A Season of Tanagers

Had the chance to check out my bro Shane's new band A Season of Tanagers at The White Eagle McMenamins.  Full disclosure; Shane used to drum in my last band, which was unarguably the greatest band that had ever existed in the history of forever, and I'll reveal the name of that band when I'm famous, and you can all run to iTunes to buy our album.  So, conflict of interests aside, his new band kicks ass.  Here's some pics from their first show.

 

  

  

 

  

  

  

  

  

Be sure to check them out the next time they play, and come dressed for Spaghetti Western cosplay.

Where in I become the Borg

In my shame I must admit I am no longer the impossibly cool rebel you all admire so feverishly.  Like a three legged cat defeated by a burrito wielding washing machine, I have joined Facebook.  The pressure was indescribable.  I hope that one day we can all come to respect each other again, and collectively bury our shame.

Behind The Scenes - Hanna

Helped out Jess from Jessica Watson Photography for her shoot with the lovely Hanna.  In this instance as her lighting slave.  For those of you who follow me on Twitter, and I know it's an incredibly exclusive group, you might have seen the lighting set up, and the out of camera image for the shot below.

I'll be tweeting pics of my lighting set ups, and other behind the scene thingies for most of my upcoming projects, and shoots that I collaborate on.

And in case you're taking part in Jess's Bella Femme boudoir package (and OMG you should), which the Hanna shoot is an example of, I should note that I am in no way involved in that (it's definitely a No Boys Allowed kind of shoot).

Icarus The Owl

Did a shoot last week with the guys from Icarus the Owl, who are kicking off their national tour Febuary 20th at Satyricon.  Do yourself a favor and check them out, you can give them a listen at their MySpace page.  I had actually shot the band in a previous incarnation last year, and ended up putting together all the artwork and packaging for their album The Spotless Mind.  Here's the artwork I did for the cover...

The new touring line up dropped by the studio, and we had a fun laid back shoot.  I kept the lighting set up pretty simple, just my ring flash mounted with the moon unit for my main, and my AB800 with a strip light whenever I needed some back light.  I wanted to keep a casual but edgy feel, and not anything that might look over-produced, so I avoided any really dynamic light, and tried to go with 'I'm not posing' kinds of poses.

 

  

 

Again, be sure to check them out if they're playing near you.  And if anyone is interested in how I processed these shots let me know in the comments.  If I get enough interest I'd gladly share my layers pallet, or even make an action or two.

Fun With Kids, Cameras, and Smoke Monsters

Hellz yeah, once again it is time to nerd out, and prepare for a bevy of half baked time travel theories that always coincide with a new season of Lost.  I was stoked to see one of the extremely few TV shows I care about back on, even more so since it was a great season premier.  To celebrate, me and the kids decided to have a little fun making our own smoke monsters.

The set up is pretty simple, here's what you need to do it yourself;

1- Any camera with a hot shoe, macro setting, and tripod.
2- A remote flash (wired or wireless)
3- A dark surface for backdrop
4- Incense

We just set up the camera facing the back of our couch, pointed the flash at the smoke from the side so it wouldn't hit the backdrop, focused in on the smoke, and fired away.  I took the shots while the kids (Calvin and Noah for future reference) waved stuff in the smoke to create turbulence.

I won't bore you, my imaginary readers, with the pics we got.  Have you ever seen smoke?  Yeah, they look like that.  The fun part was taking them into Photoshop, and having the kids tell me what they wanted to do to the smoke to turn it into their very own smoke monsters.  The following pics were manipulated with simple hue/saturation adjustments, mirroring, and some warping.  What they came up with cements in mind both their genius, and their obvious need for future therapy.

 

Personally I see some creepy stuff in there, but then I always flunked those Rorschach tests.  If you want to give it a try, it's a quick and easy project that's fun for all the pyros in the family.  Drop a message in the comments section if you'd like to see a more detailed tutorial on this.

Before putting the gear away today, I decided to do some practice for my upcoming skate and snowboard series that will involve some sequence shots.  We had lost the light, so it's a pretty grainy shot, but I'll leave you with little Calvin in a shot I call Batman's Humble Beginnings.

('’)