I knew somethign was up.

Current Decade Rates as Worst in 50 Years: Overview - Pew Research Center for the People & the Press

As the current decade draws to a close, relatively few Americans have positive things to say about it. By roughly two-to-one, more say they have a generally negative (50%) rather than a generally positive (27%) impression of the past 10 years. This stands in stark contrast to the public’s recollection of other decades in the past half-century. When asked to look back on the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, positive feelings outweigh negative in all cases.

The failure of Obama

Drew Westen: Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator

To be honest, I don't know what the president believes on anything, and I'm not alone among American voters. He introduced his recent job summit by saying that even in these times, the role of government should be limited. Really? That was a nicely nuanced reinforcement of the ideology of limited, ineffective government promulgated by Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Unfortunately, it runs against all the available data and everything Democrats have stood for since FDR.

Abortion? Who knows. Gays? I suspect intellectually he believes in equal rights but deep down he thinks they're icky. Something is sure holding him back from doing the obvious. Immigrants? He probably has an opinion, but he's not going to waste political capital on them; he sold them out in 15 seconds on health care. Foreclosures? Nice speeches, and I'm sure it really concerns him when he hears the stories of families firsthand. But not enough to divert the cash from the lenders to the borrowers. And the problem is, the average American knows it. Job creation? Would be nice, and I presume he believes that people who want to work ought to be able to work. But when 700,000 people were losing their jobs a month in his first few months of office and over millions have lost their jobs on his watch (a process, of course, initiated by his predecessor, whose name, to my knowledge, he has not uttered since entering office), three letters should have come to mind: W - P - A. President Roosevelt had no legs to stand on, but he sure had spine.

And an entire generation disillusioned, will never vote again...

New Painting studies

[gallery link="file" columns="2"] Was messing around with some of my old Paintings yesterday and ended up getting sucked back into that way of thinking. Here are two studies I have been working on most of the night and this morning. They are not fully there yet, but I am really enjoying this direction. I need to work on showing a bit more detail and getting the images to smear more at the same time. It does feel more like I am working with oil paint this time around.

Tape art

Mark Khaisman: Tapeworks | Diskursdisko

My works are large archetypal representational images, made from layer upon layer of translucent packing tape, applied to clear Plexiglas and placed in front of a light box to give the image shadow and depth. I see my tape art as a form of painting. The 2-inch tape acts as a wide brush, and the light behind the panels as an alchemist’s luminous blending medium. In working with tape, like in painting, accident and control are always present.

International Grey

international Portrait Shot a portrait for the band in the danklife studio. You can also find more info on us here:

International Grey on Facebook.

International Grey on MySpace.

And the main site here.

We just finished tracking 6 songs in the studio and are hoping to release a EP by the end of the month. Or the start of the new year.

First frost

[gallery link="file" columns="2"] Woke up this morning to some frost and the patio table we have had some cool patterns on it. So in the vein of Minor White I thought I'd throw a slaved flash under the table and shoot through the frost with a macro. Fun stuff.

But yeah, Frost... it's freaking cold.

Music

Dear Musicians – Please Be Brilliant or Get Out of The Way | pampelmoose Dave Allen of Gang of Four's Music and Media Blog

I have long argued that musicians need to drop the notion of making money from CD sales through record labels and concentrate on making money from the experiential awareness that surrounds their brand; a brand they own, no one else. The downside to this for musicians is that they need to get organized and work hard, or arrange for what I call the “fifth Beatle” to help with online communications, selling merchandise etc. Consider this from Russell Davies

Creating music is only the first step to creating something valuable and timeless. For instance, David Byrne played a building. Music released as part of an event is the future – Radiohead’s release of In Rainbows was the first step toward the album release as event, if it’s an album at all.. How it’s done is also important. The container has changed forever. Remember what Rishad Tobaccowala has to say to advertising agencies trying to embrace the social web – “The future does not fit in the containers of the past.” It is no different for bands.

Truth at Paris Photo

Art is about life and the art world is about money although the buyers and sellers, the movers and shakers, the money men will tell you anything to not have you realise their real motive is cash, because if you realise – that they would sell your granny to Nigerian sex slave traders for 50 pence and a packet of woodbines – then you’re not going to believe the other shit coming out of their mouths that’s trying to get you to buy the garish shit they’ve got hanging on the wall in their posh shops … Most of the time they are all selling shit to fools, and it’s getting worse.

-Damien Hirst

St. Francis Dam

Three minutes before midnight on March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam catastrophically failed. There were no eyewitnesses to the dam's collapse, but a motorcyclist named Ace Hopewell rode past the dam and reported feeling a rumbling and the sound of "crashing, falling blocks," after riding about a half-mile (800 m) upstream. He assumed this was either an earthquake or another one of the landslides common to the area, not realizing he was the last person to have seen the St. Francis Dam intact, and survive.

Dam keeper Harnischfeger and his family were, most likely, the first casualties caught in the floodwave, which was at least 125 ft (38 m) high when it hit their cottage in San Francisquito Canyon, approximately 1/4 mile (400 m) downstream from the dam. Forty-five minutes before the collapse, Hopewell, the motorcyclist, also reported seeing a light in the canyon below the dam—the dam itself did not have lights—suggesting Harnischfeger may have been inspecting the dam immediately prior to its failure. The body of Harnischfeger's wife was found fully clothed and wedged between two blocks of concrete near the broken base of the dam; their six-year-old son's body was found farther downstream, but Tony Harnischfeger's body was never found.

As the dam collapsed, twelve billion U.S. gallons (45 billion liters) of water surged down San Francisquito Canyon in a floodwave, demolishing the heavy concrete walls of Power Station Number Two (a hydroelectric power plant), and destroying everything else in its path. The flood traveled south down San Francisquito Canyon, flooding parts of present-day Valencia and Newhall. The deluge then turned west into the Santa Clara River bed, flooding the towns of Castaic Junction, Fillmore, and Bardsdale. The flood continued west through Santa Paula in Ventura County, emptying its victims and debris into the Pacific Ocean at Montalvo, 54 miles (87 km) from the reservoir and dam site. When it reached the ocean at 5:30 a.m., the flood was almost two miles (3 km) wide, traveling at a speed of 5 miles (8 km) per hour. Bodies of victims were recovered from the Pacific Ocean, some as far south as the Mexican border.

Was talking with the Chimney repair guy up here about this the other day. Pretty interesting story. Here is a NPR story about it The St. Francis Dam Disaster on NPR as well.

thoughts on de-commodification

Last week I was on the phone to an old friend of mine, a guy in his late for­ties, who was born and bred in Michi­gan, and is living there now. He was telling me about his uncle, who, about four deca­des ago, got his highschool sweetheart preg­nant. So ins­tead of going off to college, he found him­self with a new wife, a child on the way, and an assembly-line job at Gene­ral Motors. But even though this situa­tion clip­ped his wings con­si­de­rably, he still ended up having a nice life in the end, with a home, a big yard, two cars, a steady paycheck, wee­kends fishing or hun­ting deer, and vaca­tions in Hawaii every year or so. “The days where a blue collar guy like my uncle could have a nice life without doing much,” my friend said, “those days are gone. Gone fore­ver.”

And in the back of my mind, I’m thin­king the same is star­ting to hap­pen to white collar guys more and more, as well. But it’s not quite out in the open yet. Society’s not quite ready to have that conversation.

Interesting Read over at Gaping Void.

Time Lapse Cover Design For Macworld

Photographer Peter Belanger captured his work for a Macworld cover design by using time lapse and the finished video is remarkable. The amount of camera equipment used to get what appears to be a fairly simply shot is surprising.

VIA Derek Cooper's well done blog. I shall read up on some of his lighting now. And yes, getting the right table top shot takes a TON of gear and time.

Nike Football goes live

[gallery link="file" columns="2"]The Project we did for Nike Football went live. The Nike Combat Overview image can be seem here. Multiple composites upon composites. The background plate had to be usable on it's own for wall murals. The uniforms are based upon illustrator files. Had to line up not only the lit and unlit shots but also a baselayer shot. The lit and unlit shots are all done with toning too.

By clicking on the player you can Explore the Uniform and see the individual images up close. I can not go into all the details here of the work, but I am quite proud of the texture of the pants.

This was a very fast turnaround of under a week for this whole project with the individual files being 80 megs when flattened and the group shots being 150 megs. So this was not done at web resolutions, this was done at painful 5 gig psd file sizes. Very fun and challenging project which we were very happy to be a part of.

OH MAN!

Combine multiple audio inputs for use in GarageBand - Mac OS X Hints

I was looking for a way to have multiple audio inputs into GarageBand, say using my Digital Line in, two iMics, and anything else that will get audio, but GarageBand only lets you choose one input at a time. But with a tip from the guys at Rogue Amoeba, there is a way!

Using the Audio MIDI Setup application (in Utilities), choose "Open Aggregate Device Editor" in the Audio menu. Here you can create a virtual device that combines all your other inputs. Click the + sign to create a new device, then check "Use" off on the devices in the list that you want in your virtual device. If you like, double-click "Aggregate Device" to change the name to something of your choosing.

In GarageBand, choose your new device from the input list and there you go! Theoretically, you can buy four iMics and an USB hub and you can have eight inputs -- but I don't know the maximum number of audio streams that can be used simultaneously over one USB channel. But, this is a lot cheaper than buying an eight-input device which can run up to $800. Enjoy!

This made my day!

Still life study with Grapes.

Still life with Grapes Still life study with grapes shot yesterday in the studio. Went to a wine shop for a tasting last Friday and it got me to thinking. Looking to get a triptych out of this series. It's heavily influenced by Joel-Peter Witkin, Zeke Berman and Pieter Claesz.

Here is the lighting setup: Grapes still life light set up.