COTA: Circuit of the Americas | Austin, TX
Add this place to your “List of Things To Do” when you visit Austin. The new race track in southeast Austin is worth the trip. Built in 2012 to be America’s new home for F1, you feel like you’re in another country or world, where the only thing that matters is speed. There is literally nothing else for miles, as you can see from a few pictures below. Miles of Texas countryside and then a massive racetrack with a very well-designed main tower. Not only does the race track host auto events, but there are concerts there now too! A few friends and I had the opportunity to go to the afternoon trials before the Grand Am a few months ago.
At the time, I didn’t own a telephoto lens, but I decided to rent one from Precision Camera, an awesome local camera store here in Austin. Unfortunately, the one I wanted to rent was already checked out, but one of the employees (who wanted to go but had to work) cut me a deal and allowed me to rent a better lens for the price of the original one, as long as I sent him some of my pictures. See below.
The Blog, Redesigned
Welcome to the new Fourth Photography blog layout! After a few years with the old, graphically-focused theme, it was time for an update. Hopefully this new design is more reader-friendly, easier to navigate, and functional! Even though I loved the look of the previous layout, one of the largest complaints was the inability to scroll thru multiple posts from the homepage. This has been addressed with the new theme, along with some other items.
In my opinion, the blog header is one of the most important areas. If you can’t get where you want to go or easily find what you need to find from the header, just forget it. Several improvements have been made to the Fourth Photographer header, as shown below. My logo has been enlarged & centered, the menu bar has been improved (and also centered), and the search function is now located right there! Not only are these changes aesthetically pleasing, but hopefully they will also help make the blog much more navigable for you, the reader!
Additionally, the blog footer is a useful area that was completely missing from my previous layout, and this new theme allowed for easy customization of this space. I moved the “Archives” feature to the footer (from the header menu) and have added a “Tag Cloud,” which aggregates the words I use to tag my posts and creates a list where the size of each word is based on how frequently it is used. The irony of “Recent Posts” being located in the new footer is that my entire homepage on my previous design was basically a graphical representation of my recent posts. Now this function is just a footnote, which is fine because you can just scroll thru recent posts. Awesome! Finally, a link to my Facebook Page has also been added to the footer – LIKE ME!
When I started this blog, its purpose was to provide an outlet for my photography hobby, and it continues to serve that purpose. I’m excited about this new design, and all the new images that will be hosted here. Keep coming back and checking for new stuff! Feel free to leave comments, suggestions about the redesign, suggestions for new posts, or any questions below. Thanks!