I've had more than one person ask me if I could refer them to a freelance web designer since I'm not doing any of that anymore. So if you're in or around Chicago, let me know and I can feed you the details.
When I thought of working with Brittany, I instantly had a series of photos in mind: her smoking and shaving her legs in the bathtub. I envisioned them as black and whites but, they worked both ways pretty nicely so I chose color for this first group.I think pictures of people can go two ways -- capturing their personalities vs. doing artistic shots with the person more as a prop.
Brittany was great to work with and helped me realize the ideas in my head to great success. I have a good number more photos of her I'll upload to flickr but, instead of one big batch, I'll be spreading them out over the next week.
Portraiture is fun.
Other things I've realized: yes, my camera is noisy; and yes, Lightroom is awesome.
One part of last night's dream: I saw a commercial on TV in SF for Six Apart's store at their HQ. Vox t-shirts, MT mugs, TypePad slippers - they had it all.
Come on, 6A! The world wants TypePad slippers!
My portraiture needs more work. I'm not saying it's ever been bad, but it's been... low on the totem pole. I enjoy doing candid street shots in addition to my usual mix of power lines, buildings, and split walls... but I haven't included portraits much.
I'm attempting to change that. About a month or so ago I wrote to all of my friends and said, "Hey! I'm a photographer. You're a person. Can I photograph you?" The answer was a resounding yes. Everyone I asked agreed to do it. How humbling!
This past weekend, my long-time pal Jacquie was the first vic... er, subject. At one point when we were out she commented that the whole process reminded her of her senior photo shoot... I laughed, a lot.
When all was said and done, there were a couple hundred photos of varying quality and style. I didn't go in trying to emulate anyone other than myself, perhaps, and came out with a few dozen Very Good shots. I whittled those down to seven shots I thought were Really Good, and all of those are on flickr. #4, pictured above left, is one of the two I like the most - I go back and forth.
During the entire process I was genuinely excited about taking the photos. It felt way different than my usual photo shoots, and I enjoyed it a lot more. Jacquie was a ball to work with and was a great person to photograph.
There's more to come!
On the phone with a company today.
Operator: And what's your last name sir?
Me: It's McAleer. M-C-A-L-E-E-R.
Operator: Okay, I've got it. M-C-A-E-R.
Me: No, it's M-C-A-L-E-E-R.
Operator: Sorry. I've got M-C-A-E-R.
Me: No, no. It's. M. C. A. L. E. E. R.
Operator: M-C-A-L-E-E-R. Okay.
Whew.
A few years back someone named Mena Trott decided to make miniature donuts. It's still one of my favorite random things from her dollarshort.org days because, who would make miniature donuts?
I now have a better answer than "Mena Trott." The correct answer is "Mena Trott and the Japanese."
I obtained these amazing miniatures from our local Mitsuwa:
Restraint kept me to just one box. It includes what you see above, a chiclet of gum (meh), and little signs for the shelving kit.
Impressively, these are made by a company called Re-Ment and they have American food too. Check it out. And, yes, donuts and coffee, complete with mini-sugar packets. (!)
I love this miniature food stuff, and am going to try very hard not to buy them all.
Yesterday I was looking at my iPod's artist listing - my preferred way to get to music - and realized something: A.C. Newman was the first artist.
This couldn't be, I thought, because forever and ever 10,000 Maniacs have been the first artist.
It seems to be a change in iTunes 7.2.5.2.1.5 though, as no matter how I choose to sort the artist column within the program, my number-based artists are now at the bottom of the heap!
So why did this change? When did this change? And more importantly, why the heck can't I tell iTunes to put my number-based artists up top again?
Last night's dream included me giving a presentation about a 37signals product in front of an audience which included Jason Fried.
Even in my dreams, I am a geek.
I'm proud to announce that I have started a new internet weblog, Usability is Boring. It's in the spirit of the olde, no-longer-with-us Design Geek. I hope you'll stop by and check it out!
