If HDR is the Devil, then consider me Charles Manson

If HDR is the Devil, then consider me Charles Manson
09/9/10

Someone broke in (walked in the unlocked back door) to 4ORCE Digital and stole my Nikon D40 back in July. I still have a hard time believing that it wasn’t a prank by David Johnson, but by any degree the camera was gone.

Our Pres/CEO, Dan Curran was extremely generous when he offered to pay for a new camera for me. I owe him in a very big way.

He told me to upgrade a bit, so I went for a Nikon D5000. I know, I know… an upgrade is a bit of an over-statement, but for my purposes this camera has been a vast improvement. Mainly because it has bracketing, and thus allows me to shoot for HDR photos.

High dynamic range photos are considered evil sacrilege by most photographers and over-used by most amateurs. HDR photos are merged from three or more shots with varying exposures. The bracketing on the D5000 and most DSLRs allows the camera to do this automatically and Photoshop or Photomatix can merge the shots into one HDR image.

I’ll try not to get addicted, and I understand that my first go kinda sucks. But I have to post something. So, without further ado, WashAve in HDR:

Fun work

Martin Luther King Tribute
06/1/10

I wanted to attempt this style  in February, and being Black History Month I chose the Rev. as my muse.

His face is made up of the words of his epic Lincoln Memorial “I have a dream…” speech.

Take a look. I am having it framed as I type.

Smoking Goat Branding
04/1/10

I like beer.

Beer high in flavor, alcohol and price. I brew at home, but wouldn’t consider myself very good at this point. I’m working on it.

We have friends in Louisiana who I would consider really good. I designed some branding for their forthcoming brewery down there.

The Smoking Goat will hopefully be amazing, especially if I get some good beer out of the deal.

Have a look. Then drink a beer and have a look again. Continue this process until the logo looks awesome.

New Poster
02/4/10

This is a poster I made for my buddy Dustin.

A classic quote from him as we drove by Effingham, IL’s infamous and huge cross.

I thought it would look good in his new apartment.

Sheltered Perceptions
01/6/10

I recently got the chance to work on a project for the Humane Society. Given the fact that every time I walk into an animal shelter I have to be talked down from taking home every animal in the place, I was happy to help in anyway I could.

With the majority of pet buying in the United States coming from breeders, mall pet shops and unfortunately mills, animal shelters (specifically the Humane Society) are left overflowing with pets that need loving homes. They are running into a perception problem however, and many misconceptions about shelter pets are accepted as fact, and often repeated as such.

To get past this, we decided to take the problem head on, and address the most common misconceptions individually.

Here is where we landed:

Lauren and Dan sit’n in a tree…
01/5/10

My good friend Lauren is getting married in July, and though I am extremely jealous of her fiance Dan (don’t tell my wife), I made their save the date cards.

I use VistaPrint to print these types of things. Though the quality suffers, and the rumor is that they are destroying local community printers nationwide, for the price they can’t be beat. Check them out next time you want to customize your own holiday card or invitation.

Here’s how Lauren’s STDs turned out: