David Hockney and others have speculated—controversially—that a camera obscura could have helped the Dutch painter Vermeer achieve his photo-realistic effects in the 1600s. But no one understood exactly how such a device might actually have been used to paint masterpieces. An inventor in Texas—the subject of a new documentary by the magicians Penn & Teller—may have solved the riddle.
the images in most kitchen, bathroom and bedroom catalogues are computer-generated but "no-one has realised"
"Many furniture manufactures are using this medium to put together their catalogues and such," said Richard Benson, creative director at digital imagery studio Pikcells. "The technology can now make these wonderfully realistic images as good as photography, and in some cases better."
Benson said the rapid advances in digital image-making were leading to the mass closure of photography studios that specialised in interior and product shoots for brands. "It's quite a big deal as lots of photography studios have been uprooted," he said. "Over the past five years, there's been a few studios that have really come to the end of their time doing room sets and have seen CGI coming through and packed up shop and called it a day really."
Other photography studios have embraced CGI and turned themselves into digital studios. He added: "We've been brought in to produce what the photographer was doing anyway. The end if the same but the means is different."
I made it into Photography served
My bartenders project, "Tip Well You Bastards" was posted in Photography Served today. Kinda made my morning to see some of my personal work get out there in the world.
New Work In The Wild: MEGATRON RISES
New Project for Nike was recently released, "Megatron Rises." Nike Football and Hasbro honor Calvin Johnson, Jr. with special edition CJ81 Trainer and TRANSFORMERS action figure. Darien Birks from Nike Football reached out and asked if I would like to work up some illustrations for this limited launch. Megatron toys? How could I possibly say no?! Had just about a week to work these up from sketches to the final illustrations for wall murals and store front displays. Used Modo for most of it and post in Photoshop. Thanks Darien!
New Work in the Wild: Adidas 2K for Champs
New project went live in 11 cities just recently for Champs. The goal was to show the tie in between the Jerseys in NBA 2014 and the real ones you can buy in the store. Matt Davis from NonBox came up with the concept and reached out to me to help piece it all together. Had to also shoot and swap all the uniforms for each team on the original Athlete photo shot by Aaron Hewitt. Added in some techy illustrations on the athlete as well. Jersey Photo by Ryan Unruh that is used in the POP stands in the stores. Background shot Rendered by 2k.
New Work in the Wild: Lebron 11 Forging Iron
New Project for Nike Basketball just was released, Lebron 11 Forging Iron: Heat Tested. Ryan Unruh shot the shoe and we went back and forth on a few ideas and this is where it ended up. Glowing floor was a bleary eyed late night idea that brought a great vibe. Super fun project and really happy with the end result. Have one more file from this project just as CGI intensive that hopefully is released soon. Used Modo, Blender and Photoshop for the post work. I'll make a portfolio and Behance posting after a few months showing how it was all put together.
Adobe Hacked. Check your CC accounts and credit cards.
Our investigation currently indicates that the attackers accessed Adobe customer IDs and encrypted passwords on our systems. We also believe the attackers removed from our systems certain information relating to 2.9 million Adobe customers, including customer names, encrypted credit or debit card numbers, expiration dates, and other information relating to customer orders.
Still have not upgraded to CC and this makes me happier that I have not.
Danklife in AdWeek: Purina pets with Mike Powell
Another project was picked up on Adweek over the weekend. This time it was a project with Photographer Mike Powell for Purina done for Leo Burnett. It is a project that was more about subtle, rich tonalities then "WHIZ BANG!" special effects so it is nice to see it get some recognition. Purina on Adweek.
Pro Dieting tips, the Danklife way...
You too can loose 9 pounds in 2 days by living as a pile of biomorphic goo on the bathroom floor why being lovingly held in the warm embrace of food poisoning. Just ask me how!
A bit behind here folks due to the afore mentioned lovely G.I. distress, bare with me while I play catch up on some projects. Seriously, the worst case I have ever had. On the bright side, this toast is freaking AMAHZING this morning.
Making the ultimate creative content OS from bits of Windows, Mac, and Linux | Ars Technica
The recent unveiling of the Mac Pro has divided a lot of professional users who hoped Apple wouldn't fix what wasn't broken. Phil Schiller's words from the announcement—"can't innovate anymore, my ass"—made it clear that Apple used the venerable workstation as a Guinea pig to prove that it can still get its machined-aluminum groove on. Sure, the design and engineering of the Darth Pro are brilliant, but as I pointed out in my critical look, the Mac Pro needed shrinking as urgently as I need a Hermès man-purse. Whether it will pay off remains to be seen, but some people who want more flexible hardware options aren't convinced. I know one video editor who's already abandoned OS X for Windows because their work depends more on GPU power with apps like DaVinci Resolve. A big box with multiple PCI Express slots is more important to them than added desk space.
So this is pretty much exactly where I am at with my work flow as well. Great write up.
New Work in the Wild: Primus
Matt Davis and Kyle Wiley from NonBox asked if I could lend a hand on some trade show exhibits for Primus. I thought the concept was awesome and hopped on board. Mulitple composites involved to make the backgrounds. Photography by Jelani Memory who did a great job on the lighting. You can see more in the portfolio or on Behance
Tech Pack main site live
The Nike Tech Pack website is live with all our post work. It all came together really well and they use the imagery in a great way. Very happy to have been involved in this one.
New Work in the Wild: Nike Tech Fleech
Andre Simmons from Nike asked us to help out with the Fall Tech Fleece product line and it went live not too long ago. We had over 300 images with crazy tight timelines but it came out super slick. Really had to do some interesting tricks do deal with that heather fabric.
Client: Nike NSW // Product Photos: Ryan Unruh // Athlete photos: Unknown.
Danklife on AdWeek.
The Jordan project we did with Ryan Unruh was just picked up on AdWeek. Always a good thing!
New Work in the Wild: Gorge.net Ad Campaign
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!
