Hi folks. I wanted to take a moment to tell you about some changes here at S&R that we think you might like.

The first one you probably already noticed: we’ve tweaked our design a bit. We did so for a big reason. When we made our last design update we didn’t really understand how it was going to affect our ability to post and properly present photography. As a result, staff photographer Lisa Wright, one of our most talented staffers, got shoved to the side. For that, I want to apologize to her and to you. She’s a fantastic shooter and we’re a lot better when our audience gets to see her work regularly.

In addition, two of us – myself and Dr. Denny – have been spending a lot more time on our own photography in the last year or so, and this has meant that we’ve both been writing less. We’d love to do both, but there are only so many hours in a day. Still, we want to be involved as much as possible.

At the same time, he and I (and most recently, Lisa) have joined up with some folks from our sister site, 5280 Lens Mafia, to pursue a more ambitious (and as-yet unnamed) photo collective project. Some of these folks you know: Greg Thow we have featured here on several occasions, and Greg Stene has been responsible for a guest post or two in the past. There are a couple of other really talented people that you haven’t met yet, but will shortly.

We’ll be launching a new Shot of the Day feature, which is great news for those of you who appreciate good photography. Lisa will once again be front and center, and the rest of us will fill in the gaps.

Second, we have a couple of new posters that will hopefully make you smile from time to time. The Rev. Dickie “Drive-By” Dixon has already debuted, and coming very soon we’ll be introducing Jeff Tiedrich. Jeff, the brains behind The Smirking Chimp, one of the blogosphere’s best-known and most insightful political blogs, is also one of the funniest people on the Intertubes. If you follow his Facebook feed you already know this, and for the rest I’ve been trying to find a way to describe his particular brand of wit. The best I’ve come so far is that he’s kind of Steven Wright meets Jack Handey meets Hunter Thompson, but that, frankly, doesn’t fully convey the edge.

Jeff has agreed to produce a morning devotional, which will help you get your day off to a slightly bent start.

As always, we’re grateful for our loyal readers and we hope you’ll enjoy the new things we have in store for you.