Taxidermy

Working on a new project but I'm still playing with how to light them. Here's a couple polaroids of my favorite little guy. Not a raccoon but something similar...

Commercial shot with a 5D MKII

Shot a commercial for a local car Museum with a 5D MKII. Quality is exceptional. It airs nationally on The Golf Channel this Thursday-Sunday. Or you can check it out here:

New Camera

Bought a 5D MK II the other day and went to the beach to try it out. It's nice and it has a shutter button like a 1DS series body (yes!). Shutter buttons are one of my biggest pet peeves...

Sometimes you take crappy pictures. Sometimes those crappy pictures cost you $5 per sheet to eventually see. This is one of them. And I'm going to force myself to like it because $5 could have bought me a sandwich but instead I have this.

4.5 years remaining

Honestly, I don't think the cd-rom drive would last that long. Freaking computers...

New Busness Cards

Finally new business cards (I'm a big procrastinator). Big up to Josh Ross (www.joshrossdesign.com) for helping out with picking the card stock and printer.

Sometimes...

Sometimes the driver adds to the list of what needs to be retouched...

Miniature Photos by Adam Makarenko

I first saw Adam's work in American Photos Images of the Year 2007 in which he got first place in the Personal Work category (I got an honorable mention in that same category!). I never really knew his work until I just saw PDN Pulse's interview with him on his miniature photos.

Read the interview here.

Check out Adam's other work here.

GM CEO asked to leave

The White House has requested GM CEO Rick Wagoner to quit. It seems the restructuring of the US auto manufacturers is finally seeing some action.

Read the article here.

Thanks Yahoo News.

The End of Intelligent Life

This just in: Human Beings Reach New Low in Intelligence.

Reuters journalist Robert Muir has uncovered what I believe to be the final blow against what used to be considered one of the most intelligent races of the known universe. Muir's exquisite 2-page, short form essay entitled "Thirsty plants can Twitter for water with new device" truly defines a world gone mad with science.

Using state-of-the-art technology that is sure to have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant money, researchers at NYU developed a way for a plant to tell its owner, via Twitter, that it was thirsty. Not only that but other technological revolutions have taken place in the daring experiment in which scientists matched each plant with its supposedly correct vocal intonations:

"Each plant had a 'voice' to match the plant type, such as the Scottish moss, which had a Scottish accent."

Even more disturbing is the fact that more than 2,300 people on Twitter are subscribed to one of the researchers plants, Pothos. I believe today is the day that I am now the only one without a Twitter account...

Pictured above: Pothos

Are you also not a media whore? Do you also not have a Twitter account? Let me know in the comments! There are sure to be very few of us still around.

New Rebel shoots HD Video

Just saw this over at PDN Pulse: Canon Rebel T1i Shoots HD Video & High-Res Photos. Shoots 20fps at 1080p, 30fps at 720p and is selling for only $799 (body only) making it the cheapest DSLR that can shoot HD video.

Advertising on the Rise

The horrific economic downturn in the past few months showed a great decrease in the amount of ad spending. But with the DOW on the rise and many insiders saying they hope the worst has come and gone, the people over at Ad Age are blogging about auto manufacturers, McDonalds franchises (and eventually McDonalds HQ, and even the CIA increasing their ad spending.

Also of interest, Ad Age reports that Mini USA increased its sales in 2008 by 28% from 2007. Read more here.

Getting back into film

Just got an Epson V700 and am loving the process of scanning my 120 and 4x5 film. The above shot (click it for a bigger version) was Portra 400NC. Need to buy some more of that...

Work

Found this over at Dean Casavechia's blog. He ffffound it on FFFFOUND.

Andy Freeberg: Sentry

One of my favorite photographers, Timothy Archibald, posted this on his blog. It led me to Freeberg's series entitled "Sentry," images of the reception desks at art galleries in the Chelsea district in NYC. Great concept, great images.

Cost Cutting even back in 2004?

This struck my friend and I as extremely amusing when we were shopping at an H&M in NYC back in '04. The women's section was the same (well, with a girl, not a guy).

Click the image for a bigger size.

Christmas is Over!

Yeah, and it's been over for a long time. I had planned on doing this post the day after Christmas but my computer decided to commit suicide and it's only now that I've got all my images re-tagged and in a sense of order.

In other news, winter seems to have come and gone this past week in lovely California.

Nazi Zombies, Everywhere!

Saw this funny news story. Apparently somebody hacked a construction sign to alert drivers that zombies were near. I hope it was a false drill...

Her Morning Elegance

Love the music to the cool time lapse music video that Eyal Landesman created. Check out the video below and judge for yourself.



Found courtesy A Photo Editor.

More Oren Lavie here.

Photo Contests

The post entitled "The Biggest Scam In Photography" got me thinking about photo contests. I've taken part in a few before; one gaining me some good exposure, the others doing nothing other than stroking my ego and shrinking my wallet. I agree a lot with what Rob has to say but for now at least, I'll still be submitting stuff to the big ones he mentioned. There's nothing like some extra ammunition when you want to go all out and cockrock (definition here courtesy Thomas Broening) when you've got some big name photo contests under your belt.

Seems Rob's post started some controversy (how easy to do) when he specifically mentioned the "Billboard Competition" that PDN runs. The bloggers over at PDN Pulse apparently didn't like it and have their own post defending it.

More:

Good comments in a recent PDN Pulse post that announces the extension of the PDN photo annual deadline, here.

Funny story about winning a contest, here.

Best and Worse Fight Scenes

In my opinion, there's nothing better than a bad movie. Without further ado, truly, the best (in a bad way) fight scene ever:



And the worst (in a good way):



I remember seeing video clips of a great, bad movie over at Something Awful almost 10 years ago but it seems as though they've taken them down. The title had Black, and maybe Hand in it. Basically each fight scene consisted of men slapping each other. Good stuff.

Chase Jarvis Shoe Project

I stumbled upon this random project created by Russell Byrne to shoot hotshot photographer Chase Jarvis' shoes. Got them from another local photographer, Scott Hargis (fantastic Real Estate photography), and incorporated them into a recent shoot. Follow the project at www.chasejarvisshoeproject.com

The Very Calm Photographer

Car photographer Easton Chang posted this hilarious (well, at least to me) animated gif of a photographer at a Rally Race acting like a high speed crash is nothing to fret about.

Original thread: Here