen on a .mobi format.

I've added a few features to the redesigned site to make it more profitable, easier to read, and more easily searchable.

Interactive Article Critique: history.com

2011-09-12T04:17:00.000-07:00

by: Kenneth Bossard

History.com's article, "9/11 Attacks - 102 Minutes That Changed America," returned first in my Google search for "interactive September 11." Easy to find indicates good search engine coding. Easy to load was my next expectation.

The article took seven seconds to load, yet kept me engaged with an almost immediate number roll from 1 to 102 minutes. The interactive map emerged in easily readable form. My eyes adapted to the grey buildings against the slightly darker, tan background.

History.com screenshot of 9/11 interactive article loaded on Sept., 12, 2011.

The street-sign style building tags did not explain what I was viewing. I searched for the map caption.

I found it off screen by following the bottom title. It revealed the location tags would lead to videos of nine 9/11 witnesses. The lower caption area also provided links to two other interactive maps.

On rollover, the building captions still gave no description of the story each link would show. Rollover descriptive information appeared, I found, below the readable screen area.

The video took eight seconds to load. This time it seemed longer because the engaging screen was replaced by a spinning camcorder icon. Footage of the day, as experienced by the nine eyewitnesses, ran unfiltered.

Screenshot of video shot by eyewitness, Max Frankston, from his Soho apartment at history.com, Sept., 12, 2011

The forward and back arrows would be familiar to Kindle and other eBook readers. The top and bottom, one-line screen options lead to background information or other videos.

I did not know how the story would unfold from the initial screen. The beauty of this story was the rare first-person footage. That should have been prominently featured.

Pretty in Pink: Perceptions in Media

2011-08-15T11:29:00.000-07:00

by: Kenneth Bossard

“Can you call me back in three minutes?”

The photographer, driven out of the country not by the controversial nature of his photos, but by economic concerns, wanted to make sure his two daughters slept. Living space in the United Arab Emirates is not as plentiful as financial opportunity.

“I never intentionally went to make a photograph that would be considered controversial.”

Rich-Joseph Facun, a former staff employee at the Virginian-Pilot, raised a firestorm with his ground-level shot of pink shoes worn by a wife awaiting her husband’s return on the carrier Harry S Truman at Norfolk naval station.

Candice Knilans awaits the return of her husband, Petty Officer 3rd Class John Knilans.
Reprinted with permission of Rich-Joseph Facun and The Virginian-Pilot.

“She was just standing there,” Facun told me in a recent interview.

He missed the photograph he wanted, the one he had spent over 15 minutes shooting: a mother and daughter anxiously awaiting their soldier’s return.

“When I asked her name, the woman didn’t want to give me her name even though her name and her daughter’s name were on the sign they were holding.”

The body language of the woman standing there, Candice Knilans, spoke energy and a possibly good shot. Facun asked her name and permission before shooting, and she agreed. He started taking a few photos, then walked away. That’s when the shoes caught his eye.

“I asked, Where is the shot?”

Facun was in front of a barrier behind which the majority of the crowd watched as he crouched down and placed his camera behind Knilans' enigmatic shoes. He put it on the ground, about five inches from her heel, and waited for nervous energy and opportunity to intersect.

He went back to his office frustrated by his inability to get the shot he really wanted. Having won an award for a photo shot at a similar homecoming event, Facun’s high expectations seemed lost to an inadvertant permission denial and a few decent shots of a waiting wife’s shoes.

Evan Burgoon, 5, looks for his father, Lt Cmdr. Ian Burgoon, at the Oceana Naval Air Station
in Virginia Beach, VA. Reprinted with permission of Rich-Joseph Facun and The Virginian-Pilot

“I had to walk outside,” he said.

Facun's frustration over having to abandon the mother-daughter photos he loved was short-lived. The employees at the Virginian-Pilot were taken by one photo: Mrs. Knilans’ pink shoes.

“Everyone liked the line, the composition," he said. "They said, ‘That’s the shot.’”

The team decided to use the pic with legs crossed, tattoo, and sales tag showing. The photo ran as lead in a story covering the sailors' return after a 7-month deployment.

“The phones have been ringing off the hook about that photo,” Virginian-Pilot employees informed Facun the next morning. He was greeted by community reaction ranging, as he remembers, from, “It’s nice,” to, “It makes her look like a streetwalker.”

"The funny thing," he said, "is there were more men angry than women. They were saying it was demeaning to women. We even had a local radio station do a morning show. That's where I mostly heard from men. Women said, 'It's nice."

Read community response

“I don’t see any controversy at all,” remarked Fred Nelson, Associate Professor, Illustration Program, Columbia College. Professor Nelson has a unique perspective, having been Art Editor for Playboy Magazine during the period the U.S. Supreme Court was defining the limits of free speech.

Kate Elston, journalist and contributor to the media-critical website, About-face.org, feels the photo is in itself aesthetically pleasing, but pushes stereotypes of women.

“At first glance, the picture is quite stunning and interesting…I'm concerned because just shooting the woman's shoes once again represents isolating a woman's body parts to represent her whole self. It also reinforces a stereotype that women are waiting for their men, when, perhaps, it would be appropriate to shoot a husband waiting for his wife to return from service.”

Facun doesn't see the photo as controversial at all, but a statement on family life. He was once that young boy waiting for his father to return to port.

"Those very docks, I can remember being 3 or 4 years old standing on those very docks as I waited for my dad. My mom dressed up."

Links:

Rich-Joseph Facun at http://www.facun.com

The Virginian Pilot Newspaper at http://thevirginianpilot.com/ or http://pilotonline.com/

View Kate Elston's web stories at http://www.kate-elston.com/