Hard Working Designer

Type Truck in Austin

2012-01-07T09:03:00.001-05:00

The Austin chapter of the AIGA brought Kyle Durrie and her 1982 Chevy Step van/letterpress shop to Austin Friday night. My amazingly talented co-worker and AIGA board member Roy Milton set up the visit from Kyle and it was an inspiring design event.

Kyle converted her truck into a fully functional letterpress print shop, with custom built-in cabinets and workspace, a sign press from the mid 20th century and an 1873 Golding Official No. 3 tabletop platen press. She now travels the country, both entertaining and educating on the letterpress process.

You can learn more about Kyle and her quest here. For more on the Austin AIGA, visit them here. A sample of photos from the event can be viewed here.

Props to Roy and the Austin AIGA for a great event.

rip steve.

2011-10-06T14:06:00.002-04:00

new job

2011-06-18T09:17:00.000-04:00

It's been a whirlwind since arriving in Austin. I am now working as Creative Director for MOSAK Advertising & Insights. It's a great firm with 25 on staff and I have a team of 5 designers and one intern working with me. Couldn't be happier.

dj stout ... in his house

2011-02-16T13:54:00.001-05:00

I recently had the pleasure of visiting the Pentagram offices in Austin and hanging out with partner DJ Stout. It was a rare snow day in Texas and DJ was the only one in the office. He graciously invited me in and spent some time discussing Pentagram, his history in Austin and the design scene in general.

First, by way of introduction (from the Pentagram site) :

DJ is a sixth generation Texan, born in the small West Texas town of Alpine....In 1987 he moved to Austin, where he was the award-winning art director of the critically acclaimed Texas Monthly magazine. In January 2000 DJ joined Pentagram as a partner in the Austin office.
...Nominated for ten National Magazine Awards and was awarded the prestigious prize three times. In a special 1998 issue, American Photo magazineselected DJ as one of the "100 most important people in photography" primarily because of the impressive body of original photographic works that he commissioned and art directed during his thirteen years at Texas Monthly.
...DJ's work has been widely published and has won countless design awards. In 2004 I.D. (International Design) magazine profiled DJ as one of its "Fifty American Designers" He is frequently asked to speak at design conferences and events and to judge competitions all over the world.
...DJ's design work is represented in several permanent collections including Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York, theMuseum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), the Austin Museum of Art(AMOA), the Southwestern Writers Collection and the Southwestern and Mexican Photography Collection in the Witliff Collections at Texas State University, the Harry Ransom Center (HRC) at the University of Texas, and the Library of Congress.

Enough said, I think. Pentagram Design has been an icon in the design world since the early 70s. They have offices in New York, Berlin, London and Austin. I have wanted to visit the Pentagram world for many years and this was, truly, a dream come true.

photo by Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN

It was an odd day in Austin and obviously an odd day at Pentagram. DJ credited driving a Saab for his ability to get in the office that day, even in the face of the daunting one inch of snow on the ground.

In the shadow of a Paula Scher painting we talked about his background, his move to Pentagram and the structure of the office. He kindly showed me around and we discussed how his office works with clients, develops projects and divides up the labor with his team of designers.

I want to thank DJ for inviting me and taking the time to talk with me. (And for his generous gifts of Pentagram paraphernalia, pictured above.)

Finally, a special thanks to staff member Anna Gardner for arranging the visit and for her willingness to reschedule in the face of the snowpocalypse in Austin.

travelin' cards

2011-02-02T13:36:00.001-05:00

Hot-off-the-press design for my temporary traveling cards. I'll be scattering these around Austin this weekend. Someday I'll post about my love for the Nagra Recorder.

click to enlarge the beauty

Brooklyn Bitters is taking off

2011-02-01T14:16:00.000-05:00

Hard Working Designer client Brooklyn Bitters is really starting to roll. Our hats are off to the small start up, which we worked with early on to create a signature look for their web and packaging design. The local press is starting to notice and the latest coverage is a great article by The Lo-Down, news from the lower east side.

Congratulations to the team at Brooklyn Bitters. We are proud to be a small part of your success.

check in at my house

2011-01-29T16:18:00.000-05:00

Foursquare check-in at my Key West house now, thanks to a sticker they sent me. I guess I'm on the team now? It's gonna get weird if I look out my window and see people with their mobiles out logging into Foursquare....

AIGA Austin - High School Mentor Program

2011-01-25T09:52:00.000-05:00

It looks like I will be working with the American Institute of Graphic Artists in Austin in their high school mentoring program.

AIGA Austin asked local graphic designers to volunteer to work with students at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy Electronic Magazine program.

Here's a brief description from the program coordinator Kendra Young:

"Student groups write and design a magazine based on a particular theme that they are all interested in. While the vast majority of the students have never worked with design software, they are typically excited to work on the magazines since they get to choose the theme. We have magazines focused on culture/art, fashion, sports, social issues, technology, etc. The students write three pieces -- an opinion piece, a feature story, and one project from their own chosen genre -- and then design them using Adobe CS5. We lay out the magazine in InDesign but also use Photoshop and Illustrator quite a bit to format art. The students are currently working on their media kits and style sheets, where they decide body copy style, leading, pull quote styles, a logo, caption styles, etc...."

The school has "designer weeks" and I will be meeting with my group three times over the course of the semester. If all goes according to plan, I will be in Austin next Friday to meet for with my group of students.

Here is a sample of previous magazines designed by the students.

I can't wait to meet the team and see that young creativity at work. I'll keep the blog updated as the program progresses.

New logo work - off to Africa

2011-01-19T14:46:00.000-05:00

Logos for The Busara Project. Also doing their website, which launches this Friday. I will have grabs and links posted after the launch.

Brooklyn Hemispherical & Embury Cocktails

2010-10-27T10:20:00.010-04:00

Here's some new design work I recently completed for Brooklyn Hemispherical's just-launched line of boutique bitters. Jason Rowan and Mark Buettler are the men behind this new venture.

Buettler ran the bar at Brooklyn's Dressler Restaurant, experimenting with tinctures, infusions and bitters for his cocktail creations. At the urging of Rowan, he bottled some of his handmade bitters, made in the classic style using high-proof spirits as a base, and focused on local, seasonal elements like Meyer Lemon and Rhubarb.

I was honored to get the call to work with them on packaging and design for the line of bitters.

And below are some business card designs I worked on for Jason and his team at Embury Cocktails, a fine website that combines top-notch writing, stellar photography and video work to bring you the best of the cocktail culture. Their catch phrase is "You're going to drink. Do it well." Jason is a world-class writer (Esquire, Out, NY Times), an amazing commercial photographer, my best friend and best man at my wedding. Truly gratifying to be able to work with him and see his success grow. It is well deserved.

Web Concepts and final design

2010-10-20T09:36:00.000-04:00

Early home page concepts for client web re-design

And the final design....

The Key West Food & Wine Festival

2010-10-20T09:20:00.001-04:00

Recent work for the upcoming 2011 Key West Food & Wine Festival

Client Photo Work - Louie's Backyard, Key West

2010-04-08T12:53:00.009-04:00

Photoshoot for Louie's Backyard. A selection of the photo work we did when we designed and launched their website. Louie's perfect location and amazing food needed a website that matched the elegance and sophistication of this Key West landmark.

We Want You Here

2010-04-06T14:00:00.006-04:00

I just Launched the "You Are Here" campaign for Womenfest Key West and the Key West Business Guild. This fresh approach promotes Key West as a destination for fun and sun, ending with the tagline "We Want You Here." An important message for any travel spot these days...we really want you here.

Chase Jarvis makes a Possum Hunt

2009-12-08T19:38:00.010-05:00

click photo to see video
My friend and NYC photographer Jason Rowan hung with Chase Jarvis today. Jarvis is an amazing commercial photographer, creator of the Best Phone App and inspiration to thousands of photographers around the world.

Go here to see Chase telling you how to make a Possum Hunt cocktail in 45 seconds. All part of the Embury website, which sports the motto "You're going to drink, do it well." Worth your time to check it out.

Google Wave

2009-11-25T09:20:00.005-05:00

We are using Google Wave at our company for client management and it is functioning fairly well for us, although it is obviously a beta product. It is currently only available by invitation. (see below...)

According to Google, "Google Wave is an online tool for real-time communication and collaboration. A wave can be both a conversation and a document where people can discuss and work together using richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more."

At our company, we have set up waves for each client and we use the waves for both communication and for storing individual job items, such as photos, logos, and copy snippets. At this early stage, the real genius is that you can use a Wave to eliminate back and forth emails among a team of people.

I have 4 Google Wave invites for the first 4 people who leave their email addresses in the comments below.

step-by-step // Free South Beach

2009-11-17T13:02:00.012-05:00

A new regular feature will be a step-by-step of my post-production work, from original out of the camera to the final image. I chose this image because of the pretty severe crop to create the image I wanted and I think it demonstrates how you can take a fairly bad photo and with careful cropping create a better image. The photo is some street photography from Lincoln Road in South Beach that I shot this last weekend.

You can click on any image to see a larger version.

Below is the original photo. I had been looking for a shot of this women for a few minutes. Her friend had noticed me earlier as I looked for an angle and didn't seem pleased with me taking photos. I knew she was walking toward the image of the woman with the afro and I thought I might have an interesting shot if she walked in front of it. She did and I did. I wasn't positioned properly and ended up with the garbage receptacle between myself and the subject. By the time I fired off a second shot her friend had noticed me.

Original photo:

Here are the first three crops:

Shot with a Nikon D200 and the Nikkor 18-200mm lens at 150mm. 1/250 at 5.6, iso 100. I was shooting in jpeg, not raw, which was an oversight on my part. I have recently tried to learn the habit of resetting the camera each time I pick it up to shoot and failed to reset the quality level.

I imported into Adobe Lightroom, which is where I did most of the work. After cropping the image, I set the white balance, using Lightroom's pretty good auto setting. I then used the Tone panel with the following adjustments:
exposure: 0.0
brightness: +66
contrast: +6
recovery: +8
blacks: +4
clarity: +10
vibrance: + 10

The numbers are arbitrary really, and were set by looking at the image as I adjusted.

I then exported to edit in Adobe Photoshop, choosing to work on a copy with Lightroom edits. This way my changes in Photoshop would automatically be saved to a copy in Lightroom. I used the Smart Sharpen tool, using the Lens Blur filter, with a 200% amount and a 1.0 pixel radius.

Finally I rotated my crop a bit to straighten the image, then used the Liquify tool to change the proportions on the woman in the photo to better match the image of the woman on the billboard. This may have been an unnecessary step and, in fact, the initial image I published did not include this step.

click to enlarge image

In the end, I am happy with the image. It isn't a great shot, but it captured what I was looking for with the help of some good cropping and adjustments. For a short slideshow of other South Beach photos from the weekend, go here, and my daily iPhone photo uploads are here.

help portrait / 12-12-9

2009-11-06T16:02:00.003-05:00

Help-Portrait is a group of photographers around the world who are using their time, equipment and expertise to give back to those who are less fortunate this holiday season. This is an amazing idea and I will be joining forces with other Key West photographers and make-up artists to make this happen.

The basic concept is you find someone in need, take their portrait, print their protrait and deliver the final print to them. Simple.

Here is the website for more information.

Check out the two videos below...

Epic X

2009-11-02T08:56:00.006-05:00

Jim Jannard has released the specs on the amazing Red Epic X Camera. I can't begin to summarize the groundbreaking changes this unit brings to market, but among the highlights that will begin to change the industry are sensors, LCDs and bodies that can be swapped out. No more outdated technology. Red might make it as a company long term, using the Apple model, or it might not. But it is a sure bet that it will change the way Sony, Panasonic, Nikon, Canon and all the major players produce products.

Check out the sensor size chart at the bottom. Simply amazing.

Canon lens on body

Nikon, PL and Canon mounts

Canon lens adapter on the Red body

RED DSMC (Digital Stills and Motion Camera)

New MYSTERIUM-X 5K sensor
5K (2:1) at 1-100fps
4K (2:1) at 1-125fps
Quad HD at 1-120fps
3K (2:1) at 1-160fps
2K (2:1) at 1-250fps
1080P (scaled from full frame) at 1-60fps
Increased Dynamic Range, reduced noise
Time Lapse, Frame Ramping
REDCODE 250
ISO 200-8000
New FLUT Color Science

Completely Modular System, each Module individually upgradeable
Independent Stills and Motion Modes (both record full resolution REDCODE RAW)
5 Axis Adjustable Sensor Plate
Multiple Recording Media Options (Compact Flash, 1.8” SSD, RED Drives, RED RAM)
Wireless REDMOTE control
Touchscreen LCD control option
Bomb-EVF, RED-EVF and RED-LCD compatible
Multiple User Control Buttons
Interchangeable Lens mounts including focus and iris control of electronic RED, Canon and Nikon lenses (along with Zoom data)
“Touch Focus Tracking” with electronic lens mounts and RED Touchscreen LCDs
LDS and /i Data enabled PL Mount
Rollover Battery Power
Independent LUTs on Monitor Outputs
Independent Frame Guides and Menu overlays on Monitor Outputs
Monitor Ports support both LCD and EVF
True Shutter Sync In/Out and Strobe Sync Out
720P, 1080P and 2K monitoring support
Gigagbit Network interface and 802.11 Wireless interface
3 Axis internal motion sensor, built in GPS receiver
Enhanced Metadata
Full size connectors on Pro I/O Module. AES Digital Audio input, single and dual link HD-SDI
Support for RED, most Arri 19mm, Studio 15mm, 15mm Lite, Panavision and NATO accessories

Dimensions- Approx. 4”x4”x5.5”
Weight (Brain only)- Approx. 6 lbs (2.72kg)

Digital people get real

2009-10-30T10:43:00.003-04:00

Check this out:

Paul Debevec, the digital effects star behind The Matrix and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, here shows off the latest evolution of animation. The fake Emily looks so real (fast-forward the video to minute 5:00 to see the technically constructed, moving face) that you can no longer tell the difference between computer graphics and reality.

Hat tip to Ben Kunz at Thought Gadgets.

featured on talenthouse homepage

2009-10-28T13:35:00.006-04:00

I was just featured on the talenthouse artists page

talenthouse is a global community for talent in music, fashion, film, art, and photography. It’s basically a creative collaboration, providing a forum for artists to find inspiration, post their own work, and host their own space.

Check me out here.

Google Wave and iPhone weirdness

2009-10-27T13:05:00.009-04:00

If you are a user of Google's new beta preview, Google Wave, you might have noticed something funny going on if you access the site with your iPhone. If you log into Wave through the Safari browser, you first get a message saying that it is not a supported platform. But underneath that, there is a link which allows you to process at your own risk. Which I did.

Once Wave was open in my browser, I set up an icon for Wave on my home page using the + sign in the browser's lower panel. So far, all is normal. You get a nicely designed iPhone icon on your home page, which you can then use to launch Wave without going to Safari first.

But, and here is where it gets interesting, when you touch the Wave icon, you launch what looks like a stand-alone app....no browser window, no Google search bar...none of the standard Safari items. If you try to scroll the window up or down, it goes nowhere. None of the Safari browser options are there.

If you close out of the Wave "app" and check Safari, no Wave page is open. It's not loaded in Safari. It seems that setting up a home page icon for Wave launches some sort of application. It seems very slow and a bit buggy, but it definitely seems to be a stand-alone app.

I haven't seen any mention of this on any blogs, so if you have any insights, let me know.

photo outake

2009-10-23T09:53:00.003-04:00

[click for larger image]

Broncolor Scoro A4S Power Pack

2009-10-23T09:47:00.004-04:00

Sure, it costs 10 grand, but Chase Jarvis just used it on an action shoot outdoors in New Zealand and the Scoro was able to keep up with his D3 at 8 frames per second powering 2 strobe heads!

Amazing for a battery power pack.

Chase talks about it at 22:55 in the video here.

unretouched photo

2009-09-16T16:24:00.003-04:00

People are asking what I did to the image in the previous post, so here's the photo straight out of the camera. No retouching, no levels, no cropping.

(click to enlarge image)

Louisiana Bayou

2009-09-15T10:03:00.003-04:00

(click to enlarge image)

Work featured at Next Models

2009-08-05T09:16:00.008-04:00

My work with Sandra has been featured on the Next Models site. I shot with Sandra earlier this year and she was just signed by Next. They have had several additional shoots with her, but have selected 3 of my photos to represent here on their site.

Sandra just got signed by Next, which has offices in Miami, New York, London, Los Angeles, Milan and Paris.

You can see more of my shoot with Sandra on my Model Mayhem site here or on my Flickr photostream here.

click images for larger view

If you are interested in shooting with me, call me at 917.512.9379.

Portfolios

2009-07-14T10:10:00.002-04:00

You can review my work at these two online portfolios:
My design work is here
My photography work is here

Thanks for taking the time to check them out.
.

difficult and impossible

2009-04-02T10:29:00.004-04:00

"Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week." Amazingly enough, a quote from a contestant on Pretty Wicked, a new unscripted drama on the Oxygen Network.

Apparently, this originated some time ago. According to Yahoo Answers: "This is a corruption of the motto used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ("Seabees") during World War II:

"The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little longer."

Other sources have it just a little different: "The difficult we do at once. The impossible takes a bit longer."

it is here...

2009-02-19T00:05:00.002-05:00

I'd like to thank my wife.

2009-02-05T09:34:00.005-05:00

[click to view larger image]
Aguadilla, Puerto Rico - January 2009
Nikon D200, 18-200mm, 1/640, f5.6

snap decision

2009-02-04T08:51:00.007-05:00

[click to view larger image]
Sara with sunblock. Amazing surfer from New Jersey, shot at Maria's Beach, Rincon, Puerto Rico after a day on the water. And yes, those are really what her eyes look like. They are freaky amazing.

back in the office

2009-02-04T08:04:00.006-05:00

[Joe Gillen ripping in PR. Click to view larger image]
I am back from a week-long Puerto Rico surf trip where I learned what I can do with a camera and what I can't do with a surfboard. Photos won't be online for a couple of weeks, but you can check out my day to day blog here. Almost all the photos on the blog were taken with my iPhone and uploaded to the site in real time.

I'm going surfing?

2009-01-26T07:29:00.014-05:00

[don't click photo for larger and more embarrassing detail]
I have been invited to tag along with a pro surfer and his friends on a surfing trip to Puerto Rico. I am going along as one of three photographers and I will be attempting some surfing as well. After a day shopping with my lovely and ever patient wife, this is my attempt to look like I know what I am doing. Horrific. Never happy in front of the lens, and this shows why.

You can follow the trip at our Puerto Rico Surf blog.

service update

2009-01-23T21:34:00.006-05:00

Dear World:
We, the United States of America, your top-quality supplier of the ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for our 2001-2008 interruption in service. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service outage has been located, and the software responsible was replaced November 4.

Early tests of the newly installed program indicate that we are now operating correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional on January 20.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage. We look forward to resuming full service and hope to improve in years to come. We thank you for your patience and understanding,

Sincerely,
The United States of America

[hat tip to Vicki at Forever44 for this]

snap decision

2009-01-23T08:15:00.007-05:00

[click to view larger image]
Key West, Florida, Angela Street, December 2008
Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200mm, 0.8 sec, f/4.5

the era of responsibility starts today

2009-01-20T14:27:00.000-05:00

Miami Design District

2009-01-19T07:07:00.024-05:00

North of downtown Miami is the Miami Design District. It is home to some 130 galleries, restaurants, design showrooms and clothing shops. This was an abandoned neighborhood in the late 90s when the revitalization began and today is a small enclave tucked in between inner city housing, freeway overpasses and commercial wasteland.

Craig Robins is credited with the vision and development skills that got the district started. Robins was instrumental in bringing South Beach back to life in the late 80s, buying property and restoring the Art Deco architecture of the Beach. He is using his considerable skills and development muscle to do a similar approach here, and he's putting his money where his property is, opening a 40,000 sq. ft. private museum to showcase his art collection.

A small 18 square block area, the District is home to some big names in retail, including Adidas and Fendi, and Robins goal is to recruit additional fashion names to open in the area.

Although growing at a measurable pace, things look tough for this urban enclave to survive. You can walk less then a block outside the District and find yourself 100 yards removed and a world away from anything to do with design. Empty store fronts are common. Competing with the slightly newer Wynwood art district, Miami's Design District is perched on the edge of the economic meltdown of 08/09 and will need some savvy marketing and maneuvering to stay viable.

It all feels very upscale, with the appropriate number of Porsche Cayenne's whipping by. The shops all look perfectly minimalistic, lots of open space, polished concrete and low furniture. There is just enough common design to clue in the less elite, including the Starck-inspired clear and colored plexi chairs and the Paul Frank Julius the Monkey sofas. But the emphasis here is on the trade. Interior design, galleries and fabric stores seem to be the main force.

What the District needs is a community that lives nearby, doesn't have to drive to arrive and will support a coffee shop or a breakfast place to go to in the mornings. There is just none of that here. Saturday morning the streets were deserted, and I can't imagine you would want to be here late in the evening. A private security firm patrols the streets, telling you both where you are and what might wait for you beyond the polished borders of the District.

Robins has said that there is enough housing stock near by that he is not including that in the redevelopment mix, and that he got out of the housing development market when he began to see overbuilding. It has yet to be seen if any developers pick up where Robins left off.

Art and design district developments need a clear plan. For a district to work, there has to be a clear idea of who the development is for and a careful balance established between production (galleries, artists at work, design studios, etc) and consumption activities, like restaurants, coffee shops, bookstores. Design District's that have thrived in other cities bring in the residents, often before the retailers.

That hasn't happened here yet.

The Design District is located at the southern extremity of the Little Haiti neighborhoods. It is roughly divided by NE 36th Street to the south, NE 43rd Street to the north, NW 1st Avenue to the west and Biscayne Boulevard (US 1) to the east. (Thanks to Wikipedia for that sentence.)

Here's a link to a short, and slightly lame, movie on the District.

snap decision

2009-01-18T09:12:00.008-05:00

[click to view larger image]
Miami Design District, NE 1st & 40th Street, January 2009
Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200mm, 1/5000 sec, f/5.6,

NY Times does multimedia right

2009-01-16T13:28:00.009-05:00

[edit] My friend Jason Rowan alerted me to this story in New York magazine, which I hadn't seen and which embarassingly came out a couple of weeks before this post, that details the team I wrote about.]

I am constantly impressed by the New York Times multimedia offerings. I have yet to find a major media outlet the puts the care and consideration into what they offer and how they execute it as the Old Grey Lady.

In their NY/Region section, the Times has been working on their One in 8 Million: New Yorkers in Sound and Image piece. The content is outstanding, but what sets this piece apart is the beautiful presentation. From the opening soundtrack of random street sounds to the brilliant previews in the "browse the collection" option, it is a first-class job.

Using a fairly simple flash layout, the "browse" option pans to an opening photo and a snippet of an audio interview automatically plays. It is simple, elegant and effective. The photography, done in black and white, is stunning and could stand alone as a beautiful documentary of New York life.

Here is the Times summary of the point of the piece: New York is a city of characters. On the subway and in its streets, from the intensity of Midtown to the intimacy of neighborhood blocks, is a 305-square-mile parade of people with something to say. One in 8 Million is a new collection of a few of their passions and problems, relationships and routines, vocations and obsessions.

This is just the latest in a long string of work that goes so far beyond what a newspaper has traditionally covered. Their series on conditions in industrial China, Choking on Growth, is a sad, but moving, slide presentation. With music by Zoe Keating, you can't help but be haunted by the images long after you leave the page.

David Pogue, Times technology reporter, has been doing his own reviews by video for some time, but his Pogue-o-matic product selector is as amusing as it is well done.

The Times clearly spends a lot of resources on their multimedia offerings and it pays off. As a model for newspapers in an age of declining ad sales and plunging circulation, other papers could do well by trying to do their own version, locally, of what the Times does internationally.

friday photo

2009-01-16T07:44:00.005-05:00

[click to view larger image]

City Electric Building - Key West, Florida, 2009
Nikon D200, Nikkor 18-200 mm, 1/5s, f/4.5, iso100

Here comes some convergence...

2009-01-14T07:18:00.021-05:00

Photo above is the Red EOS Mount by Wicked Circuits. It allows control of both aperture and focus of any Canon EF Lens mounted to a RED One. This will allow shooting at 4K, 3K and 2K footage at up to 120 fps. The lens (w/ the crop factor) is the equivalent of a 1280mm 5.6 and up. Photo courtesy of GShort on the scarletuser.com web forums.

Yesterday, Gizmodo reported that the Norwegian website NRKbeta compared the Red One video camera to the Canon 5d still camera, specifically the video output. The results were inconclusive and the tests unscientific. But I don't think the results are the point. The point is more what people aren't doing and what cameras they aren't comparing.

Here is an excerpt from Gizmodo:
"Norwegian news outfit NRKbeta conducted this little showdown at the film studio the Jar, with the first two scenes shot with controlled lighting. Here, the Red One is way more detailed, with a superior dynamic range compared to the 5D Mark II (which is plagued some nasty washouts in the second scene). That said, the super-saturated (if unrealistic) color from the 5D looks way more delicious and it still has less noise than Red in the first scene.

Outside, at night, however, it's completely the 5D's game (which we kinda already knew). You can barely see anything with the Red ONE footage, but the video from the 5D Mark II looks fantastic.

Not bad for a $2700 camera up against a $17,500 one."

I have a friend who is a professional DP and we have had an ongoing discussion about the future of video and the technology to produce it. When I forwarded this link to him, he responded with the email below:

Sent on Jan 13, 2009, at 10:14 PM:

Hmmm, only thing on the positive side for
the still cam Is the low light image ?

Also concluding that the 5D is "not bad"?
Considering the price difference it is ridiculous.

It's a pretty lame tool so far.

The Red cam, which apparently has its own share
of issues to contend with, is in a completely
different league than the 5D. The Red feature set is hugely superior
and that makes it a professional motion picture tool.

I have said it before, but when the still
cams get the features they need to rival something
like a Red, then they will have come up to
the level of the modern video cam, which has already
been invented!!

What's the point ?

Ahhh...what's the point? That is exactly the question. To my mind, it's not the point of a feature comparision, or even a quality comparison, but the fact that people are even bothering to compare these two completely different cameras. And more importantly, what they are NOT comparing. Nobody is comparing the Panasonic HVX200. Nobody is stacking up the Sony HVR series against the Canon or the Red. What does that say?

It says that, much like the earliest digital still cams vs. film, things are changing and the paradigm is shifting.

This is about the first wave of: 1) cheaper, 2) modular, 3) interchangeable lens capabilities, that the future holds. It is not about matching the feature set of the modern video cam, which as my professional filmmaker friend points out, has already been invented. But those cameras are clearly outdated technology. Slapping a digital capture unit on a reworked video camera format that has basically been in existence for well over a decade is not the future. Increasing the frame rate or sensor size on an ancient design with fixed lenses is not the future. Having to use an adapter to mount different lenses is not the future.

Modular units, designed from the ground up, with the ability to use a variety of lenses for a cost that is a third of current offerings is the future. Starting fresh with the design, not reworking old designs, is the future. And this goes for still cameras as well. We are all using a design that is left over from hundreds of years of lens, focal plane, control layout ideas.

So...the points my friend makes are valid, but start from the wrong premise. The premise is not about creating a still cam that competes with a video camera. The point is that both the Red and the Canon are going to push modern video camera makers to react. The still cams will never compete with a "modern" video camera. They won't have to. They won't try. The end users will compete to get out a product that looks like they want it to look, regardless of what they use to do it. And one of the motivating factors will be cost, especially when they factor in a variety of features that they want.

I know production, news, sports, will be the last to "need" one of the cameras that I think will be developed over the next 10 years. It is not about that market. It is about the fringe and the envelope-pushers that come up with something like Golden Globe Best Picture winner this year did:

"...Talking about the process of shooting Golden Globe-winner Slumdog Millionaire, director Danny Boyle reveals that they shot parts of the movie using a "a Canon still camera, which takes 12 frames per second."

They used the still cameras to shoot crowd scenes, since they didn't use actors, just waves people flowing by, and they wanted to get "in the middle of everything" while preserving a natural, unscripted energy: "If people see a still camera, they don't think it's recording live action."

So when I see people comparing a Canon with a Red, I think, hmmm, they completely bypassed the Sony, Panasonic. etc. video cameras for a test...why did they do that? And I think they did that because the Canon and the Red are completely different cameras, and are not competing with the Panasonics and the Sonys, et. al....those are old school. And that is the clue, to me, where the future lies...

And don't forget, Jim Jannard, founder of Oakley, is about to release his new line of modular cameras, including the ability to install sensors the size of a Cheerios box.

These promise to be interesting, to say the least. The convergence of still and video is happening. What it means or what it produces has yet to be determined, but it is happening.

Here's some links to some video footage from the Canon, the Nikon D90 and the Red One:
Vincent Laforet's D5 film
Chase Jarvis shoots with the D90
Red One footage by LesGlobules

[edit] As soon as I post that no one is comparing the 5D to the HVX200, along comes the boys from kossomemedia with that exact comparision. Video is here.

miami love

2009-01-12T16:11:00.002-05:00

[click for full size photo...it's worth it]

Ferrari F60 - new 2009 car launched

2009-01-12T09:02:00.011-05:00

[click on photos to make larger]

At the crossroads of design and function, Formula 1 cars are, to my mind, pretty close to the nexus. So each year the launch of the new cars can be an exciting event, especially if you like to see what stringent rules and unrestrained budgets can produce.

This is the 55th car that Ferrari has built specifically for Formula 1, and they say it came from a "white sheet of paper," meaning they started from scratch. A number of significant rule changes this year mean the cars this season look fairly different than previous years. Better or worse, I will leave to you to judge.

Formula 1 is viewed as the peak of motorsport design, with individual car manufacturers producing their cars in secrecy, using a book of rules and specifications that dictate the parameters and limits of a design, but not much else. What is truly amazing is that these cars, using different engines and body work, hit the race track and compete within hundreds of a second of each other.

What is also amazing is the spectacular amounts of money they invest in these cars. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent to create the cars and field the teams. The rolling road show that sets up and tears down at race venues around the world is second to none.

As an aside, the barcode design on the car is Ferrari's answer to the ban on cigarette advertising in F1. Marlboro is the main sponsor of the car, and they have created this "logo" in place of the actual Marlboro type.

Motorsport fan or not, from a designer point of view this Ferrari is a work of art. And it goes really fast...

Gore Vidal in Key West

2009-01-11T06:36:00.012-05:00

(click on photos to make larger)

Gore Vidal spoke in Key West last night and it was a magnificent event. He was here for the 27th Annual Key West Literary Seminar and he packed the house. Vidal was generous with both his thoughts and his time, speaking on the topic of historical fiction for some time, then taking questions from the audience for a good deal longer. C-Span was there covering it, so you should be able to see a rerun at some point on one of their three channels.

Gore is one of those towering figures who can relate anecdotes that span such a great swath of American history that you find it hard to believe the man in the stories is sitting in front of you. Last night he told tales of helping his blind grandfather into the Senate Chamber during the Roosevelt administration, chatting with Amelia Earhart and looking over a map of her flight route over the Pacific and of sending a note to Barack Obama, urging him to focus on restoring the Constitution.

He was witty, sharp, caustic and devastatingly funny when he wanted to be. In the midst of the Earhart story mentioned above, he said, off-handed and almost off stage, "She really wasn't that great a pilot... (pause a beat) ...and that was a problem."

He saved his most vicious remarks for the Bush administration and its follies and crimes. When asked about Sarah Palin, the republican vice presidential pick, he was dismissive, saying he felt "she talked like she thought the working class talked, which ended up sounding like she was talking down to them." And although he reminded the audience that he had predicted many years ago that Bush would leave office the most hated president in history, he wouldn't be brought out on predicting the future of the economic crisis. "I don't do that kind of black magic," he said.

Gore spoke at the San Carlos, which felt small, but not intimate. I am a huge fan of the lobby at the San Carlos, but not the auditorium. On the other hand, the KWLS has a most generous photography policy, for which I am grateful.

I want to thank Jason Rowan, past director of the event, and Arlo Haskell, current director of the Literary Seminar, for my ticket. By the way, my agency did the Literary Seminar's website, so if you like it, let me know.

Here are the links that matter: Key West Literary Seminar, Gore Vidal, Jason Rowan

Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 Ai-S MK III

2009-01-09T18:58:00.005-05:00

I had a memorial to attend last night and I chose to photograph the whole thing using a 20 year-old lens I purchased off eBay for $30.00. The 50mm f/1.8 is manual focus on my Nikon D200 and this is a skill I haven't yet developed. However, I was very pleased with the results, especially in the low-light conditions. The 1.8 is a moderately fast lens and worked well when I was able to hit the focus correctly, which averaged about 1 in 10 photos.

The Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 Ai-S MK III was manufactured from 1985 - 2005 and while not as fast as the f/1.4 it is optically quite a good lens. I love the character of these old lenses and they are a real bargain if you are willing to brush up on your manual photography skills.

I shot the entire night in black and white, out of the camera. I am sure they would have looked better had I converted in post, but this was easier. As always, you can click on the image to enlarge.

MagCloud magazine publishing

2009-01-09T08:26:00.007-05:00

I signed up and used the MagCloud magazine publishing service last year and was very happy with the results. I created a 20 page publication of a photoshoot I did with Jessica in the Florida Keys in June 08. You can check it out here.

They use HP Indigo technology for the printing and print on 80lb. paper. The final product looks pretty good. They charge nothing to upload the files for the mag, and charge .20 cents per page to print. They also sell your magazine online, with a PDF preview available.

I checked back at the site this morning, and amazingly I have sold 5 copies of the magazine and made a $4.00 profit. Since I did this only as a test of their services, I am pretty pleased with that result.

From the MagCloud website:
"MagCloud enables you to publish your own magazines. All you have to do is upload a PDF and we'll take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more.
How much does it cost? It costs you nothing to publish a magazine on MagCloud. To buy a magazine costs 20¢ per page, plus shipping. For example, a 20-page magazine would be four bucks plus shipping. And you can make money! You set your issue price and all proceeds above the base price go to you. Shipping is a flat $1.40/copy (USPS first class mail) for quantities 1-9, or a flat $13 for quantities from 10-100 (per box of 10-100).
How are they printed?

MagCloud uses HP Indigo technology, so every issue is custom-printed when it’s ordered. Printing on demand means no big print runs, which means no pre-publishing expense. Magazines are brilliant full color on 80lb paper with saddle-stitched covers."

I am a big fan of print-on-demand and this service, if it sticks around, seems like a winner. Let me know if you have had any experiences with them and how it worked out.

2009-01-08T09:27:00.000-05:00

back road photoshoot

2009-01-07T20:29:00.012-05:00

[click to view larger images]

Three shots from a late night photo shoot on a backroad in the Florida Keys that was all heat, humidity and bugs. We had been shooting for about an hour, using the car to light Jes, when a car full of boys came driving by. First car we had seen in this deserted area. About 15 minutes later, they came back, stunned by this illuminated woman in the middle of nowhere. When they drove by the third time with another car full of guys, we decided it was time to wrap it up.... As always, click on the images for larger view.

Return to Key West web travel promotion

2009-01-07T07:51:00.000-05:00

I recently finished art directing a travel site for the Tourism Development Council and the Key West Business Guild targeting gay travelers. Photography by Jason Rowan and web work by my agency, headed up by John Hunt. It is a bit of an experimental site, one that aims to create a feeling of being in Key West for a weekend, not specifically telling you where you could go or what you could do. Take a look. Main site is here.

This is one of several projects I have worked on with Jason and his photography is always stunning and the projects we put together have been a personal success for me. They are different and succeed at positioning the client in a new way each time. Each has had a unique quality of being very "non-marketing" while marketing the client very effectively.

You can check the other projects here:
Room 103
Four Days In Key West

Portfolio online

2009-01-06T08:04:00.001-05:00

My portfolio is online and is worth checking out, if I say so myself.
The link is on the right or you can click here.

logo work

2009-01-06T07:27:00.000-05:00

Recent logo work for a friend with a new business.

Karol came here from Central America, worked hard and got a top level job as a pastry chef at the leading restaurant in my city. She decided to open her own business, navigated state and city regulations, leased the building, got the equipment and was ready to open the doors for business but had one last thing to take care of: she had to go be sworn in as a US citizen.

I am so impressed and amazed at the strength and perseverance that some people have. I struggle to keep my business rolling and I have all the advantages. I can't imagine moving to another country, landing a sweet job in my field and then quitting to open my own business in a foreign country. Truly inspiring.

Her web site is here.

In Fashion Photo 08 - Miami Beach

2009-01-05T13:34:00.001-05:00

Had a chance to see the In Fashion Photo show in Miami Beach this weekend. It is staged in conjunction with Art Basel Miami and showcases both classic and emerging talent in the photography world, with this show focusing on fashion and celebrity. Among the outstanding photos were some original prints from Bert Stern and Patrick Demarchelier

The highlight of the show was a Simon Procter photo shown above of a Chanel show with Karl Lagerfeld literally dancing on the giant catwalk in front of his models.

It was fantastic to see these prints at large scale, up close and realize the beauty of a print made from an original negative. The depth and quality was stunning. Easy to forget in the age of inkjet, archival inks and a myriad of paper choices just how good a photographic print can look.

You can check out the (poor) website here.

Miami Beach Street Photos

2009-01-05T11:26:00.000-05:00

Just got some photos up online from a day of walking around South Beach yesterday. I did a quick edit and put up a slide show here

2009-01-03T17:34:00.000-05:00

Great street art here at the Wooster Collective. Total credit and tip of the hat to Chase Jarvis for this.

Jes

2009-01-03T11:47:00.001-05:00

Shot this with D200 by holding the camera out and shooting back as Jes drove. Processed in Photoshop CS4 using some presets from Joey Lawrence. Joey L. is an amazing 18yo photog doing some fantastic work. Check it here. As always, click on the image for larger view.

Don Pendleton and skateboard design

2009-01-03T10:53:00.000-05:00

I am late to the party on this but I just came across a film from Mumble Magazine, a documentary on Don Pendleton, one of the giants of design in the skateboard industry.

I have a history of following this genre, starting with the simple typefaces of the Logan Earth Ski and the Banzai aluminum board of the late 70s and early 80s. The type treatment on the Logan boards was iconic for me back then and it stood alone in the skateboard design look of the time.

The classics of board design were the early Dogtown boards. These were hand made, hand drawn, custom one-off decks made by Wes Humpston and Jim Muir and fetch thousands on the open market today.

Over the years, from Tony Alva to Tony Hawk, board design has followed but mostly led design trends. This new documentary on Pendleton shows a unique glimpse at a top designer of boards today.

From the Mumble site: "Don Pendleton is a skateboarder hailing from Ravenswood, West Virginia. He currently lives and works outside of Dayton, Ohio doing skateboard graphics, painting and working on various art and publication projects. Somewhat of a recluse, he is constantly recovering from hypochondria dn arachnophobia.

He was the artist/designer at Alien Workshop for the greater part of a decade and has also worked with Element to produce skateboard graphics....and is, without a doubt, one of the most influential and respected artists within the skateboard industry today." (Link)

Check the preview here and order the film from the Mumble site.

dakota

2009-01-03T10:08:00.000-05:00

Summer in Key West. As always, click on the image for larger view.