While surfing the web recently, I've noticed more website authors including a photograph of themselves on their home page (.. places such as here & here) .. aka 'mugshots'.
I forget when I added it, but my mugshot has been posted there for quite some time. It was taken at night (at the Noguchi sculpture garden in Costa Mesa after a yummy Italian dinner), and the flash illuminated only my image (nothing behind). So the background is dark .. which works nicely with the page design (dark background).
I even sampled the exact shade of black contained in the photo's background, so I could blend the photo perfectly into its surrounding box.
Personally, I like to see a photo of the authors whose sites I visit and whose articles I read. It's been said » the eyes are the windows of the soul.
In other words, you can get a good idea of a person from a photo.
It actually took more courage than you might think to post that pic there .. so prominently .. for all the world to see .. the online version of stagefright. (Tho I wouldn't be surprised if some printed it out, blew it up, and used it as a dartboard .. or for other things.)
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Few months after posting however, I had second thoughts and removed it .. cuz I started thinking that maybe it was a little .. narcissistic (.. something I've been accused of, btw, in legal documents, by highly-paid professionals .. so I oughta know).
Then I started getting mail from friends asking what happened to my picture. "You don't think it's too egotistical?"
I asked.
"You're a handsome guy,"
they assured me, "Your readers should know who they're dealing with."
(So I put it back.)
Actually, that's not really a photo of me on the home page. It's just some handsome dude I ran in to downtown Laguna one eve. (I think he was gay.) Me? Here's » what I look like.
Scary or not, this is a positive development that helps make the web a bit more personal.
