Tenure

The first is here, although, it is marked Two, for some arcane reason.

At an astrologically significant time, I bought, if I recall, three domain names. Of those three, BexarCountyLine.com remains.

For a decade.

Now, a single image a day. The current (WHOIS) record indicates I started it in 11/2006.

Bought the name, then didn’t do anything with it until May 2007.

The name was cute, and noted elsewhere, based upon a sign I started to see a lot, on my way from a trailer park in South Austin to San Antonio, or even further, going to and from the Gulf Coast.

The original premise had to do with an old girlfriend, and how I left a cheap camera in her glovebox, ready for weird images, like a sign that said, car crushing bump, which I thought was the first image. In case the girlfriend motored off without me? No loss for that camera — this is before cell phone image devices got to be so good.

Ten years: tenure. A single image, every day. Some gorgeous. Some worthy of print. Some crap. Some that only held meaning for me.

The original logo, pretty much as I had it in mind, that decade back.

I do recall, for a period, the idea that a black background made the images “pop” more, and I used that kind of logo. Still, the site itself? More a simple text name as a placeholder for a simple idea that was born, an image a day.

Then, the last iteration? More a web-badge and button than anything else, although, there were, at one time, a handful for business cards, as well.

The ubiquitous side-project.

Tenure

How much has changed? How much is the same? The original pattern and process, I would import images from various cheap cameras and a phone, click-edit, mostly just crop and hit “auto-adjust” in then iPhoto, and export the image as a 500-pixel width image file.

If memory serves, and there are sufficient bread-crumb-like clues to suggest this is true, there was a separate directory for images themselves, at the root of the site, so the site’s structure was even more simple. The easiest way to understand it? The WordPress motor would fetch the image and display that image, from a folder sitting at the base of the site’s file structure — making the images easy to find by any method.

I’m guessing I started on a late version 1 or even version 2 of WordPress, for the site’s motor, and I found a “City Daily Portal” that offered links to various sites that showcased a city’s daily image.

The growth and changes over the years, currently, the images are almost all from phones, and currently, the size is bloated to way beyond 500 pixels wide as that is much too narrow of a frame, within current web standards. While I still use the WordPress motor and design framework, the images themselves are all stored within the site’s structure, not in a separate folder.

Finally, in the last few years, I opted out of the daily and weekly meme rings, and while the idea of a daily image city image portal is, in fact, engaging, unless that kind of site is picking my material up automatically, I am unsure if I have the time — or mental bandwidth — to create the links, and post.

With the advent of iPads and so forth? I tend to do some light image editing on whatever is in hand, and at least three-quarters of the site’s images, upkeep, and maintenance is performed via an iPad.

Tenure

The guidelines are similar to what I started with, and follow the exact same spirit, if not actual execution.

1. One image daily.
2. Image should be taken inside the lines of the Bexar County Line.
3. Minimal editing.
4. No “photoshopping,” as in no digital magic.
5. Show case or exemplify Bexar County Line

The final one is tricky and after decamping downtown, a little more of a challenge. Still, those are the guidelines.

In its first few years, I went through a half-dozen cheap cameras. One remains, and I will still use it, mostly when fishing, but other times, just to see. Still, most of the work is now “cell phone,” and the editing process, this week, I’m working in Apple’s native Photo app, having used a handful of others, as well.

It is a single image from my lens, drawn from a collection that started maybe a few years back, enthralled with the art, culture, and visual textures of San Antonio, TX.

Tenure

There is, as always a few interesting ideas, and perhaps an image of an image — I got hung up on a kind of image about pepper, as I was heavy into experimental cuisine. Experimental cuisine using peppers, mostly. So, at first, there I was, trying to be inconspicuously as possible, take a picture with a cheap camera of the various pepper bins at the store.

Makes this more amusing, one of the better images was from a certain superstore on Southwest Military, deep in the mostly latin neighborhoods. I was a foot taller than most, at the time, and, several shades paler, than most, at the time.

So there I would be, trying to be innocuous and inconsequential, poking around in the produce sections. I’m sure some security camera archive has me, trying to be sly, taking a picture of the peppers.

Tenure

The premise remains, as the site supports the hypothesis, “San Antonio (Bexar County) is way weirder than Austin, but nobody cares.” It’s not going to be a Chamber of Commerce slogan.

Bexar County has served under nine different governments, now, “We got this.”

There it is, ten years old. Started at an auspicious time, and now, a full decade old. Still pumping along at one image per day.

I am a writer, first and foremost. I am not a painter, and I make no claims what-so-ever about being a photographer. This is place where I can play, without the worry — or judgement — as there are no suppositions about quality. No representation of expertise. It’s a digital playground with my images, loosely curated and collated, all drawn from within an adoptive home where I feel like perpetual tourist.

Works for me.

Tenure

Best of the double aughts, available here, for free, for a short time.

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Previous allusions and various notations.

astrofish.net/travel

Vincit Qui Primum Gerit

“First to arrive gets the best deal.”

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