Decision making

I really have a hard time making choices, especially when I can only pick one thing. For example, inspired by a change some friends made to their blog, I figured I'd use a photo of mine as a title banner here. The problem I have is, how do I decide which photo to use? It's sort of like rearranging furniture for me - each layout has its own merits, but in the end, it's not practical to keep changing it around.

I suppose that's why I never did well with art projects. I have a problem committing to one idea. Years ago I took a stone sculpture class at RISD's continuing education program, yet never finished my project. I only roughed out the shape of what I was making, but lacked the confidence to chisel away and make a final choice in any of the details.

So, the same goes with something as simple as a banner for this blog. In case you are wondering, here are some photos I was playing around with.







For a few hours I was using the Tanzanian sunset scene but I wasn't comfortable with it. I like the picture, but the friends whose blog I was inspired by also use a sunset scene. I didn't want to be completely copying their idea.

From the sunset scene, I switched to the Okinawa ocean rock formation. This was a really crazy piece of sea-worn coral I saw on the Okinawa coastline two years ago. It was about 15 to 20 feet tall! It reminds me of a painting I used to like as a kid when I played the game Masterpiece. The painting is called "The Rock", by Peter Blume. Whenever I saw it up for sale in the game, I always bid high.

I kind of liked the idea of using the banner containing my eyes since it plays along with whole "Eye Dull Musing" theme, but I think my face takes up a bit too much of the frame, so I decided against it. I could have "photoshopped" the right hand edge to make the picture wider and hence shrink my face, but I'm trying to stick with unmodified photos. Other than adjusting tone and cropping, I'm trying to avoid doing any photo doctoring.

The other two banners are both pictures from Africa; the crane one has already been posted on this blog in the past. The field one was taken on a hillside in a Masaai village. If you squint at the right hand side of the picture, you might be able to make out a couple of people leading an ox plowing the field. I decided against the field one because it reminded me of the default background image for Windows XP (also a grassy hillside). The crane one is ok, but I guess I felt it was a little too dull. Yeah, I know, "dull" is part of the name of this blog, but still...

Hmmm, I guess I did make a decision after all. I suppose for now I'll stick with the Okinawa scene.