Wayne's World

RED Epic

2011-07-23T12:06:00.000-04:00

Got a chance to shoot with the RED Epic yesterday, courtesy of Pier 59 studios. It's a pretty sweet little camera. A little too rich for my blood, but definitely significantly better than a DSLR for video. The best feature for me, 300fps capability. The worst feature for me? No buttons! Having to do EVERYTHING in software menu's is a royal pain in the ass. LAME. I thought RED, 'got it' about pro video production, but apparently not. The more analog dials knobs and buttons for us to control, the better!

Amazing Water Trick! How to Suspend Water Without a Cup!

2011-02-21T19:26:00.001-05:00

Even though it's probably fake, still a nice CGI effect trick! nice motion tracking.

New Lifestyle Video

2010-12-19T16:00:00.007-05:00

I took advantage of the fall foliage in Central Park and did a lifestyle photo shoot! Can't you just imagine these shots being used for a smartphone, JCPenny, or insurance commercial? That's the idea!

View on ExposureRoom

Shot on Canon Eos 7D
libec ls-22m tripod with T78 legs
EF 50mm 1.4 lens
EF-S 10-22mm ultrawide lens

Gena's Model Mayhem profile

"Seed (the song)"
by snowflake
2010 - Licensed under Creative Commons

new Time-lapse HD video reel

2010-08-10T18:09:00.003-04:00

I've added a new time-lapse video of shots I took on my recent trip to LONDON, UK. This was pre-riots btw.

View on ExposureRoom

a cockroach named Wanda

2010-03-04T16:22:00.003-05:00

So I found a german cockroach in my cupboard yesterday, (don't tell my wife! She'll go nuts.) I think it was a lone survivor from the basement, which recently got bug-bombed by the tenant there, so hopefully that did the trick. Anyway, in researching what kind of roach it was, I found out it was a female, and she was carrying a large egg sack!!! ewwwwwwwww

anyway, instead of just smashing it, I thought, what a great opportunity to shoot something disgusting for getty images! Their site is full of all kinds of beautiful imagery, clouds, flowers, children laughing at the beach, but a mere 55 shots of cockroaches!!! What if an exterminator business wants a nice shot for their advertising? A chance to turn disgust into $$$!

So I captured the disgusting thing, and then had to figure out how to keep it trapped, but shoot it at the same time...

After various possibilities thought through to no avail, I ended up with this setup: a piece of small flat glass from a picture frame (don't tell my wife! she'll never know a cockroach was crawling on that family photo frame. don't worry I cleaned everything with bleach afterwords!), Also a semi-transparent white acrylic sheet from chinatown as backdrop ($8.99, canal plastic nyc), lit from behind to give a nice glow, some square wood rod from home depot (75 cents), and a piece of folded paper for removable entrance/exit. I used two nearby oranges(random, I know) as paperweights to keep the paper door from moving. (I was going to use tape, but figured it's antennae would get stuck to the stickiness. aren't I sweet?)

After a frightening moment where I released her (let's call her 'wanda', as she is now an actress) from the jar and herded her into the 'cage', I was able to get her closed in. After Wanda ran around for a while, testing for every possible exit with her antennae (they are smart little buggers, I'll give them that!), she settled down a bit, and I began shooting.

I used my 7d, with a 50mm 1.4 lens, which is basically all I have!!! Since the cage was unphotogenic, I went for super-macro using my set of Kenko ef extension tubes. I ultimately ended up using the 36mm tube AND the 20mm. The depth of field was so narrow, I found I was able to get a near perfect shot just by standing the camera up vertically onto the cage glass via the lens hood. I did have to cut a circle out of cardboard though to get the edges of Wanda's shell in focus. Ultimately, I needed more light, but I think this was good for my first bug photo setup ever!

As for Wanda, well, I could have killed her and shot some 'dead bug' closeups, etc., but it just felt unethical since she'd been such a good actor, so I took her deep into astoria park and released her into a garbage can, where her and her children can have a delicious and happy life.

and here are the results(I photoshopped multiples of the same Wanda):

Freelance!

2010-03-01T20:02:00.000-05:00

Well, some would question my sanity quitting a perfectly good job in the middle of a recession, but I realized until I free up enough time to really pursue things on my own, I'll never get any REAL traction, and my creative/freelance pursuits will always be just a 'hobby'. boo! I've had success so far, in that I've already made a sale of some stock footage to MTV networks, and I've been writing for a magazine in Japan since 2004! I think if I just add some part-time work to my stock footage pursuits, I'll be able to scrape together almost as much as I was making before, with the benefit being, I'll be happier!

2010-02-12T10:00:00.002-05:00

Victor & the Park from Wayne Wilson on Vimeo.

A simple test with my new Eos 7d camera, featuring Victor, Ciro, and Jeremy. Music provided by Jeremy's band, 'Corey Thompson and the Magic Dust'.

Looks like I'll be going into the movie business!!

Irving Penn Dies at 92

2009-10-07T18:16:00.003-04:00

Irving Penn was a legend of still photography. He championed something in his images that I always believed in: clarity and simplicity.

My studio has several of his books, and while his color stuff doesn't blow my mind quite as much, he's among the top 3 black and white photographers who ever lived. May he rest in peace, in that photographer studio in the sky.

Let the battle for his photography archive/foundation begin!

50 more! Time to scan!

2009-08-24T19:45:00.004-04:00

Well, I jumped the gun. After making 40 images for uploading to SIS, and a massive recession, I was told to make FIFTY MORE!

Even if they don't all get uploaded, I figure I'll learn a lot. I'm still kind of developing a style.

Recently I've been scanning textures, and using them to fill in drawn outlines.

This 'gay marriage' illustration was made using a scan of my skin, my blue jeans, and the book of John:

I'm still trying to find a nice balance between hand-drawn, and digital manipulation. The pencil and the computer are great tools, I just want to marry them in a way that is still fun for me to create work, and that supports creativity, not hinders it.

I made it!

2009-01-19T11:23:00.003-05:00

After getting rejected the first time, I have officially signed a contract with StockIllustrationSource, aka, images.com owned by Veer, which is owned by Corbis, and has distribution deals with Getty Images as well. The stock illustration jackpot, as it were!

The first time, my images were refused for being too simplistic:

(heart)
I had thought that simple images would be appealing to art directors looking for a 'heart' or 'money', and for photography sometimes all they need is a shot of a pearl or a water splash, but in illustration, art directors are looking for already in the can editorial that they can slap on an article for a magazine. A towering dollar sign crumbling around wallstreet, the stock market smashing through the floor, corn dripping ethanol into a beaker, etc. These are the images that sell.

So I went back to the drawing board and came up with this:

(processed food)

I'll let you know when there's a link to my work up there. Also, I'm having trouble figuring out what makes a good subject/background color relationship, so I'll head back to SVA this semester to take a class in color theory, that should help. I also recently got in a tiff with the wife about a grey jacket that she claimed was brown, which she won of course, causing me to doubt my color instincts.

Munsell Colors

2008-10-31T13:57:00.004-04:00

In Mavin Mattelson's painting class, we use the Albert H. Munsell color system to train our eyes to perceive color correctly. So many of us grew up being shown a color wheel that looked like this:

when in reality, this:

is a much closer approximation of how color in the visual world should be perceived. There are three key factors: hue (the 'tint' or actual color), value (lightnesss or darkness) and chroma (color intensity as opposed to neutralness/grayness).

In this light, the color world be comes more of a sphere instead of a wheel.

In applying this practically to painting, we need to rethink our palette, which I'll get to in my next post.

Marvin Mattelson Painting 101

2008-09-25T09:56:00.012-04:00

I've had two classes with Marvin Mattelson now, and as promised here are my thoughts:

Structure - It's a pretty nice class structure. The first 6 hour class was entire lecture oriented, talking about materials, canvas stretching, and getting us set up to start an imprimatura (underpainting) for the next class. His method is definitely unique, in that we fill the canvas with a raw umber wash. This wash then becomes the 'shadow'. The lights are 'removed' using a rag. A subtractive method. The lights are made by the white of the canvas coming through, and the darkest darks are added with a brush.

I've used this kind of technique in my own way to make acrylic illustrations. If you want objects to feel like they have real shape and volume, and the colors to have a more realistic hue, underpainting in raw umber works wonders. I start every painting with raw umber and white, get all the lights and darks and things figured out, then go to washes of color over top.

[A simple heart painting I made using acrylics, an underpainting of raw umber underneath, a couple layers of red hue over top, and a couple mixed white/pink highlights added to finish. The background was made separately, and I combined the two layers in photoshop]

Here's an unfinished DaVinci work, which reveals the raw umber underpainting:

But keep in mind, Mattelson's painting method is extremely particular, a very specific way to paint. Although I shouldn't say just his method, but the method of painting for the 400 years leading up to the 20th Century as tweaked and improved upon over time. So far as I can tell, very effective, if your goal is illusionistic reality. I'll be going into his color mixing technique next.

[a famous imprimatura made painting. Notice the color doesn't cover the raw umber completely, it shows through, especially in the darks]

[brushstroke, style, and spontaneity are still yours to invent, but the method it self still works great from artist to artist]

This mode of painting might not be for everyone. The impressionists kind of destroyed this sort of 'layered' painting method when they began mixing colors and applying them directly. But you can't ignore the fact that human skin is best represented by painting in layers, so that you can get the luminosity and translucence of it. The impressionists were after something else than this, so it was no matter to them, but you have to decide as a painter what you most want to convey, or perhaps decide which way you enjoy painting the most. Some might like Bob Ross, some might like Renoir, and some might like Mattelson. All three are dudes who love to paint, so in my book, they're all equal.

Serious Painters

2008-08-18T16:41:00.011-04:00

Tired of abstract artists that hide the fact that they don't understand or know how to mix color by painting abstractly?

Here are a couple sites from bloggers who are SERIOUS about color:

ROURKEVISUALART
This is a very thorough post about a 3 dimensional as opposed to 2D color wheel approach to color that gives weight to Value, Chroma, and Hue, in that order.

UNDERPAINTINGS

This site mentions painter/teacher/ex-illustrator Marvin Mattelson who's website is: FINEARTPORTRAIT.COM

I'm going to be taking his Saturday classes at SVA, so I'll be sure to review the class after I'm through with it.

I'm realizing more and more, the best art classes are technical and strict. I can goof off and experiment with things on my own time and get critiques at a williamsburg coffee shop swaree (SP) if I'm so inclined, but to find teachers like Mr. Mattelson who teach a logical approach and understanding to painting and color is a rare thing.

One of my first inspiring art teachers was Frederick Ortner, who now teaches at Louisiana State University. He used a phrase very often that really stuck with me, "careful and conscientious" even when talking about very radical (but good) art. It made me realize that flashy, not-so-conscientious work will always take a back seat to well thought-out work by someone in control of their medium, over the long run. It's the tortoise and the hare, time will tell.

stock illustration

2008-08-13T12:19:00.003-04:00

With my day job at a photography studio, I've seen first hand the kind of revenue that can be generated from selling stock images. Some of our images make over $2000 a month in royalties. However, we do fill a specific niche market. I've seen on the web lots of complaints about getty images (the largest stock house), and photographers and illustrators alike are complaining about stock 'der' takin' away our jooooobs....'

Here are my firsthand tips, based on what I've seen from the stock world, mostly dealing with photonica, getty images, and some smaller boutique houses.

1. Only sell rights-managed stock. Royalty free christmas drawings might make a teeny big of bank, but 100 good quality rights-managed images will outsell 1000 royalty free images. I'm not joking.

2. find a niche. If you are good at perspective drawing, or a particular style that no one else does, by all means milk it.

3. do research. A lot of people look down on stock, but it's become a pretty powerful player. Half the newspaper images you see these days are from Getty or Corbis. Getty images are sold WORLDWIDE. You'll probably never get a chance for that stock market collapse image to be sold in singapore except through Getty.

note: Royalty Free means your image is sold at a one time cheap price, to be used indefinitely by the client. Rights-managed means the client has to agree to terms of sale such as 6month or a year of usage with the option to renew. It is sold at a higher price, and companies with real money only buy rights-managed; whereas a community newsletter with a super low budget would by royalty free.

Why is royalty free so bad? well, it sells for super cheap, and companies like istockphoto, where people actually agree to sell their images for a $1 are entering the market. To make matters worse, you only get a percentage of that single dollar, so even if you get 500 downloads, which is a rare fee, you've made like $250 at BEST.

The amateur - pro evolution.

2008-08-01T11:23:00.004-04:00

I'm lucky in that I still work at a commercial photography studio as my day job, Biwa, Inc . I write their blog too, check it out.

The benefit I'm talking about is, I've seen several photographers go from amateur/assistant photogs, to fully fledged pros in the course of 1-2 years. That's partially because they are already super good and have portfolios before they work for us, but also in one case, the guy didn't.

"Masa", we'll call him, worked for a Japanese newspaper local news gathering wing in New York, before quitting as their journalism photog and coming to our still life studio. He had no still life work at all so he built his entire book over the year from scratch. Just recently he got an agent, and just last week he did a commercial shoot worth $50,000 in usage alone.

How did he accomplish this? He spent every minute of his freetime in the studio shooting weekends, nights etc. making portfolio shots, painstakingly retouching them, etc. Until he had 'a book' of 20 shots plus of good-very good work. Then he email bombed and relentlessly follow-up called over 90 agencies, of which 4 responded, and 2 were interested. From there he interviewed and picked the one that seemed to be the best fit.

The thing about photogs is that they are professional. Their books are always nice leather/pleather jobs that cost over $500 at places like House of Portfolio, etc. with their name imprinted on the cover, etc. Does that mean an expensive portfolio leads to a job, no, but it shows that you are serious and invested in it.

Also, photogs dress better than your average illustrator, and tend to be more clean, OCD, which goes better for interviews. But ultimately, it's about the WORK itself, which I'll get into in our next installment. Ciao.

SVA School of Visual Arts

2008-07-31T10:07:00.006-04:00

Ah, the power of LESSONS. Want to ski? Take a lesson. Want to play guitar? Take a lesson. Want to draw?

I'd say that more than any other creative field, artists refuse to take lessons the most. Anyone like this that I've asked has excuses like, "I have my own personal style, no one can teach me", etc. Only in music is there an equivalent amount of ego, but I think music has the benefit of needing to be done in a group of people that communicate with each other.

Artists often spend long hours alone with themselves, overestimating their genius and their audiences reception of their work.

There is no better way to improve than to take a class. I've recently taken several classes at SVA *School of Visual Arts here in NY in their continuing education department. It's a fantastic program. The classes are at night, inexpensive, and the professors are all working professionals, not just people who 'almost made it'. Here's a breakdown of the classes I took:

Advertising 101

This was a class in being an Art Director from Dan Giachett and John Clement, who work at TBWA (a premium ad agency). The class was a great course in conceptual thinking. Art and advertising are going along similar trends, conceptual art is still big and conceptual advertising/photography is THE thing now. During the class we are given ads to do: 'roach motel' or 'kryptonite bike locks'" etc. The critiques were fantastic, you could tell these guys were in board rooms all day getting their ideas shot to pieces by stuffy suits and marketing execs. 'too cute, too boring, been done before, etc.'

But it really helps you build tough skin, and not make your work too precious, and is the best class in creative thinking and conceptualizing I ever had. This skill can apply to art, illustration, and of course advertising.

Drawing and Perspective

Taught by septegenarian comic book veteran, Sal Amendola, who drew for Archie Comics and many DC comics, this course, while not the most entertaining, is one of the last great drawing courses in the city. You learn to draw any street scene, car, person or object whatsoever in any perspective, as well as learn perspective shading and many other skills that quality draftsmen used to have.

Making Children's Books

Monica Wellington, an often published children's book author, teaches a 4 week and 11 week version of this course. I took the 4 week version which crams a lot of info in and gives you a good taste of children's book writing, to see if you REALLY want to get into it or not. I'll write more on this later.

Beginning Illustration

Taught by Joo Chung. This is not a 'beginner' course. Joo Chung was an illustrator for a couple decades before finally becoming a painter. Unlike many fine artists, he does not snub his nose at illustration and still has a place in his heart for it. His critiques are better than the New York Studio School's random streams of consciousness couched in 1970's political ideology, or the Art Institute of Chicago for that matter. Everyone should take one of his classes at least once.

Chewing Pencils

2008-07-30T16:37:00.003-04:00

Matt Madden has a nice blog that is part of my inspiration for my own blog. I plan to document my own rise to fame and glory step by step. Mr. Madden has a nice 10 tip list of things to do if you want to be a pro cartoonist or Illustrator.

Christoph Hitz

2008-07-29T11:59:00.008-04:00

Here's another great illustrator, Christoph Hitz. He's been in the game a long while, but has adapted very very well. He was one of the first photoshop users (before it had layers or UNDO!), and has a great website. I really like his illustrations on cardboard. I need to ask him how much those are painted directly and how much done in photoshop.

David Lesh

2008-07-29T10:54:00.013-04:00

While googling around and looking at other Illustrators like I do from time to time, I came across David Lesh. He does a lot of Forbes magazine style 'conceptual business' illustrations. It's not the subject matter per say that I like, but the creamy paint textures and elegant thin lines he uses to make the works. Also of note, he paints directly onto newspaper and then scans the work in. Nice way to save on Illustration board, and lends an extra layer of referential depth to the works.