boogaloo - kyle

so latley ive gotten the urge to buy a shitty camera. its either gonna be a holga or a lomo. i had this same urge about a year ago, but i was able to fight it off. not so sure if i can this time. from what ive seen i think i like the images that the lomos usually produce, but id prefer the holgas medium format. on the coolness/stupidness scale, the holgas got a plastic lens (seriously, who buys the holga with the glass lens) but the lomos are made in mother russia (well, mother china now, so i guess they just roll communist) and are made of solid metal. oh and the lomos viewfinder is slightly less unusable than the holgas, so i guess thats a plus. so what do you guys think? any one want to buy a holga and ill buy a lomo or vice versa and just trade off? is any one reading this? do i have a stupid camera fetish (dont think ive forgotten about you olympus pen half frame camera)? am i the only one that has the singing skittles rabbit commercial looping on youtube? its late, theres a 5hr time difference...you guys do the math.

the picture. its my best crack at getting a lomo look. let me know what you think about the actual picture itself, cause it might just be stupid and i dont know it. aaron and i were talking about that, what makes a picture good. neither of us knew. so chime in with any answers if you got em. fuck im tired. off to bed. nighty night.

ps. been processing a shitload of film, ill scan and post em sometime when im feeling productive.

Minimalism - Aaron

So Kyle and I got to talking about minimalist photos the other day, as you can see from his last post. So here are a few from when I first got my D70. The first one is a stoplight right around the corner from my house. The second one is of some Christmas Lights outside of Stephanie's apartment. The last one is of some roadside barells on the way back from Greenville.

Draganized - Joe

Here are some pictures I attempted to draganize. I am getting better with the effect but its kind of a tough process to get used to. There are so many ways you can tweak it and its hard to make choices with so many options. I am hoping to get better at it but I haven't had time to make any new ones lately. I think it works best with a darker style picture with high contrast because it gives it that gritty look.

Viva Mexico-Nate

Here is a photo from my old digital that i took in one of my favorite places. I've been to Mexico three times and it is always a great trip. This was taken in a tiny little fishing village right on the outskirts of Sayulita.

Mr. Mistoffelees - Kyle

i took these the same day as russell took his photos below. after russell photographed in geese shit for a while, we kind of wandered around without any agenda. as we happened to stroll by the pond, i was a bit smitten with the way the light was hitting it. the iso is up in nasty grain territory since it was pretty late in the evening but what are you gonna do.

bonus points for russell's dead eye rock throwing ability for the ripple in the second pic. it took a a few exposures, but he must have gotten tired of me yelling at him so he nailed it on this one. as a general rule of thumb, the british cant do anything athletic with their upper body (throwing, swinging, etc), but russ rose to the occasion. thanks buddy.

bonus attack kitty picture!

i was shooting floating things in the pond when russ pointed out this evil feline running behind me. it was a quick snap but it speaks for itself.

quick cat tip: kitty + squirrel = bloodbath. kitty + masking tape on their feet = hours of fun.

Baby geese - Russell

London is packed with huge buildings and very little untouched landscape, so to live on a campus with so much nature is kinda bizarre, and wonderful. Kyle and I went out for an afternoon 'nature' shoot, and came across six baby geese who were following around their big mama. Kyle, knowing I'm a bit of a nature geek, was kind enough to let me go at it with his camera, so many thanks for that. We followed them around a patch of grass for about half an hour and these were a couple of shots I came out with.

Michael Bay Syndrome

Joe Mason

Hello everyone, I'm excited about the blog... finally a place we can post and get some feedback. This first post is just a few production stills from "Michael Bay Syndrome" our 495 project. We have been filming for 3 weeks now and we only have 4 days of shooting left. We have been pulling 16 hour days and spending a ton of money but the finished project will be worth it. The first photo is of a scene where we attempted to create a pov of the tv who is an important character in the movie the 2nd is the other tv we broke with a lamp and the third is Gen being Gen...

There will be some more interesting things to come

hampstergoddamnaged - kyle

hi hi. so these are some brand new six week old pictures. theyre new in the sense that i just scanned them, but i took them a while ago. now that i have regular access to a dark room, ive been shooting a lot of film again. its nice. anyways they were taken during a trip to amsterdam. it is an incredibly beautiful city and the people over there some of the nicest ive met.

the first photo is of my pal in the red light district, where our hostel was. taking pictures in the red light district is a big no no over there and youre pretty much being watched on cctv everywhere you go. actually, our first night in the city, we were in a coffee shop when we heard some commotion outside. there was angry bouncer and the smashed camera on the ground, so we deduced that the ass kicking about to ensue was over a guy taking pictures of something he wasnt supposed to. as such, my picture was a bit rushed and even though i dont think i wouldve gotten any shit for it, i still stuck my camera back in my bag pretty quickly after the shot.

anyways i like that picture and i spent all yesterday in the darkroom trying to get the print right. after dodging and burning and split grading it a million different ways, i still wasnt happy with it. i mean, i knew all the information was on the negative, but i just couldnt bring it all out in one print and still get the contrast i was after. i have a lot of respect for anybody that knows their way around a darkroom really well, because its tougher than it seems. scanned into photoshop, i essentially got what i wanted after substantially less time, but the print from the negative still looks better and it was more fun to do. so there.

the second and third photos were taken about 180 degrees from each other if that makes any sense. it was our last day in the city and we had some time to kill before our train. four days in amsterdam tends to get the better of you, and without a hostel, we took to napping napping in the streets. i cant figure out if the biker was looking at me or my buddy asleep next to me. either way, there you have it. what a lovely place.

ps. i found that if you set this link as your start page and just let it loop it will make your days much better: http://www.emi.se/artists/barcelona/dguoydb/index.htm

Bored Pier Shot - Nate

I was getting a bit tired of final cut this evening and decided to venture up the street to the beach. This is an image i liked out of the bunch. The moon was either full tonight or tomorrow. The shutter was set for 30 seconds

Finally getting over shooting strangers - Aaron

Before:

After:


So i am generally no good at just shooting people in public...but with the addition of my 300...i dont feel so bad because people think I am professional looking enought to allow it. This is just a woman and her child right across from the brewery during the car show. It was hot as hell, and this kid was getting whiney...which worked out because i managed to get a couple good pics...this being the onlly one that he was looking at me and she didnt look like she wanted to eat her son's face...


I also decided to repost this with a before and after unsharp mask. Kyle suggested i do it to all my photos....and well...hes right. Not that it was out of focus before...but after putting the mask on it...the original one does.

devil birds - Brian

You may have to click for the larger image to be able to see it, but the pigeon's eye color is unedited. Yeah...it creeps me out too.

-B

enjoy the doom - kyle

a bit tired this morning but i had a dream about back home last night so i figured id post these. they were taken in nags head woods on the good ol outer banks. ill spare you a long post today since ive got to run to class. ill be finishing editing a documentary...in pinnacle. if you know what that means then you already feel sorry for me. happy may 1st everybody.

kobe-Nate

Another point and shoot...the background is distracting. A great moment none the less. Pics from my new 30D coming soon!

Marta

ok,
So Don Zimmer is pretty gross! I can not deny this fact. I just googled imaged the name Marta...check out my number one hit......

ps. I did not take this photo!

Take that nate - Aaron

So this is in response to Nates criticism of my post name being The Bobby Cox Experience. He claims that Bobby, in the first picture, is the uggliest manager ever in the Majors. I beg to differ, here I think ive made a pretty good case for Don Zimmer, the second picture, being the uggliest manager ever. He did manage the Red Sox from 1976 to 1979. You guys be the judge.

My first Real HDR....maybe - Aaron

ok so these are my first two attempts at an hdr. Oh and Brain, sorry for shooting the same thing in your post under this one...but i mean its pretty photogenic. There wansnt a huge amount of variance between the two pictures so the hdr wasnt totally neccesary. But the first one came out well because you can see the veins in the un-opened buds. As you can see there is also a bit of a ghost in the bud on the left, but being that that is the only one, and I was shooting outside, and it is windy im pretty happy with it.

The second photo I really like because of the angle. I set up the tripod and am shooting strait down on it so it makes for a cool angle. The third is just my favorite of the non hdr photos. So you can look at the 2 and compare. Let me know what you guys think.

Bored Macros - Brian

I tend to shoot macro stuff when I get bored. I make no claims to be a good photographer I just enjoy taking pictures. These shots have very little PP since I am sans photoshop. If anyone has a PC version that I could "buy" it would be greatly appreciated.

-B

[b.productive] - Aaron

Well kyle suggested I delve into the back of my files to find some old photos so here are some. These were shot using the best little point-and-shoot around. The ol'ympus did me well for a few years. At one point i even bought a water housing for it, added it to an old bodyboard, and shot quicktimes out in the water with it. Anyway, on to these photos.

These are some photos from the production Jwest and i did a couple years ago for our friend/current big-shot, Terrance "Gay Blackman" Diamond. These photos were Ken Burns' into about a 6 minute time lapse that we showed at terry's art shows, wich eventually turned into another short Documentary that we won our first awards for, and even some video production jobs for [framed]productions. The frist photo has always been one of my favorites just because you cant really tell that we are just outside in his driveway while hes painting. He is an amazing artist, and it was fun just sitting out in his driveway all night listening to some good music and making art.

Hi there! - Nate

I thought of introducing myself with some remotely intelligent quip concerning the absurdity of naming yourself after the ugliest MLB manager in history...but i will refrain. (Go Cubs) This photo was taken on an old point and shoot digital but is still one of my favorites to this day. The skater is Chris Helack who is one of the tallest, skinniest rippers I know. The setting sun was casting a prefect silhouette of Chris onto the the sheet metal ramp so I decided to snap a few. My name is Nate Lee and I work with Aaron at the Brewery. Going to slave on my video now.

N

i think i just swallowed a fly - kyle

so yeah, a bit of trouble with the login this morning so my old username, the great mustachio, is dead after all of one post. anyways down to business.

these are a few photos from my easter break (thats a month long in the uk, thank you very much) and as you can probably tell, these aint your daddys photos. thats right, they were made using the all new, super cool, punk rocking, hdr technique thingamajig. besides looking cool, its the only justification I have so far for hauling my heavy ass tripod halfway around the world, being as im far too lazy to carry it around most of the time. if you dont know what hdr is, im sure wikipedia has an article on it, and the fact that anybody else on (or in, maybe?) the internet could have written it probably means they can explain it much better than i can. but i digress...

the first two pictures arent really hdr anyways. theyre single raw exposures processed into three different jpegs (in 2 ev increments if you want to get nerd about it) and then merged with photomatix. the bottom two are "real" hdrs in so much as they came from multiple exposures, but i like them less so it doesnt much matter. the one of the rocky landscape is kinda shit because after 15 minutes of trying to wedge my tripod between two wet, slippery rocks whilst getting composition i was after, the damned thing still moved in between exposures. and so goes the blur in the photo. as for the picture of the jetty, well it doesnt really knock my socks off.

by the way, the flower photo was taken in maidstone, kent at a lovely park where russell shortly thereafter beat my ass in golf. the bottom three were taken in bognor regis during my trip to butlins with my roommates. for my fellow americans, butlins is basically a south of the border type establishment with 50% more white trash and 100% less fireworks. russ (who is the fellow in the second photo) and i dusted off a nasty hangover and broke out of our gated holiday camp for a sunrise photo session. russ has actually been hijacking my camera a lot lately and coming back with some pretty damned good photos so maybe he can do a special guest appearance later and get some of his pics up. anyways, its sunny out. time to go play...over and out, bandit.

the fannypack/bumbag debacle - kyle

ok so, i was supposed to post yesterday but there was a bouncy castle on campus and well, you know, a mans gotta have priorities... anyways, im digging into the back catalogue for this one, i guess its about a year old, but i chose it for a couple of reasons. first off, it was one of the best days out ive had shooting in recent memory. gen, joe and i went out around wilmington during riverfest and shot all day and well into the night. we all walked away with a pretty good amount of decent photos, but more importantly, just had a damned good time.

i got the above photo when we were walking up castle street and passed a little store that was literally wedged between two houses. i peeked in as we passed it and immediately wanted to go in and shoot. but im lazy and didnt. after like a block of hating myself i told gen and joe id catch up with them and ran back to the store. that spry young bird getting her hairs cut is the owner of the store and after talking to everybody in there for a bit, i asked if i could take some of their photos. i shot away for about 5 minutes, bought a tall boy and walked back, much happier. anyways if youre on downtown end of castle street (like 2nd or 3rd i think) go in there and get patronize these nice people.

ps. despite the many hours we spent shooting and walking around downtown wilmington (during a festival no less) joe was barefoot. he always does that shit and one day when he gets meningitis, ill be the first to laugh at him...and then the first to apologize to him. kinda like i did when his appendix burst...

Photos of Frank Gehry - Aaron

While I was in NYC visiting my brother this past christmas I shot a lot of photos. I had just gotten my new D70, and while I was up there we went to B&H on the busiest day of the year...the final sunday before Christmas. Amazingly, because I knew what I was looking for, I managed to be in and out in about 30 minutes. I got my 70-300 and then walked around most of lower Manhattan.

Right accross from Chelsea Pier is Frank Gehry's first Manhattan project. He is one of my favorite architects, so to get the chance to photograph a work in progress was pretty cool for me. Sydney Pollack's documentary, Sketches of Frank Gehry actually ends with him talking about starting this building. He designed it this way so that when you are traveling down the river to the west, it looks like the sails of a giant sail boat or "schooner". The first one shows exactly what he was talking about.