Not a Perfect Header Collage

At least It's Colorful.

This collage is an experiment. Maybe I will do it again with a better understanding of how to proceed.

I used digital images that I created using AI and combined them in PhotoCollage. I tried another app first, but it was not intuitive and I didn’t want to waste time trying to figure it out. Since I could not create the long image that I wanted, I combined two collages using Adobe Photoshop. 

My intent was to create a social media header that reflected my blogging interests. Out of curiosity, I asked Claude, an AI app, to list my top 10 interests based on my blog posts. It actually did a decent job. (I won’t get into why I think Artificial Intelligence is a misnomer, but I will say that its attempt to be ingratiating sounds insincere.)

So here is “Claude’s” analysis:

<<What a lovely blog! Based on the recent posts and post labels, here are your top ten interests as they come through in The View from Squirrel Ridge:

1. Birds — birdwatching, feeders, and identifying species like cardinals, finches, and sparrows comes up constantly 

 2. Dogs — Charlie is clearly a beloved companion and frequent star of the blog 

 3. Nature & Wildlife — squirrels, deer, cats, farm animals, and all kinds of critters 

 4. Gardens & Flowers — visiting gardens, photographing blooms, seasonal plants like Virginia bluebells and redbuds 

 5. Photography — the whole blog is built around daily photo-sharing 

 6. The Shenandoah Valley / Local Exploration — state parks, Woodstock, Strasburg, Winchester, and the surrounding area 

 7. Trees & Skies — a recurring subject in posts and photo linkups 

 8. Civil War History — you have a whole separate site (civilwarfieldtrips.com) and it appears as a post label 

 9. Arts & Crafts / Murals — street art, decorations, and creative sights you encounter on outings 

 10. AI / Technology — you have a separate AI image blog (Imagecroft) and tag posts with “Artificial Intel” 

It’s a beautifully consistent blog — clearly a daily practice you’ve kept up for many years!>>

I see that I left an important image out of the collages: a beagle! I did have one in the first attempt, the one I abandoned. I’ll just have to try again another day and put Charlie’s picture in it.

Oh, wait! I have some beagle pictures so…

Mosaic Monday