Big day for me. Earlier today some shots of me went up on iStockPhoto, and now some videos I did are live. I’ve been on the other side of the camera for plenty of these types of videos–or rather, in the producer’s chair–but this is my first on-camera-talent gig. The websites really are cool, too.
For Schwab MoneyWise:
For Safeway Foodflex:
…so if you need a shot of a pink-haired girl screaming while backlit, or an unbelievably close-up shot of my eye, you know where to go! These were shot by my good friend Joseph Linaschke a few weeks ago at his home studio in Pasadena. I now sort of want to pretend I’m a model.
Who knows where I will end up!
Last night a group of us assembled at my place for a fashion shoot in the lobby of my apartment building. We worked late getting the mood just right…and I could not be happier with where we wound up. As I keep saying with everything, I want to spend a little Photoshop time with them, but I suppose not having access to it is forcing me to be fastidious about lighting, etc. At any rate, there will be more of these in the future. For now, I can’t resist a sneak peek:
A few shots from the other evening. I’m getting my money’s-worth on these lights. Especially since they’re borrowed.
These are straight from the camera, no processing whatsoever. One is really noisy–looks like one of the two lights we were using hadn’t recycled yet and didn’t fire, so the balance is off but I actually like it conceptually. I intend to have some fun with that in post-processing–make it really grainy, moody, knock a different background in there, etc. But for now–raw material. Big thanks to Toe for being such an amenable model.
Tomorrow I’ll be at Fort Mason in San Francisco with my Tibetan teacher for the Bay Area Friends of Tibet’s 24th Tibet Day. My teacher, Lobsang Tsering, has a non-profit called Tibetan Living Communities that is dedicated to the improvement of education and medical care for Tibetan refugees throughout India. We’ll be talking to people and, I think, writing people’s names in Tibetan script. Come on by if you’re in the area!
Yes that’s right: my paintings are now live and for sale on ArtQuiver. I’m so proud of this! They have a great UI, and policies that really make it possible to feel confident buying art online, including a feature where they’ll mail you a free black and white life-size proof of art you’re considering, and a lifetime return policy. Take a look, and click around to look at the other artists too!
…and boy are my arms tired. Ha. But seriously, folks: last-minute business trip to London over Thanksgiving weekend + close friends living in Stockholm = weekend in Copenhagen. This brings my “countries I visited for the first time in 2009″ tally to 6, if you count Tibet as a country separate from China, which I do: Japan, the UK, Finland, China, Tibet, and Denmark. Not bad.
I spent an afternoon at the Danish king’s summer palace, which included a room with mirrors on all walls/floor/ceilings, and a variety of museum items like tiny stuff carved from what appeared to be ivory. I also ate a giant hotdog and played around on a weird sculpture in the middle of one of the squares.
We stayed in a great apartment and I enjoyed the Danish graffiti (particularly the use of the word “spoon”)…
…took the obligatory boat tour…
…and visited monuments like a church with a staircase winding around the outside of its spire (sadly closed for the season) and the “Black Diamond”.
We went to the lighting of the Copenhagen Christmas tree–which (at least for this night) was powered by people riding stationary bikes around it. Copenhagen is about to host a giant climate summit and there was no shortage of “green” messaging all over. I really like this shot–shot with my 430EX flash with a Gary Fong diffuser, set to underexpose by two stops, and the shutter dragged to get the background light. There’s a nice blur on the right of some people walking by.
Back in London, on my last day I made a mad dash around the tube system looking for photo opportunities at about 5:30 in the morning, before there were many people up and about. I am still waiting on my copy of Photoshopp but can’t wait to play with these some more once I have it.
More photos in the trip gallery.