Please Stand By

Photograft is on hiatus... new season in the fall.

Stop-Motion

So, I found this raccoon hat I used to wear all the time when I was like 8... it's been my primary source of entertainment for weeks now.

Video's a little rough around the edges, but I like it. Please enjoy responsibly.

Hey, an Assignment

Did some portrait work and general coverage for a theater production last weekend in Logan Square. Blackbox studio. Nice people, everyone very cooperative. Theater people are swell.

I'm guessing this won't make its way into anything they use but I thought it was kinda cool. Only so much you can do at meetings. Supposedly there are rehearsals/ productions coming in the future.

Trying to edit bad pictures into good pictures

These are the times when you need a good photo editor looking over your shoulder, like a veteran surgeon at the E.R.:
"Doctor, you've done all you can. There's nothing else we can do. Call it."
"You call it!"
I do this way too often; invariably after an hour in Photoshop I realize the only thing I could have done was to take it correctly in the first place. Here are a few examples from recent history.

This is just an extreme crop of a vertical shot, at night, in the dark, at high-ISO. It's not an abomination, but the quality suffers from the crop, and I think its actually a bit over-exposed - isolating the highlights in the globes turns the rest of the scene black and we'd still get the light on the guy's face.

Thought motion blur would be a nice effect here, sort of echo their movements... instead it just looks like muck. This scene was so dynamic I kept coming back to it to try to make it look more like it did at the time, but it was a lost cause. A risk that didn't pay off.

Still like this idea, but the execution is off here. Letting the TV/LCD light be the only source isn't working, it needs more fill. Also, I apparently don't know how to iron a sheet. Gotta give this another go sometime, synchronizing all of it is a hell of a deal though - those iphone screens turn off or dim automatically no matter what settings they are on.

Business/Casual

And now, in keeping with our cold & depressing winter photo series...

... I give you this guy (lady?)

Icescapes

These were taken within about 200 yards of my house. Because it was freezing, damnit.

Not fit for man nor beast.

Ye Old Stewart's coffee can, keeper of butts.