Category: General

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Chicago Design General Photography Theatre

A few photos, a few words.

Batterymouth: Mark Walkley, Zack Whittington and Dave Urlakis.

Hey friends, sorry it’s been a while since I’ve updated routinely. Back in December my apartment got robbed and it’s taken me until just now to finally replace everything. Unfortunately this has prevented me from having access to my full Aperture library for some time and has made doing photo work a chore.

Hopefully now this will be a thing of the past, I just got a brand new iMac and I’ve been reunited with my library and workflow. I’ve gone ahead and posted a bunch of new photos on my Flickr account and plan to post many more in the coming days.

So what have I been up to in the last few months? Well…

In March I went to Austin for the South By Southwest Interactive conference with a bunch of friends, had a blast, learned a ton and made lots of new contacts.

In April I took a trip home to visit friends and family, while there I caught the opening of the new Yankee Stadium.

A few weeks ago I went to the Chicago Red Stars home opener with the Chicago Local 134 in support of the team and my friend CEO Peter Wilt.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go with Aki and Mark to play “Journey To The End of The Night”, a city wide street game akin to manhunt/tag/hide and go seek.

I’ve also taken over PR / Marketing and Brand Identity for Long Pork and we’re having a blast with it. Right now we’ve got a show running every Saturday at the Apollo Studio Theater at 8pm through the 23rd. You should check us out.

Some of my photography is now part of a local collective called NMA Artists an unofficial group of artists, writers and photographers who happen to work at a certain major retail store on North Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

Lastly I’ve had the pleasure of consulting on the Chicago Tribune‘s new ChicagoNow project. I can’t wait for the site to launch, it’s going to be big.

That’s all for now, life is pretty good, I hope to get the chance to update more often. Thanks for reading!

Categories
General Photography

Happy Halloween



I hope everyone had a great time tonight. I know I did. I took some great shots of my friend Lee and his girlfriend Rebecca in their costumes.

Check them out on my Flickr.

Categories
General Photography Technology

A month with the Canon G10


Just under a month ago the fine folks at Canon hosted a hands on event at Calumet Chicago. Excited at the chance to possibly get to play with the new Canon EOS 5D Mark II I happily trotted down to check it out.

Unfortunately they didn’t have the new 5D, however I did get to play with the new Powershot G10.

This was something I was afraid would happen. While the 5DmkII is a bit out of my spur of the moment price range… I did have the $500 on me to drop on the G10. Holding it in my hands I was instantly in love.

For those unfamiliar, the G10 is a significant upgrade of the intensely popular G9 point-and-shoot camera. Now, if you’re seriously into photography or just getting into Digital SLRs, you might be wondering why you should care about a measly point-and-shoot.

Because this is no measly point-and-shoot.

The G10 offers full manual controls as well as the standard point and shoot settings, Canon’s new noise reducing Digic IV chip, a variable aperture of 2.8 – 4.5, a 14.7 megapixel sensor and the ability to shoot RAW. The G10 is, in short: everything you would want in a basic point-and-shoot, in a much smaller more compact body.

My normal day-to-day camera has been a Rebel XTi since it’s release.. I’m never without a camera. Since my purchase of the G10 I’ve been carrying it around almost exclusively and I have to say, I’m in love. I have to say my favorite part about it is the ability to utilize the ‘Live View’ feature that will let me see what my image will look like using manual controls via the LED on the back of the camera. I can dial up and down to allow me to shoot in different lights and judge before I shoot in a much more accurate way. This is great for me as someone who does a lot of low light shooting. While the ISO 1600 setting is near unusable, the Digic IV chip does a great job of reducing the noise and makes serious strides by making ISO 800 a viable option for someone like myself. The 2.8 aperture doesn’t hurt either.

In closing, while I’m still waiting on the 5DmkII for more professional use, the G10 has taken over the role my Rebel previously filled as a solid and powerful day to day camera and it’s made me rethink my impressions of point-and-shoot cameras.  I love using it and I can’t stop showing it off.

You can check out some unprocessed images from the G10 to get an idea of how it performs and for yourself on my Flickr account.

Categories
Chicago General Photography Theatre

Long Pork


I’ve just put the finishing touches on a set of photos I did a few weeks back for Sketch Comedy group Long Pork.  Working with these guys was a ton of fun and we’re already floating around ideas for future shoots. 

Long Pork was founded just earlier this year but the guys themselves are very experienced in the Chicago Improv scene with groups like Battery Mouth and the now defunct Kittyhawk. They ran their first show entitled “Soda” at the Apollo Theater to much success.

They are currently in rehearsal for their next set of shows and entering sketch competitions.  More information should be available soon. I highly suggest checking them out at longporkcomedy.com which should be updated soon with new photos from yours truly. Until then you can check out the photos on my Flickr.

Categories
Design General Photography Technology

A Photo Apart

On Monday and Tuesday of this week I had the opportunity to attend An Event Apart Chicago, the conference for people who make websites. There I got the opportunity to meet a lot of interesting people, hear some amazing lectures and learn more in two days than I have in a few years.

An Event Apart is a great way to refresh your thinking and get exposed to amazing new concepts in web design. I would recommend it to anyone who does any sort of web design or development work.

I’ve posted some shots of some of the presenters on my Flickr. Please feel free to check them out.

Many thanks to Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer for putting together a great group of speakers and an amazing event. I went last year and it was worth it, I’m glad I got the opportunity to go again this year.