This was a photo I took for a practice project on the WholeWhyWorld.com forums. The theme was “Golden Hour” which is the first or last hour of the day, at which point the direction and quality of natural light is at its absolute best for taking photos. When I produced this, I was asked if it was taken with a camera phone. Haha.

I stood in the woods at my place for nearly an hour, waiting on the sun to rise so I could capture the colors of the sky as it did. I am not someone who has ever been particularly scared of the dark. I find standing in the woods in the pitch black absolutely terrifying though.

I grew up in a heavily populated area, there was always light. Light posts, porch lights, headlights, cops patrolling. Now I live in the middle of nowhere and it gets pitch black out here, and you’re in the woods, and people are not very close. Standing in the dark hearing things in the woods knowing that they’re not human, and I can’t see them.

So when the sun started to rise it felt more like a huge wave of relief washing over me. More like the overexposure, in my head. Burning off all of those unknowns lurking in the unseen. Kind of euphoric. Fifteen seconds of light pouring into the camera, washing out all traces of darkness.

Not that it really matters, it’s just an overexposed picture. For what it’s worth, I took one that I felt was perfectly exposed. Capturing the warmth of the sun just before is rises into view, and the gradient into the sky which 180 degrees away is complete darkness. I took that picture, but it just didn’t mean as much.

So, I was watching “Supersize Me” the other day, and the part about McDonalds marketing to children struck a chord. Not like it changed my world or anything, but I became immediately more aware of the impression that ads were leaving on my children. Kind of scary. I thought to myself “Ads are evil.”

A few days later I was browsing around the intertubes and I stumbled across the argument that using AdBlock in Firefox was the same as stealing from the people who ran those ads. Indeed, lots of free content is paid for by ads, and blocking those ads keeps the owners of the free content from ever being paid for your clicks.

I would like to support Ad Blocking. I mean, anything that is subconsciously able to make me want to eat crappy Fast Food, or buy something I don’t want, or whatever else it might impose on me through a number of impressions; I think I have a right to keep that out of my head. On the other hand, though, I understand people needing to be compensated for their time and effort.

So, what are your thoughts? Mental Poison, or Noble Funding of the Free World?

Some new photos. Portraits of my kids and Some baby chicks we recently hatched.

More in my flickr:

Here’s some more of my work stuff. I know it’s not as interesting as my thoughts on death and girls, but it pays the bills:

This is a shirt Illustration for Sentinel Sound Systems Germany. Really cool guys, more art direction than I am used to, can’t complain though. This was the design before it strayed too far from my vision. Looks different in the final product.

This is a screen cap of the MySpace for Shred Clothing:

More coming soon!

This is a look at the creative process behind the recent collaboration between Killer Napkins and Myself. There are lots of pieces missing, mostly because we sent the art back and forth so much. We probably traded it 10 times in the first day. Anyway, here’s how we pooped out our bastard child: (more…)

I’ve had a crazy month or so, and I have been neglecting my blog. Don’t hate me, it’s not all my fault. I was actually without internet service for over a week. Really put me way behind on work… Speaking of which, here’s what has been keeping me from you.

I teamed up with Jon Kruse, to form a badass Web Design firm. We are Double Dragon Studios. Basically, he handles the design aspect, and I handle the coding aspect. Works out really well.

Here is a list of sites that I have coded, partially or in full, in the past few weeks:
http://www.doubletakeclothing.com/
http://shop.republicatrading.com/
http://rocketmerch.bigcartel.com/
http://partysmartie.bigcartel.com/
http://ftnclothing.bigcartel.com/
http://www.myspace.com/ghostmakerclothing
http://www.doubledragonstudios.com

… Some of it is a little rough, I was slightly out of practice. Haha. I’m getting better as I go.

Here’s a couple of snippets of my latest illustration, which was a collaborative effort between Myself and Killer Napkins:

I’ll be posting a process tutorial for that one in a few hours. It was a bunch of fun to work on.

Additionally, here’s a few photos that I have taken recently:

You can see these and more in my Flickr Feed. Be sure to add me as a contact, so you can keep up with my new photos as I upload them!