Desktop Backgrounds: Bamboo, Stones, and Coral
desktop background image of worn bamboo poorch floor of the tea house at the Murin -- Bamboo Floor -- Kyoto, Japan -- Copyright 2007 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm — 1/125 sec, f/2.8, ISO 320 — map & image datanearby photos
Bamboo Floor
Desktop-Background Versions
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

Bamboo floor of the outside walkway at the tea house of the Murin'an gardens, taken last summer when my friends KFC and Verena visited Kyoto.

The next two are stones on the beach of Honohoshi Cove on Amami Ooshima, of the Amami island group in the far south of Japan, about where the East China Sea becomes the Pacific Ocean. The curved stones make a surprisingly calming sound as the waves wash up and down them.

desktop background image of Smooth rocks on the beach of Honohoshi Cove, Amami Ooshima, southern Japan -- Smooth Rocks -- Amami Ooshima, Kagoshima, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 55 mm — 1/125 sec, f/8, ISO 160 — map & image datanearby photos
Smooth Rocks
Desktop-Background Versions
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600
desktop background image of Smooth rocks on the beach of Honohoshi Cove, Amami Ooshima, southern Japan -- Smooth Rocks II -- Amami Ooshima, Kagoshima, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 17 mm — 1/125 sec, f/8, ISO 160 — map & image datanearby photos
Smooth Rocks II
Desktop-Background Versions
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

The final one today is also from our trip to the Amami island group, a beach on the southern tip of Kakeroma-jima filled with bits of dead coral.

desktop background image of a section of a sandy beach filled with stones and bits of coral, on Kakeromajima, of the Amami Island Group, southern Japan -- Coral Beach -- Kakeromajima (Amami), Kagoshima, Japan -- Copyright 2008 Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl, https://regex.info/blog/
Nikon D200 + Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8 @ 45 mm — 1/640 sec, f/8, ISO 160 — map & image datanearby photos
Coral Beach
Desktop-Background Versions
Standard: 1024×768  ·  1440×1080  ·  1600×1200      Widescreen:  1280×800  ·  1680×1050  ·  1920×1200  ·  2560×1600

Over the years, I've posted a lot of desktop-background pics, including other sort-of-abstract ones like these:

·  Old Wood-Veneer Siding
·  Bamboo Fence
·  Vine on a Bamboo Fence
·  Wall of “Unrolled” Bamboo
·  “Buncha Wet Stones”

I don't actually use these for my own desktop background (I use this moss-and-fern mountain path at the moment), but somehow I feel that these somewhat plain, repeating abstract images make for good backgrounds. I don't know that anyone actually uses them, so perhaps I'm just wasting my time.

If I am wasting my time, I'm wasting less of it these days. It used to be a lot of work to crop the image to the exact proper aspect ratios then write out all the different sizes, but a couple of years ago I wrote some Photoshop scripts (in JavaScript) that made everything much easier, and now it takes less than a minute to generate all seven versions from any one original image. The time savings is good, because my overall blog-writing workflow takes enough time as it is.

I'll share those Photoshop scripts in an upcoming post.


All 4 comments so far, oldest first...

I use your desktops. I quite like them. I’ve even converted a few photos into desktops for my own use.
In fact I find your whole site useful, informative and entertaining.

— comment by David on March 4th, 2008 at 12:32pm JST (16 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

I wish I had seen the ocean in Japan… hopefully next time I visit.

— comment by Jon on March 4th, 2008 at 1:51pm JST (16 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

I really like all the photography on your site. While I personally only use black or dark gray solid backgrounds on my work machine, I have used a few of them on my laptop and really like them

I also greatly appreciate your workflow posts and script posts. I find that I have a lot of ideas for scripting things, but never actually get around to it unless I’m given some examples.

— comment by Mark on March 4th, 2008 at 11:42pm JST (16 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink

I use the “Change desktop picture every 30 minutes” option on my computers and have 4 or 5 of your desktop photos in the mix. My desktop photo/pattern folder is mostly comprised of geometric patterns I created. But, it also includes photos I’ve taken along with those from a few other photographers. In general, I don’t like using photographs but it’s nice to see one pop up every once in a while. So, thanks for sharing them with us. By the way, I create a watermark in the corner whenever I include someone else’s photo so I can remember where it came from.

— comment by Joanna on March 11th, 2008 at 8:17am JST (16 years, 8 months ago) comment permalink
Leave a comment...


All comments are invisible to others until Jeffrey approves them.

Please mention what part of the world you're writing from, if you don't mind. It's always interesting to see where people are visiting from.

IMPORTANT:I'm mostly retired, so I don't check comments often anymore, sorry.


You can use basic HTML; be sure to close tags properly.

Subscribe without commenting