Just thought I’d share this photo with you. I took it on my vacation a while back. Enjoy.

Finally got around to posting this from the premier of that Hulk movie with Ed Norton. Dave and I thought up the idea, and he was sufficiently brash enough to try to pull it off, much to the chagrin of his parents who found out post-movie.

I helped David select the clothing from some hipster used clothing store here in Spokane, then we appropriately ripped them to give them the impression of impressive musckulator-ness, and applied the green makeup. (Let me tell you, applying that kind of makeup to a sweaty dude’s back is not something that I want to attempt again for a very long time.)

Here’s a photo I recently took in Spokane. It’s a bridge crossing the Spokane river, with my buddy standing in as a model. And he was super. Yay for supermodels!

So I set the tripod up, facing down the bridge for the perspective shot. I have a bunch of Raleigh facing me, but they didn’t work out so well for what I was looking for. I then realized that he had on a white shirt under his jacket, and that I could blow it out with proper exposure and post-processing.

To get the color, I merely tweaked the color balance way off the charts toward that violet color, then desaturated it a bit.

What do you think?

And I’ll say it again, Yay!

According to the UK’s Independent, Florian Kaps, the guy behind Polanoid.net, has stepped up to the plate to save the beloved film format. After Polaroid announced in June 2008 that they would cease production of the instant film, it seemed that it was doomed to the history books as another victim of the digital camera revolution.

Say it ain’t so, Joe!

Now, I don’t shoot film much, hardly at all actually, but like all true photographers, I have a deep respect and appreciation for it. And if you’re going to shoot film, you might as well make it worth it by shooting medium or large format.

And if you’re going to shoot large format, you’d be crazy to not shoot Polaroid. I don’t know how guys like Edward S. Curtis and others managed to carry around glass slides all over the un-conquered earth, but I don’t envy them. Even in a studio, Polaroid film for a large format camera would be essential for me to want to do it that way. And if Polaroid is gone? Well, then, I have a hard time seeing myself shooting large format film any time soon.

But thankfully, Kaps has stepped up to the plate to take over production through the Impossible Project, supported by my favorite film company, Ilford.

They basically bought the entire Polaroid factory in the Netherlands, and have started researching more cost effective ways to produce the film that has remained essentially unchanged for over 40 years. It’s not an easy task, so they are asking support to reach their goals.

Their website has a sign up form where you can volunteer whatever resources you might be interested in giving.

It’s totally worth it to help out, because Polaroid film, which I guess should be called by its technical name “Integral Film” now that Polaroid is out of the picture, is totally awesome.

Also check out these resources:
http://www.polapremium.com

http://savepolaroid.com/

Woo Hoo!

The photo was of the band Sigur Rós who performed at Benaroya Hall here in Seattle last year. The show was friggin awesome, and the lighting crew did all of the work, but I don’t mind taking credit for the awesome photos I took there. Thanks Sigur Rós!

What I was trying to achieve was a high contrast, grainy look to my images. What I discovered is that by increasing the saturation of the blue channel and tweaking the contrast to the max I got the results I was looking for.

Most of a digital camera’s noise comes from the blue channel, so I figured that pumping it up and de-saturating the photo as a whole would increase the noise until it took on a grainy look. It worked like a charm, so I’ve been having fun with that technique for about two years now.

So I just found out that there was a group on Flickr dedicated to lith prints. I’m so excited! It’s like meeting long lost brothers who see the world through the same eyes as me. To celebrate, I’ve decided to share some of my .XMP settings and example photos to show what’s possible using this very cool technique.

Here’s the .XMP file. Make sure to right click or ctrl-click “Save As:” to save the file.
Digital Lith .XMP file

Here are some examples:

Stay tuned for my design portfolio!