Photography, Thoughts, & Insanity

Summer Is Upon Us. It's Time To Go Hiking.

2011-04-27T22:58:00.004-04:00

Well, it's spring here in Boston and the weather is starting to get nice. This means only one thing. Hiking.

White mountains, Green mountains, Adirondacks, Shawagunks; There's no limit to good hiking in New England! I've got pretty much all the gear I'll ever need, but the last two things I need are fairly big purchases. A tent and a water purifier. I'm not looking for the top-of-the-line, but I want good quality gear that will last.

For the tent I need something that will fit two people, is light weight, has enough extra room to pull a few things inside if it's going to rain, and that breathes well. For the pump I need something, again, light weight, and compact. A lot of people I've talked to and hiked with don't like pumps, but I see them as a necessary piece of gear since I like to carry a lot of water (I always go through it all) and I don't want to risk getting sick. Oh, and the last very minor piece of gear I need, but which is by far the cheapest to put together, is a good cleaning kit. A plastic scrubby sponge, a bottle of Castile soap, and a bag to put 'em in. It may not seem like it, but keeping clean cook wear is hugely important when hiking. Not only does it make cooking more enjoyable since your food won't have the burnt stuck-on remnants of last night's meal, but it also keeps your pack from getting smelly and becoming bear bate.

So, gear aside I want to plan a good number of hiking trips for this summer. Hiking and camping can be a lot of fun, but there's some basic advice you should follow to ensure it stays fun and doesn't turn into a miserable march back to your car, or worse. Here's the list of to do's to get your summer hiking on.

1) Get a map and plan your hike BEFORE you get in the car. Getting familiar with the area you're going to go beat around ahead of time can ensure you a) don't get lost and b) can enjoy the area more because you know where things are and how to get around. Also, planning ahead allows you to have a set game plan while still home, which leads to number two.

2) Tell someone at home where you're going! This can be as simple as telling them what area you're going to or what mountains you're planning on hiking to as complicated as giving them a fully detailed trip plan with marked trails and the dates you plan on being in certain areas. Either way, it's a good idea and wards off the chance of Murphy's law messing things up.

3) Pack only what you need in your pack, but bring everything you might need in the car. It's the worst to carry around extra crap you don't need while on the trail, but it sucks equally to have to do without something you need. Your car will do all the heavy lifting on the stuff you don't bring on the trail, so why not throw it in? Obviously don't take this too far, but don't be afraid to bring some extra food, clothes, and what ever else you might enjoy having more of.

4) Check the weather ahead of time and keep tabs on it up until the day you leave. I've narrowly avoided slogging through weekends of strait rain many times by staying up to date with the weather. If you do get to where you're going and realize the weather is going to be bad, have a plan b.

5) Have a plan b! If your first hike plan isn't going to work out for what ever reason, see if you can salvage things by doing something that will fit your circumstances. Having this planned out already means you won't have to spend your valuable time off or weekend doing it on the spot.

6) Bring friends! Hiking can be fun alone, but in my opinion it's always more fun with friends. The only warning I have here is make sure to invite folks who will enjoy the trip and who are actually up to the task. I've been frustrated in the past by inviting a bud who I thought would have a good time who ended up moving slower than most grandmothers on the trail. If this is worth your friend's company, go for it, but if not, best tell them they should stay home.

7) Ready for this? You make puke a little in your mouth because it's so corny, but have fun! Bring a cell phone (turned off in your bag for emergencies... yes you'll get service on top of a peak), but otherwise cut ties for the weekend and relax knowing you're in a beautiful place, surrounded by friends, and that the world at large can't come hounding you.

Now, gotta plan some good weekend trips and start recruiting. White's first for proximity, but I'm really hoping to get a group together for the Adirondacks soon. The season is upon us. It's time to go hike.

April Trip To San Francisco

2011-04-18T21:53:00.004-04:00

I put the photos up on Flickr from my April trip to San Francisco last night and wanted to share them all here. I got to go out for work, but made sure to take some days beforehand over the weekend to hang out with friends and explore. The visit ended up comprising Palo Alto, down town San Francisco around the Mission, the Tenderloin, Golden Gate Park, Fisherman's Wharf, and more. Anyways, just a simple update with a gallery for everyone to enjoy.

If You Work With Me, You're Gonna Get Flashed: How To Start Learning Flash

2011-04-11T16:20:00.020-04:00

Flash. Get a group of photographers together and bring up this topic and if there's enough alcohol around you've got the geekiest brawl you've ever seen. A lot of photographers seem to either love, hate, or not understand flash and it's a problem. This is pretty literal, but photography is the controlling of light to make an image. With that in mind, why wouldn't it be in a photographers interest to learn how to create light instead of simply choosing how much of it to filter out? I know flash is hard, I'm still learning myself, but learning flash and getting good at it will strengthen any kind of photography you do by infinite amounts.

Ok, so you're starting to think "hrmm... maybe I'll hear him out, maybe, just maybe, flash is a good thing." Good. Gooooood! Now, take another sip of your acid-laced coffee from your clever lens shaped mug and follow me further down the rabbit hole. There's a couple of things you're going to need to start learning. The most expensive of these initial investments, assuming you already have a camera and lens, is the flash itself. As I'm sure most of you have figured out, I shoot Nikon. As such I use the SB-600, recently replaced by the SB-700, as my strobe workhorse. The nice thing about Nikon when it comes to flash is that much more is designed with it in mind. Without getting into too much technical speak, which I don't fully understand anyways, Nikon does a much better job of integrating many of the features and functions that are key to using flashes into all of their products. For example, most Nikon DSLRs allow you to easily adjust settings for rear and slow shutter flash right on the body. Additionally, their cameras are simply smarter with flash including very detailed profiles for TTL and i-TTL. At any rate, returning to the original thought here, get what ever entry level flash you can afford.

So, you've got your first flash and you're ready to start playing with it. Good! Go get a plain white index card and a couple rubber bands. Now, the easiest, and worst looking, way to use a flash is to have it facing strait on towards your subject. This bombards them with a flash of blinding light that will have them thinking they've been hit by white phosphorus from the center of the sun. Besides the mild discomfort of a burned retina, the pictures also look pretty crummy. The first thing you should try is tilting the flash head at a 65 degree angle and using the rubber bands to fasten the index card to the top. This will bounce some of the flash light onto your subject making it softer while still lighting your subject. Once you've toyed with this and gotten the basics down, look into buying an actual flash diffuser ranging from the cheap $10.00 clip on plastic ones to the Gary Fong LightSphere which runs around $60.00.

The index card trick works great if your out in the open, but if your indoors every surface of the room your in can be your bounce. By simply pointing your flash strait up, at a slight angle, off towards the left, right, or even behind you towards the closest wall, you can bounce light off that achieving a similar effect. if you take just these two pieces of advice into account you've found a super easy way to improve your flash photography.

The final step I recommend in learning flash is to invest in an off-camera flash cord. This allows you to use your flash from, well, anywhere that the cable can stretch to. By doing this you can control much more effectively the direction and angle at which your flash will light your subject. Some of the best portrait work I've seen was done with a simple off-camera flash cord, a paper napkin as a diffuser, and a rubber band to hold it onto the flash head. The important thing here is to experiment. Try different settings on your flash and DSLR, try shooting in different environments, learn why one way of doing things may work in a certain situation and why it won't in another. This leads to the final piece of advice.

You can read books, blogs, internet guides, hell, even listen to the advice of other photographers, but the best way to learn anything still is to go out and start doing it. The awesome thing about digital is that trying new things doesn't cost you a penny. Experiment a LOT! Don't be afraid to fill an entire memory card just to delete every frame. As long as you learned something and the next batch looks better than the last you're doing just fine.

So, here's a final check list.

1) Get a flash! The Nikon SB-700 is a great entry level flash for beginners. For Canon users I recommend the 430EX II.

2) DO NOT shoot with the flash strait on! Try leaving it at an angle.

3) Try using a index card, paper napkin, or anything as a diffuser or bounce to soften your light.

4) Learn to bounce your flash off nearby surfaces. You'll never have to carry a diffuser or bounce card again!

5) Get the flash off your camera! A simple off-camera flash cord like the Nikon SC-28 or Canon OC-E3 will allow you to really up your game.

6) Go out and experiment! Learn what works, doesn't work, and have patience. The only way to get better at anything is hard work. The longer you work at being good with the flash the better you'll become.

You may decide to stick with the natural-light-only path, but knowing more about photography never made anyone a worse photographer. Try it out and maybe the next time your in a pinch on the natural-light-path you'll still be able to pull the shoot off and impress a client.

What I've Been Playing: My Final Fantasy of being a S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

2011-04-01T15:39:00.005-04:00

As I think I've made pretty clear so far, I'm a huge geek. As such I find that one of the most pleasurable ways to pass the time is banging around fantasy worlds with no tangible link to the real world besides a keyboard, mouse, and the warm glow of an LCD monitor. So, I know people must be dying to know exactly which fantasy worlds I've been wasting my time with as of late. Well you're in luck. I'm going to tell you!

First up; Final Fantasy III for the iPhone. Now, this game has been around for more than twenty years (it first came out in Japan in 1990), but it's only been ported to the U.S. and the rest of the world since 2006. Since then the folks over at Square Enix have started repackaging and updating many of the games in the Final Fantasy series updating their graphics amongst many other tweaks. Well, the graphics look really nice on the iPhone, and the game play is refreshingly simple. No super over the top I-have-to-save-the-world-and-have-a-in-depth-relationship-and-deal-with-baggage-from-my-past-because-I'm-a-dark-brooding-hero business in this title. Things are much more topical with you playing as four orphans who find a crystal and are charged with restoring the light across a land tainted by darkness. Translation? Final Fantasy III achieves the perfect level of involvement for something you can play on your cell phone.

I'm not sure how far through the game I am, maybe a third, but I'm having fun with the job system. Right now my team is comprised of a Knight to hand out the ass-whoopin', a sage, because the next quest requires it (lame), a thief for all my sneaky, backstabbing, needs, and a geomancer to turn the bad guys into bloody puddles of pulped flesh. In short, I'm very pleased with Final Fantasy III. How about Square Enix re-release Final Fantasy VII on the iPhone now? Pretty please? Just tell me how I have to ki- err... persuade...

Next up in the list of metaphorical black holes which suck up my time is a game called S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat. Again, I never played this when it first came out, but after seeing it on Steam for $5.00 (now back to $15.00. keep an eye out for specials!) and hearing about the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Complete mod I've been having a great time being scared shittless in the former USSR's back yard. In Call of Pripyat, the third of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series, you play as Major Degtyarev of the Russian Army who is sent in to try and figure out why the events of the end of S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadows of Chernobyl played out like they did. Anyways, it's your basic run around a post-apocalyptic, albeit only in a small area of the world, environment searching for artifacts, the results of strange physics defying anomalies that have been present in the area ever since the accident at the Chernobyl LLC power plant. Now, that may not sound all that scary, but as you play you realize, gee, this is a grim world based more on survival and trying not to soil your pants than shooting up bad guys or collecting weapons.

My first "oh shit!" moment in Call of Pripyat came when I was exploring an underground installation... at night time... while low on ammo. I had just completed a mission exploring locations found in the computer of a downed UAV when I decided, hey, I'm gonna go explore that creepy looking factory. Well, just as soon as I get near it one hell of a thunder and lightning storm kick up. If there's one thing the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series does better than any other game it's atmosphere. I'm already kind of creeped out and thinking this is a bad idea... I save my game. As I get into the factory I get out my flash light and start poking around. I do a quick check of my inventory and realize I only have a few clips left in my assault rifle. Great. I next switch to my field detector to see if there's any sweet ca$h money artifacts I can scoop up. There are! I start following the signal, turn a corner, and- OH FUCK!!!!! The below happens...

Needless to say, I spray a few ineffectual rounds, panic a little running in more-or-less zig zagging circles, and then get gang raped by a pack of Snorks (the guys in the masks). I re-load my save, make a complete 180, and then pause to go change my pants. I've never had so much fun being scared!

To those who may write this game off as a weird shooter/RPG hybrid I think you're missing the point. Call of Pripyat is more about scrounging for survival in a hostile environment than it is anything else. As a result, aspects of RPGs and horror first person shooters combine beautifully. Not only do you have to worry about baddies sneaking up on you, jumping out of shadows, and not letting your mouse hand tremble as lightning arcs across the sky, but you also have to worry about how many more hits your suit can take before you're naked as a jay bird, how many rounds you have left, and how many more bandages you can go through before bleeding out a slow, unheroic death. Like I said earlier, there simply isn't another game that achieves what Call of Pripyat does in terms of scope while still having one of the most immersing, beautiful, and at times bowl looseningly scary settings I've yet to encounter.

Now, if only the new MechWarrior reboot or Hawken will come out so I can get my mech on...

Time Out! Freelance Photography

2011-03-22T12:52:00.009-04:00

I must have the worlds best friends because recently a friends "I have a friend who's a photographer" banter at a party actually led me to a great freelance opportunity. I recently made a connection with Time Out Worldwide and their most recent addition to the family, Time Out Boston! I've only done a few assignments so far, but it's been a great way to get some experience doing freelance work.

So far I've shot a Girl Talk concert at the House of Blues in Boston, a few editorial shots of a lingerie shop, Agent Provocateur, for a Best Lingerie of Boston article, and the St. Patrick's day parade in South Boston. Out of the three only the Girl Talk photos have made it up on the website so far, but I'll be sure to add the other two once they make it up. It's been really nice to be doing assignments because I can fit them around my day job, and it's giving me an opportunity to do a wider variety of photography than just strait up commercial shoots. The money isn't great, but I guess that's not to be expected. Way more important than money I'm happy to be doing as many jobs as I can with Time Out for the experience and chance to have some of my photos published. All in all, it's a great experience and I'm lucky as hell to be doing this.

Eventually I'll upload some of the photos I've shot from Time Out, but it'll probably be awhile. Right now I'm required to wait 45 days from the date of publication before I can distribute the photos anywhere. Wah wah. Oh well, they'll eventually make it onto my Flickr page.

I'll try and update what I'm doing with Time Out from time to time and will continue linking to articles my photos get used in. Once the 45 day wait on each shoot runs out I'll put a few select pics up on Flickr, too, so that I can post the galleries directly like I've done with my other stuff.

Update 3/24/2011: Added links to the Agent Provocateur photo shoot on Time Out Boston as well as the St. Patrick's Day Parade. What whaaaaat!

Oh, Hello 5D Mark II: Breaking Into DSLR Video

2011-03-18T15:42:00.005-04:00

These haunting words from one of my photojournalism professors from Boston University have ended up being profoundly true. Peter Southwick once said "some day you'll be asked to take pictures, capture video, record audio, and still make your deadlines," and he was right. It doesn't In college I took a multimedia class and a video production class to, you know, give myself a well rounded media background. More than two years later and shooting, editing, and figuring out how to use video for a well respected corporation. Yea, that was a good class.

Recently, I just got the go ahead to buy a bunch of new video equipment from my boss to give us the capabilities to shoot high-quality video. Making up the heart and soul of the system is Canon's 5D Mark II DSLR. Besides being a brilliant still image camera, the 5D Mark II also takes stunning video. It's video is so good that many big TV and movie studios have opted to use it in productions. Watch the TV show House? If so, you've watched footage shot on a 5D Mark II. I decided to go with Canon's 24mm f/2.8 lens since it's such a great all-around piece of glass. It can go from wide angle to a modest telephoto, it's durable and well built, and it's got a pretty low aperture making it possible to get great depth of field in a wide range of situations. Complimenting this setup I'll be purchasing a RODE VideoMic, a Calumet Pro Series LED panel, and a Calumet Pro Series 7" LCD Monitor.

I'm still trying to figure out what kind of stabilization rig and tripod to get. Tripods always through me for a bit of a loop. I'm sure some people will strongly disagree with me on this, but if I had to choose a piece of equipment I have the most trouble spending money on, since, after all they all do more or less the same job, it's the tripod. The rig is a bit more complicated. In a perfect world I'd like to have one stabilizer which can be used for off-tripod shooting which I can attach the camera, the LED light panel, mic, and LCD video screen to all at the same time. The real kicker would be if this stabilization rig could then have a quick-release plate on the bottom so I can mount it on a tripod and not have to switch setups if I want to do on-tripod or off-tripod shooting. Ooph. After I get all of this together and start working with it the only other thing I'll need is a follow focus and maybe a matte box.

Besides the capability to shoot really stunning video the other big change that's going to come with the 5D Mark II will be how I edit video. MediaStorm has been a really invaluable asset in figuring out new profiles, workflows, and best practices for editing the 5D Mark II's gargantuan HD video output. So far the little bit of test video I did with a 5D Mark II went smoothly editing wise, but we'll see how it is when we start filming things that are longer than a few seconds.

The other concern for me right now is audio. The RODE mic is great, but we'll probably need a lavaliere mic as well to wire folks up for better sound. Cool, great, dandy; I can do that. My problem here, though, is folks keep pushing for a wireless set, but we don't need one! It's overly complex, introduces way too many possibilities for issues, and is super expensive. Why not get a simple lav mic that's 7" or so long and just plug it into the camera? Also, from what I've read I may need to get us an H4n recorder to record audio separate from the camera and then sync it with the video, but this also seems a bit unnecessary. I know the audio will be clearer, but syncing seems like a pain in the ass. I'll have to do more research here.

Video. Never thought I'd be doing this much work with it. Never thought I'd enjoy it this much, either. More to come...

Minecraft Mania!

2011-03-14T16:04:00.006-04:00

Lately I've been escaping from the less glamorous aspects of life with a indie game called Minecraft. Minecraft is a simple game based on cubed blocks and a cleaver gathering and crafting mechanic to turn raw materials into various building blocks. In short, if you ever played with Lego's as a kid you would love Minecraft. So what's the point? Build, survive, explore, whatever!

When you start a new game your two-block-tall avatar is plopped do

wn in a randomly generated environment with a night and day cycle. Some of the first things you'll do in Mincraft probably involve punching trees for blocks of wood, crafting your first work bench, making your first wooden tools on said bench, and perhaps starting to mine into the rocky ground. As soon as your first night roles around, though, the game revealed it's true dangers. The virgin land you woke up in, you realize, isn't only inhabited by sheep, chickens, pigs, and cows, but all sorts of creepy bump-in-the-night monsters, too. The first time you're walking around at night, naive to dangers your placing yourself in, and you see one of these you probably shout something to the effect of "OH F&$*!" and fall out of your office chair because it's missing a wheel and is off balance... This may also just be my experience.

This is a creeper, one of the most infamous Mincraft monsters. Unlike the other monsters such as zombies, skeletons, and spiders, all of which make noises from pretty far away to alert you to their presence, the creeper is silent. They blend in with the grass and trees, and then by the time you notice them they're making the noise of... hey, that sounds like the fuse on dynamite- BOOM! The creeper explodes in a fiery blaze of house-wrecking kamikaze concussion. To put it lightly, you're not just building or mining in this game for the sake of building and mining. Your home is also your fortress; the last bastion of your safety and solitude!

Anyways, I've been playing for a few weeks now and have a world with a couple pretty cool achivements. Maybe I'll figure out a way to make a video and post a tour of my bases on vimeo for curious eyes to ogle. It's got a aqueduct, balcony, hydroponics setup for wheat and sugar cane, hanging gardens, pools, waterfalls, and it's all perfectly walled off from the outside world offering me a safe haven to, well, wait until the sunlight purges all the worlds evil night time denizens. Besides being a great building/resource gathering sandbox game, Minecraft also has some really great visuals and music to compliment the world. C418, the guy who made all of the sounds effects for Minecraft as well as its incredible soundtrack really breathes a life into the game that I've yet to see in another game. You might think the simplicity of 16-bit music, sounds, and graphics would hamper the Minecraft game experience, but it's so well done it's one of its biggest strengths. The first time you return to your home, safe for the evening, and one of C418's tracks kicks in just as the sun begins to set you realize the true magic of Minecraft.

Typography And Beyond

2011-03-11T13:21:00.004-05:00

This last fall I took Typography I at Mass Art and, wow, I learned a lot about type, layout, and design in general. What a great class! My teacher, Nancy Goulet, who has her own design company, studio;wink, was not only a lot of fun to be around, but also a really great teacher. The class was based around the premise that my class worked for Nancy and our class was a design firm. We would do projects every week to two weeks, sometimes doubling up, and would come in with our work and critique. I can't say enough good things about this style of teaching. I got to get close with my classmates and make a few friends, I got a great deal of feedback on my work and really good criticism that made me grow as a designer, and I got a bit of a taste of the real world, kinda, maybe.

Below are a couple of projects I did ranging from Book covers, to a magazine spread on Paul Rand, to a type portrait, and abstract letters exercise. I think the biggest thing I walked away from this class with is confidence and a deeper understanding of process for both myself and design. Learning that sometimes you need to stare at something and start saying "ok, so what can I take away" and that this process really does improve you work is huge. Even better, looking at something and knowing that I just want to be done, dealing with that, and then making a piece better in spite of myself. Doing great is, well, great, but doing great knowing you did the right thing and didn't give in to laziness is truly a unique feeling. I think this is one of the most brutal and coolest parts of graphic design.

A designer can spend hundreds of hours on a project, or only a couple. In both cases, the designer may come up with the most brilliant final piece conceived by man since the pointy stick, but process matters. Ultimately, what you put in is what you get out. If you only need two hours to do a project and you absolutely know you've got what you want, great! If you're like the rest of us and realize that you're really going to need to put in the time and effort to get it right, that's the only thing holding you back from success.

More design work to come once I'm back in class!

Getting Back Into Blogging

2011-03-10T14:33:00.002-05:00

Well, I did it...

I said long ago that I never wanted to be one of those people who starts a blog, stays with it for a few months, and then never touches it again. To this extent, I have failed you all. The good news, though, is that I'm going to do my best to cure my blog of internet atrophy and restore it to a healthy, well maintained blog.

The last time I posted anything here was August of 2010. So, it's basically been about seven months. Wow! A lot has changed since then, but a good amount is also the same. I got kicked out of an apartment because our landlords sold it, moved into a new one, started shooting freelance for Time Out Boston, enrolled in the Massachusetts College of Art and Design's graphic design certificate program, have been doing more with video at work, and have done some more commercial photography.

On the 'same' side of things I'm still working at Forrester Research doing design, am still living in Brighton, and am still hanging out with the usual suspects.

So, what's next? Well I should write a few posts covering a number of things. Definitely a post on some of the fun stuff I'm doing for Time Out Boston. A post on Minecraft, one of my new video game obsessions. A post on some of the graphic design work I've been up to recently. And finally, a post on my recent adventures including Maine and the coolest dog EVER!

So, two the tens of people reading this I promise to make a renewed effort to actually put out new posts and to keep this little corner of the internet from disappearing into the vast exabytes of dark, unused internet out there.

San Francisco, 2010

2010-08-07T17:11:00.003-04:00

I recently went out to San Francisco for the engagement party of two of my best friends from college and I only have one thing to say. Wow. Why do I live in Boston again? Anyways, a whole bunch of us went out and I was lucky enough to share my flight out, as well as most of the trip, with my friends Pete and Alden, stay at my friend Shelly's place right on Ashbury street a block up from Haight, and fly back with my friends Matt and Craig. What a trip! We packed a lot into the four days we were there, and man. I can't wait to go back!

We went to Fisherman's Warf, Haight Street, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Golden Gate Park, out to Palo Alto for the engagement party, the Castro, the business district, and many more places. Not only was this my first time in California, but it was also my first time in San Francisco. I'd say for a first trip we crammed in a lot of good stuff. I've posted some photos on Flickr from the trip, so, take a peak and enjoy!

Samples From Graphic Design I At Mass Art

2010-07-23T16:27:00.003-04:00

What a day for updates, huh? Three posts in a row! Maybe I should have staggered my posts to make it appear like I actually am updating this regular- I mean... I guess I'll have to come up with more fresh content. Anyways, I'm posting photos based on two projects I worked on while taking Graphic Design I with Dan Vlahos at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.

The first assignment was called one-word-one-image and was based around the idea of choosing a word and basing an image on a 11"x17" sheet of paper to convey the image. The piece had to read quickly while delivering a message, a concept Dan calls "1+1=3." The word/image I came up with was using the word Consume in a "The Price Is Right" type font next to a pop-art illustration of a steak shaped like the United States on a plate next to silverware. The idea was to allude to the idea of excess in American culture and how a lot of things in American society are based around the ideas of commercialism and capitalism. Put more simply, I like it because it's got a steak shaped like America.

The second assignment was about creating a brand identity for a small environmental organization in Boston called EarthWorks. The idea was to first create a logo and then a matching identity that EarthWorks could adopt to improve it's image and also that would be able to grow with the organization and not become outdated. My final design was pretty heavily influenced by designer Paul Rand who has created some big identities including the ABC television network, IBM, UPS, and the The Ford Motor Company. A lot of his designs are pretty simple, ABC's being a black circle with Helvetica cut-out letters saying "abc" in the middle, but done in such a way that they are pretty timeless. Basically, he makes really interesting, modern logos that still look good decades later. That said, I think my logo looks pretty modern, friendly, and like the logo of a organization bigger than EarthWorks providing a certain level of head room for them to grow with this identity. This assignment was especilly cool because I felt pretty pushed to create a increasingly minimalist design that still accomplished Dan's guiding principal of "more is less" and "1+1=3."

In the end the class was a ton of fun, I made a number of good friends, and I also learned a lot about design. For the fall semester I'm now trying to decide whether I should take typography or Graphic Design II. Decisions, decisions. Also, I need to finalize my plans for applying for the certificate program (or not). I guess well see...

Sunset From My Roof

2010-07-23T12:30:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to share another set of photos. These are from the roof of my apartment in Brighton after a rainstorm let up and the sun came out. Ended up creating some the brightest most vibrant photos I've ever taken. The only down side now is that some idiots in my building were grilling right up on the edge of the roof recently and got in trouble. Now, the door to the roof is now 'fixed', making it impossible to get up on the roof. DAMN! I suppose someone could break it, but, seeing as we were written up for being up there last time, I'd rather not be a suspect and fined $1000.00. Anyways, It was sweet while it lasted, roof, but it wasn't meant to last...

In loving memory...

Random Photos From The Archives

2010-07-23T12:15:00.002-04:00

I realized the other day that there are a number of photos I've taken that I really like that haven't made their way to my Flickr account, the online home of my photos, and figured I'd do one big update. Also, sorry I haven't really posted anything in, oh, three months. That's pretty fail of me, I know. Going to try and make a renewed effort to create new posts. Anyways, so some of the photos I'm going to put in this random little collection are from Thailand, Cambodia, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Take a peak and enjoy!

London and Back

2010-03-31T15:03:00.003-04:00

Hello,

It's been a busy month. Work has been, well, work (I mean that in a good way) and the rest of life have been moving along nicely. I'm settled in an amazing new apartment with a great view of Boston, which I've already posted on Flickr, and I found some time to visit friends in London! My friend, Sam, is an art business student at Sotheby's and has been living in London for the past six months. Our good friend from College, Shelly, had decided to go out and see Sam earlier in February and when I found out I decided 'hey, it would be fun to go to London to explore and see two of my best friends from college.' Needless to say, it was incredible! London is an incredible city and seeing it for the first time with my friends was definitely the way to do it. I found myself having trouble taking photos, but I think that's because I really wanted to see the city as a inhabitant and not as a photographer. This is a problem I face a lot, especially traveling and hiking.

Hiking may be a situation where a lack of photography is understood, but traveling? Isn't that where one should find some of the best photography? The short answer? Yes. The long one? Yea, but I'm a ninny and it's hard for me to concentrate on enjoying my friends, the city, photography, and not getting hit by a bus all at once. As a result, the photos I'm posting up on Flickr are limited in number. Oh well. At any rate, I had an excellent time and can't wait to go back!

Spring is FINALLY starting to show up in Boston (barely) and even if there aren't too many budding plants we're definitely starting to get spring showers (read: intense flooding due to tens of inches of rain fall). I'm excited for this summer, and can't wait to go hiking, to the cape, and to be able to ride my bike all around Boston again. I'm planning on taking friends down to Provincetown in the end of April, but other than that I'm just seeing where things take me. It's kind of nice not to have any plans. So what's up for the immediate future? Starting to look for an apartment with my girlfriend (or possibly keeping the one I'm in now), playing with my cameras more, getting my bike tuned up, going to Provincetown soon.

Not a bad deal!

PS. I took the Leica M3 to London as well, but have yet to get the film developed. Here's to hoping that the x-ray machine didn't kill my film...

And Then There Was An M3...

2010-03-04T10:56:00.006-05:00

HOORAY! I've finally got my hands on a Leica M3! I recently bought the M3 from an old college professor of mine, and now good friend, Joe Lippincott. Joe and Karen, Joe's wife, run a pretty large camera equipment business out of their home in Quincy and have one of the nicest selections of Leicas in the North East. On top of great selection, Joe really knows his stuff and is a great guy.

The M3 I got was manufactured in 1957 and is a double-stroke, meaning it takes two cranks of the film-advance lever between shots. The reason for the double-stroke is because back when the M3 was first introduced Leica ran into a problem devising a mechanism that could advance film in one stroke. The early prototypes they developed advanced film with a single-stroke, but often times the torque was so high from the single-stroke lever that the film would rip, destroying the roll. As a result, early M3s have a double-stroke lever.

In addition to the M3 body I also bought a 50mm f/2.0 Dual Range Summicron lens and the 'eyes' that go with it to correct the Leica's focusing system for the closer focusing setting, one of the closest Leica ever manufactured, the lens offers. This lens is so notorious for its sharpness that it was later used by NASA to take photographs of the moon. The lens we pre-focused on Earth and after traveling over 238,000 miles to the moon was only off by 400 feet. Not bad!

Next step? Take some photos with the bad-larry! I'm going to buy a few rolls of Kodak Tri-X 400 and 100 film and go to it. Hopefully once I've shot some stuff I can go use Boston Unversity's wet-lab (before it's taken out) to soup my film, or at the very least, to use the labs negative scanners. We'll have to see!

In other news, I'm going to London soon to visit some friends, so I'll most definitely be bringing the Leica on it's first adventure (with me, anyways). Hopefully I'll have some goodies up from there once I get back. Photos will be on the Flickr account soon!

Photo Illustration Time

2010-01-28T16:10:00.007-05:00

The last few days I've been working off of a tutorial that was originally posted on Computer Arts, a great website for graphic design which posts literally hundreds of free tutorials with all the required support files, and I'm happy with the results. Basically the project was how to make perfect vector portraiture using mainly the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator. Simeon Elson, a graphic designer, put the tutorial together for Computer Arts and I'm pretty impressed. It was easy to follow, pretty basic, and the end result is very cool. The only discrepancy I have between the tutorial and how my project turned out is the time required. Apparently it only takes Simeon four hours to make one of these bad boys, where it took me... much longer. But hey, it was my first time, right? Anyways, here are the two photo illustrations (one in black and white and the other in color) and the original source photo I used to make them. I'll also provide a link directly to the tutorial if you feel like giving it a go yourself.

Hope everyone enjoys. I'm going to try and add photos from the rest of the Minq Vaadka shoot to my Flickr account tonight for everyone to enjoy. Hopefully have something interesting and new to share with everyone soon, as well.

Oh, and PS: the Apple iPad ended up being a disapointment for what I thought it was going to be, but a surprise in others. Moral of the story? I'm skipping the first gen, and definitely picking up a second gen. Movies, all my music in once place, and the awesome apps that I'm sure will be out (and still coming out) by the time the second gen rolls in? Yea, I'll take one.

Minq Vaadka Photos Finally Surface! Oh, And There's a Show Feb 11 at Joe's Pub

2010-01-26T13:18:00.010-05:00

It took awhile, but here are some of the photos I did for my friend Adam in New York. Did I say some? I meant two of them... Adam used these two photographs for use in a postcard going out to fans as a reminder for one of his first shows as Minq Vaadka. The photos came out GREAT I'm excited to say, especially since taking them involved throwing large quantities of pink paint at a shirtless Adam in twenty degree weather. I'll post the two images with the post card treatment here now and hopefully add a few of the actual photos to the mix once I'm home again (staying in the city for the next few nights most likely). At any rate if you're wondering what Minq Vaadka is like, this says it all...

"Sexy Weimar burlesque and blistering loser rock crash head-on under the mantle of Minq Vaadka, NYC's newest musical anomaly. Somewhere in the no-man's land between Jack White, David Bowie and Tom Waits, Minq Vaadka chills with his melodies, thrills with his lyrics, and spills his vocal guts and blood all over the stage."
-Joe's Pub

"Utterly bipolar..."
-Dr. Jerry Dash

For anyone in the New York area the show will be on Thursday, February 11 at 11:30 PM at Joe's Pub. Tickets are $12.00 and go to supporting awesome music, so you shouldn't feel bad about ponying up. If things work out I'll make it down to shoot the first show. Without further adieu, the postcard photos...

Besides finally getting up old photos from New York I also went with Betsy out to Otter River State Forest in western Mass. It was nice to get out and take in some winter splendor. Otter River State Forest was a pretty beautiful place, although there were a lot more snow mobiles than I expected there to be (I'm pretty sure we were basically walking around snow-mobile paths the whole time). At any rate, it was beautiful and I got some good shots from that too. I'll have to get those on Flickr as well when I get the rest of the Minq Vaadka shoot up. At any rate, stroll on over to www.MinqVaadka.com and check out some of Adam's music here. It's awesome

Happy 2010! Hawaii, New York City, and beyond!

2010-01-04T15:50:00.003-05:00

Happy New Year 2010! The last few weeks have been very busy for me. Christmas was great; I spent it with my family out in Framingham. The next day I went to Hawaii for a week plus New Years, and then as soon as I got back to Boston I went strait to New York City to visit my friends John, Pat, and Adam. Pat is in the Marines and this is his last break before re-deploying to Afghanistan for his last tour. John and I have known pat since eighth grade when we all were at the Fay School. Adam and John met in college, and since then, the four of us have become pretty tight. Not only are these guys my best friends, they're incredibly good people.

Anyways, Hawaii was incredible. It's one of the most beautiful places on earth I've ever been. I got a lot of great photos. My girlfriend and I stayed with her parents on the island of Oahu just outside of Honolulu. We went hiking, to the beach, got a great tour of Pearl Harbor, went to a Kona Coffee and Macadamia nut farm, and tons more. As you might expect, being in such a beautiful place I got a LOT of photos I'm really proud of. I'll be posting them from Flickr soon. Take a peak.

Also, soon I'll be posting some head shots I did for Adam. He dressed as his rock persona, Minq Vaadka, and in twenty-something degree weather we doused him with pink paint, and took a lot of photos. The photos came out GREAT. I still have to do a lot of the clean up on the shots, but I'm happy with them so far. I'll hopefully have those up soon. In the meantime, enjoy the Hawaii shots and...

HAPPY 2010! May it find us all happy, healthy, wealthy, and wise.

From The Archives... '07 to '09

2009-12-17T13:50:00.006-05:00

Ok! So here's a selection of photos from my entire archive I've always liked, but that never made their way into anything. The graffiti shot was used in a multimedia piece on graffiti in Boston I made, but other than that it hasn't been featured anywhere. Same with the fashion shots, the head shots I did for a friend earlier this spring, and other random goodies going up in this Flickr set. Take a peak, and hopefully, enjoy!

Respect: Graffiti in Boston from Nick Welles on Vimeo.

Winter Photos Plus Digging Through The Archives...

2009-12-17T11:54:00.003-05:00

Hi,

Here are the winter photos I promised to post (finally up). I think the thing I enjoyed the most about shooting some natural scenes with the snow was playing with the sun and light. In a lot of ways snow changes the rules of photography because all of the sudden things are way more reflective and take on entire new characteristics. An example of this is the shot I have of some melting snow on the end of a branch. The snow is beginning to melt so it's not only becoming a bit translucent, but also reflecting much more light than if I had shot the same photo, but without snow. I think this is another interesting part of snow and winter since it's completely conditional. At any rate, it's interesting and I hope we can get some more snow so I can go have more fun photographing it.

Anyways, I'm going to continue to pick through my archives to try and find more interesting shots so that I can share some older, never-before-seen works of mine that I'm proud of. Well see what I can come up with...

Where's The Light Painting?

2009-12-16T23:23:00.002-05:00

So there's been a small hitch in my light painting plans... I haven't done it. Alternatively, though, I did go out and take some really nice shots of the first decent snow we've had here in eastern Massachusetts this winter. Due to some size limits I'll be editing those down to a acceptable size for Flickr, and then they will be available. So what else is new? Well, there's eight days left until Christmas, I may be moving into a new apartment in Brighton with friends even sooner, and only nine days until I'm off to Hawaii for New Years! Needless to say I'm pretty excited. My New Years resolution is going to be to to get my ass in gear and get back on top of my photography. So, basically here it is:

1) I need to get my own head shots/commercial photography gig off the ground. Even if it's just doing portraits here-and-there I have GOT to get this going. If it goes well, there's money to be made, which is always a good thing, and if nothing else it's another step in the right direction.

2) To experiment, explore, and shoot more. I need to carry my camera more and take more time to try and work an area or subject to get some good shots. It's cold out, and that sucks, but it just needs to be done. No more "eh, I'm tired," or "but I could be doing something else." I gotta shoot more

3) To try and find some freelance journalism work. I haven't done much journalistically since graduation. That really really really needs to change. Whether it's shooting the rare assignment for a local paper, or doing a full-time gig as a staff photographer, I need to get out there and do more with my photography.

SO! These are things I really and truly hope to do in 2010. Regardless of any of this I am going to have a bunch of new stuff up on Flickr soon. I plan on going through a lot of old photography that has random shots I like, but that haven't seen the light of day, and uploading them. I think it will be interesting in a lot of ways to go through what I've shot and see how much I have buried away that simply just hasn't been shown. Tomorrow; snow photos and what ever else I can find.

Goodnight!

Coming Soon: Light Painting.

2009-11-30T12:36:00.005-05:00

So I've been meaning to go on a creative kick for a week now and just, well, haven't. SO! I'm hoping that by posting something here that maybe I'll feel more pressure to present some results to the three people who actually read my stuff. SO, here are my ideas as of now.

FIRST: Barn window w/ ghost. One of the first ideas I got involved trails of wisp like light leading to one of the windows in the barn at my mom's house in Framingham. The trails would lead in and be blurred and long to make them look like they flowed. Basically, these trails would snake in through an open door and then end illuminating my own silhouette in one of the windows. The end effect would be something kind of ghost-looking like. Not only would this be relatively easy to do, but pretty freaking cool. Only down side is I'll probably need some helping hands.

SECOND: I want to find a pretty landscape or two and then make lines or circles or shapes in general only using the primary colors to highlight certain aspects of the landscape. This one is an idea I've seen done before and I think would be really fun to do. This one is much more 'get there, look around, and make something up on the fly' versus a planned out scene.

THIRD: Get a really dark room and set my lens to a small aperture and make some art with light. Basically, the dark is the canvas, and the flashlight/gel combo is the brush and paint. Wow, corny analogy. Anyways, this would be fun to practice and to see if I can't come up with some neat ideas. I imagine some of the old style of 'smoky' intricate art I used to use to make tattoos.

Maybe if I get some time later today I'll sketch some concepts up for each of these and scan/upload them. if anyone else has any idea or would like to come out some night this week and light paint with me, lets make it happen! Just get in touch and we can schedule something.

New York City! ... and Queens

2009-11-19T00:57:00.004-05:00

Last weekend I went down to New York City with my girlfriend Betsy to visit my good friends John and Adam. John got a new apartment in Queens, which I think I mentioned we painted part of, and yea. It was a really good weekend spent going to museums, getting tea and coffee in fancy hotels (and 'liberating' their fancy pens), and wandering around the awesomeness that is New York City. Anyways, I just wanted to get these photos up for you all to enjoy before hitting the hay.

Also, I've been thinking about applying some graphic elements to my photos (since both are something I enjoy) and creating some new kind of art. I found some good inspiration on a website I check out pretty regularly called Computer Arts. We'll see what I come up with, but hopefully if I get some time soon I'll get some work done. Coincidentally, I need to get either another monitor for my computer, because this 14" isn't doing it for photo/graphic design work, or get a HDTV for my xbox/the future so I can take my monitor back. Somehow I see the second of the two options coming true.

Anyways, ENJOY! Leave some feedback and let me know what you all think.

Photos From Vermont

2009-11-18T15:08:00.008-05:00

So I realized that I never posted my photos from Vermont in October. My girlfriend and I went up to Killington and stayed at a really nice lodge called the Snowed Inn (cleaver, huh?) and hiked, poked around Woodstock, and had a really nice, relaxing weekend. Photos from NYC to come as soon as I get home this evening. Until then, enjoy Vermont!

New York City: An Adventure at The MET, SOHO, and Queens

2009-11-17T11:53:00.014-05:00

I went to New York this weekend to visit one of my closest and oldest friends, a one Mr. John Robichaue, and to take in the city and have some fun. Well, as predicted, it was awesome. I learned about the incredibleness which is Jan Svankmajer (his shorts are really crazy/interesting and apparently he did a version of Alice in Wonderland), got to wander a really good chunk of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and roamed the streets of NOHO and SOHO, all while still getting to help paint John's room in his new apartment! It was a really great time. New York City is such an cool place for so many reasons. It's interesting, diverse, crowded, busy, pretty, ugly, and so many more adjectives. I don't know how id' do to live there full time, and I definitely like it a LOT more during the summer, but for a few days/weeks it's an incredible place!

It was a good weekend for me as a photographer, too. I couldn't explain why, but it was a welcomed vacation from my usual ways of seeing. It was re-invigorating because there was just so much new stuff to look at and I think I've been craving that for awhile now, so my minds eye was up to the task of consuming it all and trying to make photos from that. The MET photography exhibits were incredible, too. It was interesting to see a lot of more abstract modern photography, which gave me a number of cool ideas, as well as to see some stuff that was definitely more 'art' using the tools of photography than, well, photography. There was an example of one piece that has gotten me thinking which was a portrait of a photographer (I've completely lost the name now) where he took a one pixel sliver from head to toe and simply repeated it out by maybe 5,000 pixels or so to create an image that was indisputably a self portrait, but looked more like a small European nations flag than anything else. It was very cool. At any rate, I tried doing the same thing and the results came out kind of cool. Likewise, it's made me think a lot about abstract photography and projects I want to do. I feel like I have the energy/ideas to tackle some more interesting photo projects, like taking a photo of myself and then printing it, and continuing to photograph that photo, printing, and photographing that print, etc. to show the effects of digital degradation. Also, it's given me the confidence to do some photojournalism again. I just need to find something I want to cover, now! It also means I need to reach out to my friends and see what photojournalism opportunities are out there and really get out there again.

Well, once I'm home again and not bouncing around Boston I'll get some photos online and show you all what I've been up to. Also, I'll try and keep musing on projects. I want to figure out a project to merge some of the design I was doing with some photography. We'll just have to see what I come up with. Until then, I leave you with my one pixel self-portrait. Oh, and some Jan Svankmajer for you, too. He uses stop action photography with puppets, clay, and even actors. It's pretty incredible. Take a gander.