Welcome to my collection of Twin Cities photos. The link's at the bottom of the page, but read this intro first if you want a little insight on the history of this collection!

Background

Eventually, my site came to include over 300 scanned photos, but it had caused me a lot of grief, especially since I needed 5 seperate Angelfire accounts to hold them (this was before the 50MB promotion they use now). The final straw was when Angelfire made it impossible to link to a picture on their account from an outside source. This time, I had two goals. To organize the photos based on subject and to find a site that would be able to host them and provide useful services (like linking and a user-friendly interface).

I found out about photopoint.com in early 2000, deciding to take my photos there soon after. The Twin Cities Scanned Photo Page was killed off, and I began the time-consuming task of transferring my collection over to this site, deleting the extra Angelfire accounts and reclaming space on my original one. In late 1999, I hit a major snag; I was running out of books and postcards to scan. Without any more material to give people, my collection would be stagnant, and there was considerable doubt about the quality of parts of my collection, which were performed when I didn't have a firm grasp on the scanner's capabilities. I took a major step forward for my collection when Christmas introduced the Nikon Funtouch, a cheap film-based camera.

Soon, I was investing money in film to take pictures and develop them. I began snapping shots whenever I could, and as the costs rose, so did my photo collection. My archive began to grow and after topping 500, I introduced Photo of the Day in September 2000. It was a way to show people that I was committed to the site, and to provide new photos everyday in order to keep people visiting. The photo collection creeped upward, but it began to decline since I was tired of the developing costs and the risky ventures that never turned out (like interior pictures or night views).

In Feburary 2001, I reached one of the biggest milestones my site would ever experience. I had decided, after hours of on-line research and a continuing interest in photography, to buy a digital camera. I studied up for a respectable and cheap starter, and purchased an Olympus C860L Digital Camera. I loved it so much, I took it everywhere and with no limits on film, I began taking pictures of almost anything and everything in sight. I got over my addiction to tall building and took pictures of neighborhoods and buildings that I wouldn't give a second thought with film. My archive began to explode with hundreds of new pictures, and Photo of the Day couldn't keep up with the incredible rate I was churning out photos. But, yet another snag put me in a small crisis. Photopoint.com announced that it decided to charge people to use their service and that seemed to ruin it for me. I was ready to kiss the photo collection goodbye when a new chance had revealed itself.

Among the on-line forum communities, I heard about another free photo-sharing site called zing.com and signed up for an account without delay. Learning the ropes, I began to transfer photos there, organizing them into albums and deleting over half of my original scanned material because my digital camera was turning out better replacements. Digital photos began filling up the ranks, and the archive opened on May 1st, 2001, with a little over 900 photos available. I wasn't as satisfied with zing.com as photopoint.com, but I barely had any time to settle in before another huge announcement suddly shook the foundation of the newly-built colletion when zing.com announced it was closing July 2nd, only 2 months and a day after the entire archive had opened.

For the second time in three months, I was forced to relocate my photos. It was much more difficult this time, since photo carriers all had terms of use, and my collection was bigger than ever (over 200MB of space). I tried ofoto.com, but I found out it was in it for the mere purpose of having users buy prints, not sharing photos. I tried Lycos, but they only allow 25MB of space, much less than what I needed. Webshots.com was another top choice, but they shrink your photos and many customers didn't especially recommend it. I did a search and turned up clubphoto.com, and just getting most of my photo collection up, I finally heard the fine print that I never found before. They delete your albums after 90 days, unless you make them permanent (and I was unable to mark them all as so). In doubt, I began to accept having to get them off the net, but, the tides have changed.

One of my friends, Maia Howell, found a site called fotki.com. It turns out they were specifically looking to help zing.com victims. To me elation, they transferred all my albums over and I didn't have to lift a finger. Shortly after beginning on fotki.com, I hit 2,000 photos and I even made the Top 30 viewed list on several occasions. In July 2001, the Photo of the Day album finally returned, and I began releasing photos on nearly a daily basis. This continued to be the plan until Winter 2001-2002 approached, where the archive was about to face another major improvement.

After a lot of searching, I had decided to purchase yet another camera for the sake of the site, after learning from experience all the downfalls of the current digital camera. This time, I purchased the Olympus C-3020ZOOM. The jump from 1.3 to 3.2 Megapixels meant pictures could be much larger, but by far, the biggest change was that this camera had an optical zoom, which allowed skyline shots and close-ups that both of its predecessors couldn't hope to accomplish. The price tag was incredibly steep, especially with the 5-year warranty that I purchased with the camera, but I thought it was all worth it in name of the site.

The pictures were amazing, crisp, and large, yet the first problem for this camera was discovered almost immediately. The left side of nearly every picture was blurred and any remedies I tried couldn't counteract the defect. I finally accepted defeat and shipped it to Olympus. They examined it, but a parts shortage kept it under delays for two months, leaving me high and dry. Finally, after calling to complain about the atrocious service, Olympus agreed to send me a new camera. I found myself sighing in disgust when the camera arrived...and it was my refurbished original. To add insult to injury, the camera was still defective! After another appeal, Olympus finally sent me the new camera, nearly four months after I bought it. This one worked and still is with me today.

For months, things were peaceful and a pleasant summer had me introducing newer pictures, the collection reaching over 5,000 in total. In November 2001, fotki.com made the sudden decision to change their polity and start charging money (like photopoint.com) to store photos on their site. Unfortunately, my photo archive was much too large to try relocating them yet again, and plus they took up over 600MB of space. I decided in late October to pay their fee, stablizing the home of my photos for at least a year, assuring I was here to stay in the meanwhile.

The past year with fotki.com was peaceful and rarely with any problems. Photos of the Day flourished and the entire archive had over an entire gigabyte of space, a clear indication that I was putting my full payment to good use. In summer 2002, fotki.com stunned me by supending the ability to see pictures full size, and only allowing members that privilege. That didn't deter me from continuing the archive, the collection continuing to expand today. In October of 2002, when my year had expired, I decided to renew without hesitation. I now occupy a 2-year lease on fotki.com, promising visitors and Twin Cities fans continuing access to my photos for a great deal of time to come...