Welcome to my site! I am glad you are here visiting. This website uses the tagline “Clarity and Contrast.” How did I come up with this tagline? I thought for some time–actually about five minutes. Even that time frame admittedly included a not very exhaustive examination of websites that suggested creative names. After thus pondering names and ideas I soon concluded I seriously lacked the marketing flare for such a creative yet serious endeavor. I knew I was wanting somehow to combine my love of international relations and photography in one spot. These two terms are rarely put in one sentence, let alone a website, so you are already seeing some value in the time you are investing in reading this virgin post.
So I looked in my catalog of photographs in Adobe Lightroom to find an appropriate picture. Once I found a pretty good snap I had to adjust its size by pixels to make it fit in the space allocated to it in the webpage. That was easy enough to do.
Then, while preparing the image, I had one of those moments where the light bulb shines brighter than usual. This worried me a bit. In my own experience this bright light is often due to a power surge in a feckless energy grid. The outcome is going to be some very expensive repairs to sensitive electronic equipment. Returning to topic from my own digression, I had experienced an internal surge of my own–or to employ a French term that makes the lightbulb simile seem to be of greater significance–an aperçu.
This is my insight. Two of my very favorite buttons in Lightroom are Contrast and Clarity. One can do amazing things to photographic images with those two sliders. As I was preparing the photo I saw my trusted and true friends: Contrast and Clarity.
I like the idea because it applies both to words and images. These two slider buttons adjust to provide understanding and insight. They are powerful tools; they help makes things clearer than before. I decided to switch them around from the order in Lightroom because it makes more sense for me to seek clarity first and then contrast this to other topics, thoughts, or stories. Now that you know the background to the tagline I do not think I will ever be mistaken for a creative marketing genius. I do hope, nonetheless, that it does help convey my insights as a pundit and photographer.