I have fought a good fight

You are looking at the final picture that was edited for the coffee table book. Yes, that means the photo editing is now finished! All 100 portraits. I feel like this woman above right now. Giddy beyond all. If it were not 4:00 AM, I would be jumping around the house. No, I’d be running down the street Doc Brown style, with my arms held high. What does this mean? It means Tiffany needs to get her buns down to Austin, so we can shoot the cover photo and plop the text in, and get this book printed. Then make it a New York Times best-seller in the Coolest Photography Coffee Table Book category. That category exists, really .

In reality, we want this book to be a huge success, not only because we put so much time, time, energy and time into this book, but because we believe in the message. This book is about destroying negative Alaska Native stereotypes. There is still so much intolerance and ignorance in the world today. Even with the culture shift of becoming “more acceptive,” the pendulum swings just as easily in the other direction. I think this message can be applied to any culture. Ignorance begets intolerance. So buy the book and get educated.

OK. I’m now off of my soapbox. I really am excited to have these done. It took me too long. Sometimes I would spend an hour on one image. NOT, I must quickly add because they needed to be fixed. I just want everything to be perfect. In reality the images are hardly touched up. We want honest faces. No liquify tool. No magazine-style-have-no-pores skin. Just honest to goodness portraits.

So there you have it. Now it’s time to run down the street… if only I had a Delorean.

What will this be?

I am really, really excited. No, this is not equipment to build a bomb, so no need to inform any authorities. I am working on props for an upcoming photo shoot and television commercial production. I spent a couple of hours at Home Depot, possibly one of my most favorite things to do, and carefully selected items for a, hopefully, impressive prop. I also spent a little time at the Salvation Army too. I forgot about the cool little finds you can get there. Anyways I don’t want to give away too much, as I am hoping to make a cool production video out of the whole process.

Here is the game. Try to guess what this pile of second hand junk and Home Depot items will be.

Clue: Napoleon Dynamite meets Empire Strikes Back.

and the first shall be the last

I am starting to breath the fresh air at the end of the tunnel. The images for the coffee table book are a few days away from being completed. What is interesting is that near the end were some of the first pictures that we took for the project. This picture, was in fact the very first. It has been a long work in progress, but the book is going to be so worth the wait.

In the RAW

I forgot to post something about this shoot earlier, but I just remembered that I wanted to talk about it. I did a creative portrait session for the restaurant chain Dave and Busters a few weeks ago. We shot their employees for their advertising and marketing materials. Everyone evolved was great to work with and we had a great time. I bring up this shoot only because of the fact that they requested raw untouched files for the final product. I have to admit, I had a really hard time doing this. Not because I don’t trust anyone else to touch my files, but because I am so used to working a lot in post production with my images.

Typically with the images I produce for advertising, we have a look we want to achieve and I know what to do to achieve the image. Usually I take several shots and combine multiple images to get the look I or the client wants. But what about raw images? RAW. Photographers, imagine if you weren’t able to do anything with your pictures in Photoshop. Does Lightroom cut it for a lot of you? Do you stop after that? Or do you, like me, work a lot in Photoshop afterward. Is it a crutch?

I don’t believe there is a right or wrong answer. We have long crossed the faded lines of computer art and photography. Manipulated images are so common place that we don’t even think twice about seeing or making them. Colors have become so saturated and unnatural, that when we don’t see a photo that has a lot of contrast and or saturation, we think something is wrong with the photo.

I know I see the world a lot different than my camera. Maybe that’s why ten years ago, I was producing images like these:

Anyways, back the the thought provoking question. How easy would it be for you to give someone your untouched files?

one more thing…

I got this from an email that someone sent my wife. Let me know if you can read it. If you can, you are just like me. Lucky you.

fi yuo cna raed tihs, yuo hvae a sgtrane mnid too

Cna yuo raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno’t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

2 things (i swear I have been working)

First is this, with no introduction needed. Just cool:

Second is this. WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU THINKING MARVEL? Why did you let them buy you!:

And Everything Was Alright

I came across this short film and really loved it. Thought I would share. Happy Wednesday.

Here’s the site for the film.

mad ad

I really haven’t gotten into Madmen at all, mainly because we don’t have cable. I know that may come to a shock from most, but why pay for something when I can watch everything I want to online. The only reason I want to have cable is for the commercials, and even those I watch online. You get the best of the best. I digress.

The shot above was for the new season release of Madmen. It is a really freaking cool shot. Plus, it was a really freaking cool setup. They actually used a tank of water. It was shot by Frank Ockenfels and produced by The Refinery.

The best part is watching the making of video, which you can see below the jump. If you are reading this in a feed you may need to see this directly on the blog.

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two avatars

These are screenshots of two movies that I am just dying to see. The first is the live-action release of Avatar: The Last Airbender, from M. Night Shamalan. The second, the much anticipated release of James Cameron’s Avatar.

I have to admit, I find it silly that Cameron made Shamalan lose the Avatar part of the title and just make it The last Airbender. But I suppose if I were working on a film for 10 years, I wouldn’t want any confusion either. The most exciting thing about this film is that he was striving to update the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs‘ John Carter series. I loved those books as a kid.

And the Last Airbender series, don’t even get me started. Pure awesomeness.

Watch the previews here after the jump:

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without the kids

So Rachael’s sister was here visiting for a while and Rachael and I got out for some no kid fun. What did our date include include? Photography and sushi, what else? These photos were us messing around at Zilker Botanical Garden