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December 31, 2007

Last Sunset of 2007 - Updated

If I had know it was going to be this colorful, I would have set up my tripod in advance. That might have prevented the motion blur in the shot on the right. Oh well - the shot isn't perfect, and well, neither was 2007. Let's all work to make 2008 a lot better, okay?

Looks like I was not the only one who noticed this spectacular sunset!

Posted by thedude at 5:41 PM | Comments (3)

December 29, 2007

San Francisco in Ruins

Awesome (and sorta scary) image.

Click here to learn more about how this fascinating shot was made.

Posted by thedude at 2:58 PM | Comments (0)

December 21, 2007

More Visualizations - Updated

Our association recently insalled Macassar ebony wood paneling in our lobby, and although the results are striking, the overall effect is a bit darker than we'd imagined. To brighten things up just a bit, we'll be hanging some sepia-toned reproductions of four archival images that previously hung elsewhere in the building. Before we go through the expense of printing and mounting the large prints, I used PhotoShop's fantastic Vanashing Point filter to create these realistic visualizations.

Let's see how these images compare to the finished installation.

Here are the results. The hand-held time-exposures are a bit blurry, but you get the idea. Looks like I hung the images a little higher than in the visualization. I may need to move them down! I think they look better lower on the walls.

Posted by thedude at 5:48 PM | Comments (4)

December 16, 2007

Holiday Season in Full-Swing

It's that time of year. Seems like there are parties every night. Trust me - I'm not complaining. Although it does seem like I'm spending a lot of time taking pictures and creating photo albums like this one from our friend Lelah's party last night. I was supposed to be photographing her and her baby Lohtse, but traffic conspired against us. It took us two hours to cover nine miles, so by the time we got to the party, the beautiful baby was sound asleep. At least I got a fun shot of Lelah and her mother. The family resemblance is striking, wouldn't you say?

Oh yeah, a couple days ago I mentioned that we stayed at the Clift Hotel. Here are a few shots of my favorite model in and around our suite. Spectacular! The hotel's not to shabby either...

Posted by thedude at 1:06 PM | Comments (0)

December 15, 2007

Christmas Party - Affymetrix Style

This entry probably won't be of interest to most of you, but I went to so much trouble getting the images posted on our blog at work that I figured I'd get a little extra mileage out of them by posting them here too.

Rumor has it that the people in this photo album are coworkers of mine, although I know almost none of them. They seem like a good group though. :)

We decided to get a room in the city last night at the Clift Hotel, which turned out to be pretty darn nice. That'll be the topic of a future post, but right now we have to go back to San Francisco and make some pictures of a baby and her proud new Mama.

Posted by thedude at 4:40 PM | Comments (3)

December 12, 2007

Oakland Homicides - Not All Bad News

I pass this little monument every morning on the way to the office. It's sad to watch the crosses multiply as the year rolls on. But the news is not all bad. The last time I heard it mentioned in the news, homicides In Oakland were down 1/3 from last year. Lets' hope this trend continues.

Posted by thedude at 4:05 PM | Comments (0)

December 3, 2007

Does the Pope Wear a Funny Hat?

Well, yes, but not every day. This red cappello romano is just so dang cool! Evidently, the pope's choice of headwear is a big deal!

Posted by thedude at 8:09 PM | Comments (0)

December 2, 2007

Holiday Manipulations

Before and after.

This year's greeting card began as three images - a classic Christmas painting by Haddon Sundblom, who painted at least one other familiar icon as well as a few stunning pinup girls. The Coca-Cola image came up while Googling "classic Christmas images". The fact that there was already a little Jimmy in the scene may have influenced my decision. :)

The second image was of a bottle of Jack Daniels, and the third was itself a composite of two goofy-looking shots like this one. The rest of the transformation is pure PhotoShop. If you're interested in learning more about how this idea developed, download the the PhotoShop file with layers intact here. (10 megabyte .psd file.)

Posted by thedude at 12:52 PM | Comments (2)