Tanzania
Lake Manyara, Africa - Dead Trees 2004
Another desolate shot of Lake Manyara showing the vast nothingness that surrounds the area. A good ride and we could certainly see any wildlife that was headed towards us from literally miles away.
Serengeti Backroad - Tanzania, Africa 2004
I remember we had just gotten done eating lunch on the rocks in this photo, and this shot was taken from that set of rocks. It really got me thinking about how far out there we were. Nothing for miles in any direction but rocks and brush. Not even any animals that we could see, and it was hot!
It’s odd because I usually snap landscape shots horizontally, but this is one of the few I have ever really liked when shot vertically - Also, I want to say we had a peanut butter and jelly and an apple for lunch here, which is obviously very important somehow… 
Giraffe on Serengeti
Caught a closeup of this giraffe eating on our safari in 2004 in the Serengeti. It really is an amazing experience to be so close to the wildlife - as sad as is sounds, you actually start to see so much wildlife that at the end of it, you’re like, “oh check it out, another elephant! Oh wait, I’ve already seen 70 of them today.”
Had a handful of good pics that I couldn’t find due to a server crash, but I had saved this one from another drive; good thing…
Kids in Massai Village Schoolhouse
Five years ago almost to the day I snapped this one. We spent most of January 2004 in Kenya and Tanzania, Africa just bouncing around the area. It really makes you think about what we’ve been given and taken for granted in the USA. Many of these kids didn’t even have shoes, let alone the the standard supplies that kids in the USA tote to school. It definitely brings things into perspective and makes you step back to reflect when you’re actually there…
Desolation - Lake Manyara, Africa
Amazing how far back the landscape goes with NOTHING growing on it. It gets pretty dry in Tanzania, Africa…
The End of an (Tillo13 on Webshots) Era
So I’ve used Webshots for almost 8 years now to store/backup my photos - but I’ve hit the end of the road with them. Some interesting stats with them though:
- 1200 photos
- 8 years of 29.95 payments
- 800,000 page views
- 125,000 of my images downloaded for screensavers
- Top photo (Tanzanian Storm) was downloaded almost 40,000 times - I actually feel bad about that one because I remember it was before I even had any notion on retouching a photo meant. I butchered the photo 15 different ways and never saved the original so it just kept morphing from the last catastrophe. If you “really” want to see this photo, click HERE, but remember, I warned you.
- That’s one tip I’d give to any new photographer out there: Your photo tastes may change over the course of your photography and if you don’t have the original, with the original name (i.e. IMG_2828) somewhere in the filename, you don’t know when it was, where it was, or how it started. Keep the original and then just rename if you want to modify/process the photo. You’ll thank me later.
- 97 fans
- 1100 comments
All-in-all the thing that ultimately made me decide to leave them was 2 fold. They’ve switched to complete java-script so people have to really work to get to use my photos, can’t right-click and save which isn’t cool because I’m always happy to share. Only “friends” can actually save my photos unless they want to use the proprietary Webshots software, which is somewhat 1998-ish still.
But the kicker is the backups. The more time that has gone by, the larger my base picture size is. When I had that 1.3 megapixel camera in 2000, Webshots was perfect. My backups stayed 1600×1200 and I was cool with it. But when your camera size increases, Webshots isn’t changing with you. They keep their backups at 1600×1200 even if you uploaded at 3500×5000. I want a service with all the things that Webshot isn’t anymore. Not that it’s not a great service, but not a great service for me anymore.
I have all the photos still and use Amazon S3 to backup my photos, and the ones that I DO want to share are on Facebook, so I’m still covered, just not publicly tossing everything out there anymore…