Beta Directory: Side Panel Household Photo Presentation

The side panel household photo presentation seems to be the following:

• Take the household photo, stretch it to fill the desired dimensions of the side panel household photo, then apply a blur effect.
• Put the household photo on top of the blurred household photo.

The more I look at this, the less I'm liking it. In some cases, the effect is okay, but in others the result is a bit strange, if not disturbing. For example, on one household photo, it sort of looked like a person had an extra arm. I think I'd rather have some kind of fade effect background to fill in the empty area than a distorted, blurred version of the photo I'm looking at.