jacklydon.com Website Review by Jared Polin

I have been watching his You Tube channel for years now. I respect his talent and his opinions. It’s not like he did me a personal favor. He does for anyone who asks (and pays him a modest sum). Early this year, Jared Polin, a You Tuber, photographer, content creator, etc., reviewed my website on video and let me have it.

My website has been basically the same since I started it about four and a half years ago, December 2017. I started publishing my photos and stories in the Center Square Journal about ten years ago. That local new website became Chicago Bulldog Media. I posted my photos on its website and Facebook page but unfortunately that paper went under too. Then the PublicLeague.com. It went under too. Then IL Preps Insider. Luke Druze gave that up a year or so ago. I don’t have good luck with publishers. I tend to kill them off.

Now I write for Inside Publications and mostly publish my photos on this website. Inside has been around for a while. It is a proper print publication and will undoubtedly survive, even with me on board.

My website has been the same for far too long. I played around with changes several times but I always liked what I had better. Late last year I saw that Jared Polin was offering critiques of photos and websites so I signed up. He actually did this critique about eight months ago. In typical fashion, I am just now getting around to posting it and changing the website now.

The video is posted here. I thought I would leave the website as is so my readers could look at it after watching the video and judge for themselves. My plan is to changer the website not look after the video is released. so you can decide for yourselves is the changes were beneficial. Let me know what you think. Let me know what you think of Jared’s critique and let me know what you think of the changes I will make.

Simeon Wins CPS City Championship

I photographed the Simeon v. Orr CPS championship game today (Feb. 18, 2018) at Chicago State's Convocation Center. Great game. Great venue. Great light. 

The Sun-Times' Michael O'Brien wrote a very good account of the game which I won't try to best here. I have seen Orr many times over the past three years and, of course, I read Rick Telander's wonderful series last year about the team. So I was kind of hoping they could continue the Cinderella story by knocking off powerhouse Simeon. Ya, that didn't happen. Simeon is good. Really good. Workmanlike. Never-in-doubt kind of really good. Great even. 

Here are my photos. Of two state championship teams.