Tuesday, February 26, 2008

The Speaks music video that my production company shot was on TV

My video production company (8112 Studios) shot a music video of the rock band, The Speaks, at my clocktower studio in NYC last month. The video made it onto one of the Fox Sports channels this past Sunday.



The Speaks:
http://www.thespeaks.com/

Thursday, February 21, 2008

My photo on display in Times Square



Sadly, it is not a photo of myself, but rather one of my portraits that is on display in Times Square in New York City. It is a photograph of "Northern Virginia businessman, community activist and helicopter pilot Scott Kasprowicz" who broke the international New York to Los Angeles transcontinental rotorcraft speed record on Saturday, February 16, 2008.



Labels: , ,

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

A cool automotive camera rig




Ever want to take cool motion blur photos of your car as if you had a chase vehicle? Check out the link below for an alternative. The kit comes with a boom arm, attachment device that connects to any car, despite how low it may ride to the ground, and an attachment for your camera. You just have to edit out the boom arm in post-production. Packages range from $700-$900.

Go to:
http://www.automotiverigs.com/

How to do a vignette in photoshop...



Found another website with some cool photoshop tips.

The following article comes from this address:
http://blog.epicedits.com/2007/09/18/quick-tip-using-photoshop-to-add-vignette/


"Vignette (pronounced vin-’yet) is a sort of framing element that you’ll sometimes see in photos (particularly older photos or Lomo shots), in which the image fades out toward the corners. It’s most commonly seen as a fade out to black, but white is also used sometimes. The vignette can be a powerful element of the photo because it has a natural tendency to draw the eye toward the center of the photo.

Vignette can be produced naturally if you’re using a lens intended for a smaller medium (like using a dSLR lens on a film SLR), because parts of the lens actually block out some of the light from hitting the sensor or film. There are a few other methods of getting the vignette effect, but the simplest of them is with Photoshop. Also, using Photoshop will allow you a wider range of control since it can be adjusted many times without destroying pixels.

The following Photoshop techniques are non-destructive (destroying pixels is a bad thing, and it’s downright mean) and easy to adjust. Now listen closely, and do as I do:

DO THIS AS YOUR LAST STEP IN PHOTOSHOP!!!
-Create a new empty layer on top of the stack. Ctrl + Alt + Shift + N
-Fill the layer with pure white. Shift + Backspace
-Set the blend mode to “Multiply”. Alt + Shift + M
-Apply the vignette filter to the new layer.
-Filter >> Distort >> Lens Correction…
-Mess with the “Amount” and “Midpoint” sliders in the “Vignette” section.
-Press “OK”, and now you have art!

You’ve officially added vignette to the photo in a non-destructive manner using Photoshop. If you decide to come back to the photo at a later time and you want to change the vignette, just refill the top layer with white and repeat lens correction. This isn’t the only way to do this (and I apologize to those who don’t use Photoshop), but its the easiest and safest way that I know of."

Friday, February 15, 2008

Band Promo Shoot - Dreaming of Eden






http://www.myspace.com/dreamingofedenmusic

From the band's video blog: