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Oakland Skyline Panorama Dude, this is so awesome, what is the weather been like?
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Latest Ad Mockup I "like" Todd's comment.
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Latest Ad Mockup I was kidding. Sure enough, there is a like button and honest...
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Latest Ad Mockup You don't see it there? Right below the image on the left?
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Author Archives: thedude
Latest Ad Mockup
As is often the case, I have almost no idea what this product is or what it does, but I think I understand what the ad represents – the fact that something which used to require a whole bunch of time, effort and money just got a lot more accessible and way cheaper.
Posted in Cinema4D, Shameless Self-Promotion, Work
6 Comments
Oh, Yes I Did
I’ve really enjoyed my four-year-long love affair with the Nikon D3, and I have absolutely no regrets. She has served me well. I will always appreciate her superb build, her heft, her ability to see so much in so little light. I still love her and plan to keep her around – forever. But honestly, I’ve been waiting a long time for a chance to get my hands around something slimmer and slathered in hot pixel sauce. Meet my new mistress.
This beauty sports thirty-freakin’-six megapixels baby. Until today, I would have had to pay a lot more for this sort of resolution. Now, it’s available in the smallest, sexiest package ever.
Some of you will say that tossing 75 megapixels of RAW goodness into my workflow will be too much for my lowly quad-core pee see and that I’ll have to upgrade to a more respectable Mac Pro with a couple dozen smokin’ cores. To this I say, “It’s about time!”
I’m so excited! April can’t come soon enough.
Posted in Apple, Photography, Toys
8 Comments
Having Fun With My TiddlyWiki
Billed as a “reusable non-linear personal web notebook“, a TiddlyWiki is an entire wiki in a single HTML file – one that easily fits on a USB key or other removable media. That alone is pretty cool, but when coupled with Dropbox, my TiddlyWiki is really wonderful. What this combination gives me is a multi-platform notepad accessible from anywhere! I’ve been using it for just over a week, but this simple tool is fast becoming indispensable. Im using it to track tasks at work and at home. It’s better than a calendar app for this purpose, easier to use than a full-blown Wiki, and did I mention accessible from anywhere? Like other Wiki’s, it’s fully searchable, and even offers simple revision control. If you’ve used other Wiki’s, you will find TiddlyWiki syntax is simple to learn, but not strictly required. You can start using your own TiddlyWiki almost immediately after downloading the sigle file. Only caveat so far is that it seems to work best with Firefox, which is not a problem, because Firefox is my current favorite browser anyway.
There are plenty of web resources describing how to get the most out of this awesome combination – here’s a good one. I recommend you check it out! I look forwrad to your comments!
Posted in Computing
3 Comments
The Scale of Our Universe
Check out this very impressive Flash file that elegantly illustrates the relative scale of our entire universe. It’s best viewed full-screen, so that’s how it’s linked here. My apologies for the ad at the beginning, but at least you have the option to skip it after the first 10 seconds or so.
Posted in Computing, Design
3 Comments
Super Sunday
I feel bad some times about ordering my subjects to pose for my shots, but after I see the results, I’m usually pretty sure they will want to see them too. What fun. Thanks to all of you!
Thank you, Kelly for putting the whole thing together. You are da bomb! :)
Posted in Bay Area, Holidays, Old Friends
3 Comments
Titanic Boiler Room
Andrew’s at it again. This time he’s going to turn an Olympic-size pool pump room into the boiler room of the Titanic. He’ll blend the real pipes into those in the wall-size painting.
The quick-and-dirty render above shows the view as you enter the pump room. The sand-colored objects in the foreground are placeholders for the real pumps.
I know Andrew – this will be awesome to see. I’ll try to post some images to illustrate his amazing technique as soon as the work begins.
Posted in Design, Old Friends, Thearender
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Hovercards are Cool
I know I’ve metioned Gravatars before and told you how cool they are. Having your own Globally Recognized Avatar is very cool. It puts a face to the commenter on numerous blogs and other social media sites. Avatars can be associated with e-mail addresses, so you can have a nice G-rated professional-looking shot for comments on your company wiki and a different image to adorn comments you leave on thedude.com.
Now the folks at gravatar.com have made Gravatars even cooler. When used with a plugin that enables Hovercards, you can get to know more about the commenter by simply hovering over their avatar. If your gravatar.com profile includes links, and a few images, they appear here. Check out this entry’s comment section to see it in action
By the way, in case you never noticed, hovering over any of the images on this site often reveals a little extra detail about the shot. :)
Posted in Computing
2 Comments
James Was Here
OK – I’ve been feeling kinda bad. My pal Jim visited for a week, and, despite great conversation, great weather and meals at places like Haven, Sea Salt and of course Chop Bar, I took a grand total of one photograph. With a cheap-ass point-and-click. I guess it could have been worse – I could have used a cell phone. There’s no excuse for this.
I was stumped at what to do, and Jim solved the dilemma by posting a really amazing shot of a few of the more than 50 orchids he has blossoming in his kitchen right now. In Madison Wisconsin. In January. I find this amazing. There is absolutely zero chance of me ever being capable of creating anything even remotely like this. I’m in awe.
It was great to hang with you, Dude. Always enlightening in so many ways.
Posted in Bay Area, Contributed, Old Friends, Wisconsin
2 Comments
Fifteen Minutes of FLAME!
OK, here it is, more than twenty years after the devastating Oakland Hills Fire, and we’re still talking about it. Well, at least I’m still talking about it. This time I’m sharing my experience with the crew from yet another reality show — Deadliest Planet. Watch out! Here comes another urban fire video!
It’s not hard to recall the events of that day, but just before the interview, we visited the fire zone to shoot some B-roll, and this had the unexpected effect of heightening my memories of the experience and probably made for a much better interview. We’ll have to see how the editors piece my sound bites together. I just hope it’s not totally embarrassing.
Stay tuned to thedude.com for show times and dates!
Posted in Bay Area, Shameless Self-Promotion
6 Comments
Gualala 2012
We took Kelly’s parents along this time. We couldn’t have hoped for better weather in mid-January. No Internet for almost four days. What a wonderful trip! Loved it!
Posted in Family, Holidays
9 Comments
Impossible Photo Shoot
Occasionally marketing asks for things that are (nearly) impossible to shoot. Like when they asked me to photograph a stack of sixty three 96-well microtiter plates on a white background.
I don’t have a studio at work, but luckily, I do have one inside my computer. Thank you Cinema4D!
Posted in Cinema4D, Work
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