Photographer Nicolle Clemetson ask us to help out on her project for Gorge.net and we happily gave it all we could. She is one of the few to be allowed into the danklife home base which is in the center of a dormant cinder cone somewhere in Oregon.
Starbucks Refreshers
This Spring I was approached by Dan Zimmerman at Big Giant to help come up with an Illustration for Starbucks new summer drinks. The Illustration was deemed too far out of theme with the motion project and was shelved fairly close to completion. I was quite happy with the work though and really enjoyed the project. You can see how it was made and more in my Behance portfolio
Personal work: Oregon Coast 7/28/13
Just some snaps from the coast the weekend of 7/28/13. Had a great relaxing time and picked up four new pieces of art while out there.
The Philip Glass Ensemble new computer rig
The new rig consists of 7 Mac Mini mid-2011 servers, each connected to an M-Audio ProFire 610 interface for MIDI and audio. Each player in the Ensemble has his own dedicated computer. I chose this Mini model because it has a quad-core processor and dual 500GB internal hard drives. I’m not using any server functions on it. The second internal drive is a clone of the first, maintained by Carbon Copy Cloner; whenever the machine boots up, the clone is updated and older files archived. All computers are run headless via Ethernet from a MacBook . All machines have identical software loads, except for their manual IP addresses and desktop pictures which have the computer name embedded in them so I can tell which one I’m looking at. I have written a number of custom Applescript applications as front ends for rsync to manage synchronization between machines, a subject worthy of a separate discussion, so I won’t go into that now.
While not directly related to Photography I found this interesting on how they solved these issues. I like the use of mac minis as well. I am looking for some options for a render farm and I may do something like this.
QuakeCon 2013: The Physics of Light and Rendering - A Talk by John Carmack
Really good overview of lights and rendering for anyone doing any kind of 3d. Very educational.
New Work in the Wild: Bicycling Illustrations Aug 20113
Jesse Southerland at Bicycling asked me if I would be interested in illustrating some bike review images for the Aug 2013 issue and it turned into a fun 3d study. He wanted a projection on the bikes originally, but then we slowly shifted to old school 70s style wall paper murals in room wholly generated in 3d. Lots of fun bits like hand painting in the tears in the wall paper. Great to see them half page!
New work in the wild: JORDAN BRAND AND BLAKE GRIFFIN LAUNCH SUPER.FLY 2
Portland Photographer Ryan Unruh reached out to me to do some post work for a Jordan project he was shooting and the results are now live at Nike Inc and Sole Collector. I went with a 3d solution to this request and really happy with the result.
Here's What It Looks Like When You Replace Photographers With iPhone-Wielding Reporters | Raw File | Wired.com
Earlier this year the Chicago Sun-Times made national headlines when it purged its photo staff and replaced them with iPhone-wielding reporters.To track what many suspected would be a decline in the paper’s visual coverage, Chicago freelance photographer Taylor Glascock started a Tumblr that compares the Sun-Times’ photography with that of its competitor the Chicago Tribune, which still uses staff photographers.
“I think that you can’t just assume that if you give [reporters] a camera they will come out with the same result as someone who is trained,” says Glascock. “If photographers had to write all the stories it wouldn’t be pretty either.”
For about a month now, Glascock has been watching the way both papers cover the same story. Sometimes she posts side-by-side screenshots from the papers’ websites. Other times she posts side-by-side comparisons of the papers’ front pages.
The State of Rendering – Part 1 | fxguide
How competitive? Since we wrote the first Art of Rendering story, just 18 months ago, the landscape has changed dramatically. New renderers and whole new approaches have been released. There have been dramatic improvements, renderers have died, others have been bought, and there is no sense that the process is anywhere near over. Rendering, once a fairly predictable evolutionary space, has become like a quickly moving landscape. For this story alone we have done over 20 interviews and we will be covering 14 major production rendering platforms. We have aimed to focus on production renderers for animation and VFX and not even really touch on game engine rendering, GPU rendering and mobile offerings. Art of Rendering saw many compliments but also a host of complaints. To paraphrase a quote from the first article, “rendering is now a bit like a religion.”
Photoshop CC: modest upgrades shackled to terrible “rental” model | Ars Technica
Coming back to Earth a bit and looking just at Photoshop CC, is this a worthwhile upgrade? I think it has some compelling features—I use the Camera Raw 8 as a filter a lot for grading rendered 32-bit images, and the camera shake reduction is very good. But thanks to a shareholder-oriented license model that places Adobe customers in a bad spot, the entire line of Creative Cloud applications comes with a massive asterisk hanging over them. I think that Photoshop CC’s features are nice, but the licensing drawback is so severe that it leans this version toward “don’t upgrade.”
Video Library — Ctrl+Paint - Digital Painting Simplified
This is the Library, where you'll find all of the free Ctrl+Paint videos. If you're a total beginner, try watching the videos in the order they're listed! I've ordered these videos to ease you from traditional techniques into digital ones. If you're looking for a specific topic, or want to build your own curriculum, I invite you to watch them in any order you like! Scroll down to see the whole list, and have fun painting!
Just gonna put this here....
Source: http://ctrlpaint.com/library/
Chris "Daddy" Dave: ACTUAL PROOF
Chris Dave & the Drumhedz - Actual Proof
Chris "Daddy" Dave - DrumsIsaiah Sharkey - GuitarKebbi Williams - Sax & Flute
Jermaine Williams - Bass
Cause I need music to get through the days.
Necessity brings him here, not pleasure
Paintings by Samantha Keely Smith
Title: Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, Canto XII, line 87
VIA: But Does It Float?
I am a sucker for Turner-esque paintings like these.
New Behance work
In case you have not been to the Danklife Behance Portfolio recently, we added a few new galleries there. One for Nike in store imagery for the House of Hoops style and another for a "Workout" project for Sanford Health shot by Robb Long.
Pricing and Negotiating: In-Store Display for National Retailer
Shoot Concept: Beauty shots of professional talent in a studioLicensing: Use of three images in any media (excluding Outdoor and Broadcast) in North America for 2 years. Although we avoid vague language whenever possible, the client insisted on using this language, effectively conveying Advertising, Collateral and Publicity use of the images as defined in our T&C.
Location: A studio in New York
Shoot Days: 1
Photographer: Up-and-coming beauty and fashion specialist
Agency: Mid-sized, based in the Midwest.
Client: Prominent retailer with approximately 2,000 stores in North America.
Here is the initial estimate:
You should all probably bookmark this as well. These types of examples are priceless.
Danklife Essay on A Sporting Life, daily inspiration for sports creatives.
I have a new Essay published on A Sporting Life about the importance of Photography for great post work and a brief write up of the World Basketball Festival Project we did last year. Here is a small section:
“Some people like to say how something is all done in post and that photography does not matter anymore. In my experience that statement could not be further from the truth. A bad image can only be pushed so far before it falls apart. With bad photography post time is spent making images look acceptable instead of making them look great. The better the starting file, the more that can be done with the image in post, the better the final image. It’s pretty simple.”
Been wanting to write up something discussing the importance of a great Photographer for awhile now as I am getting tired of people saying it's all done in post. So I was very happy to have the opportunity to publish this.
Rick Rubin Interview
I never decide if an idea is good or bad until I try it. So much of what gets in the way of things being good is thinking that we know. And the more that we can remove any baggage we’re carrying with us, and just be in the moment, use our ears, and pay attention to what’s happening, and just listen to the inner voice that directs us, the better. But it’s not the voice in your head. It’s a different voice. It’s not intellect. It’s not a brain function. It’s a body function, like running from a tiger.
“There’s a tremendous power in using the least amount of information to get a point across.”
Great stuff here for anyone in the arts.
Mind.... Blown
Bela Borsodi shot this album cover to look like 4 different photos, but it is the same frame. VIA: Kottke.org
Adobe Photoshop CC Has Already Been Pirated In Just One Day | Fstoppers
Now that Photoshop Creative Cloud went live just the other day, we didn’t know what to expect. However, news is out that just a day after the release, Photoshop CC has already been pirated and available.
So much for that stopping pirating. Another great example of how DRM just annoys the honest customers of your product while doing nothing to stop the pirates. I will not be updating to CC until I have to this time around. I'm sure they will stop upgrading the CS version of Adobe Camera Raw any day now and I'll see how long I can get by with Capture One for that side of the business.
I say this as someone who has been a first day release buyer for the past ten years. Way to go Adobe.
Vogue/Condé Nast Contest Attempts To Secure Free Images For Unlimited Use
The core problems we see are that:The sponsors have the perpetual, unlimited use of all contest entries. There is neither compensation for contest participants nor is there credit given for their work. Participants are required to sign a liability release and copyright assignment, and to indemnify Botega Veneta and Condé Nast against any lawsuits that may arise as a result of the usage of the photographs. Every entrant is required to waive any right to sue in the event of misuse of the photographs entered. The winner is being offered $10,000 for a shoot that would normally command several times that amount. The winner will be required to grant copyright ownership of all photographs from the shoot.