coolpup

The last several years have been home to a monumental explosion of web services geared toward artwork.  Because of that, my art has fractured among them all (or most of them anyway).  Even my own collection doesn't include a cohesive gathering of all my work.  It's spread across multiple computers and hard drives.  (That's just the digital stuff.  The physical, rightfully so, is in various places.)  I don't like this fact.  I'd like to have a place where I can go and say, "this is what I've done."  I kind of hope that DA can become that place since it was the first online service I used to get into my art.  

I've never been particularly good at following through on blanket plans when it comes to my hobbies.  Work and friends usually take precedence.  However, this is something I've been thinking about for a couple years now.  I've put enough thought into it that I think I can make something solid.  

So, until we meet again.... stay creative.

I probably should have began this process long ago (like maybe in January!), but I'm currently working on tweaking the images for Olas I.  They were printed darker than I hoped for so some of the images lost their power (December for sure, but there are others).  

I'm also thinking of starting on Olas II.  This one will likely be a white theme... or maybe a mixture?  I don't know.  I'm very partial to the dark backgrounds.

I submitted the calendar last night (early this morning, probably).  It's called "Olas I".  I'm happy with the way it turned out.  I wound up changing a couple of the images once I got them all assembled.  That one image that took over 24 hours to render just didn't fit with the feel of the collection, so I ripped it out.  The image on the front cover was supposed to be it's own month, but I didn't like the way it sat in the collection either.  But I think it turned out well as a front cover piece.

So yea, "Olas I" is complete and looks great.  Go buy yourself one.

Some time in the past few days I became inspired to create a calendar for DA.  I rounded up a few of my favorite images and created some new ones.  I'm now in the initial rendering phase before I bring them into Photoshop for touch ups.  Most of the pieces take from between 20 minutes to 2 hours to render (even on my slower "helper" computer).  However, one piece in particular took over 24 hours to render on my main machine (dual Xeon workstation).  It's been a while since I've had a render farm, but apparently I need one for this project.  Oooh, the things I would do if I had a render farm again.  

I hope to have everything through post processing by the end of the week, but I'll have to wait and see what my day-job requires of me.

I spent some time rooting around in closets at my parents' house last weekend and happened to discover my Canon AE-1 SLR camera.  This happens to work out well since I've been looking for a new hobby (or in this case, the resurrection of an old one).  I've been using a Nikon digital point-and-shoot for the last couple of years.  I just dislike it so much that I have stopped taking photos.  I don't even think I've turned it on in the last year.  I take that back, I did have to take a photo of something for my mother and I used that camera.  Photography buffs will shoot me when they read this, but for everyday things I just use the camera on my phone.  It is of sufficient quality that I can post them online and make people smile, but no where near the quality where I could do anything artful with them.  
I'm hesitant to go back to film since I know so very little about real photography.  I know I'm going to spend a lot of money on film and development before I figure out anything worthwhile.  Whether that amount equals the cost of a new DSLR or not is to be determined.  I would probably be looking at around $500 to get a decent DSLR and lenses to match my AE-1.  
All that being said, if anyone has some tips on film photography or knows where to get a cheap DSLR (hopefully with some lenses) I'm all ears (er... eyes?).