banter, musings, and photos from a high-ed designer
For this assignment Clay and I came with some different objectives – both in technical requirements and concept. Clay opted for a very specific vision that was a technical juggernaut, but ultimately a very informative and worthwhile shoot. I’ll defer to his self-critique for the specifics – but it did demonstrate for me a through process in defining a vision and how to compensate to achieve it. What he may not tell you, we only got the color saturation just right 10 minutes before getting kicked out. You can see the results at his blog, the clever man
For my part with glass, I h
ad simple concept to illustrate that beer (namely) microbrews has come of age. Where society has been plastered with ideas of bargain beers from Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and the like. A sub-culture of connoisseurs has emerged spreading into high society and middle -class not unlike the wine industry to bring in big businesses. To illustrate this perception shift I wanted to focus on the maturity of beer and what goes into making these microbrews, quite literally in fact.
In addition to a broad concept, I wanted to make the most of this assignment with a variety of setups utilizing both dark-field and light-field techniques. The first setup as light-field was indeed as difficult as they claim, eliminating the horizon line then properly bouncing the light to illuminate beer ingredients without blowing out the lines that were pre-set. The final hurdle was refraction of the ingredients in the lower half of the glass, compensating the camera angle and swapping the glass out was best corrective measure I could determine.
For the dark-field I tried a handful of setups – mutli-glasses, glass and bottle, and single bottle. The largest issue for the multi-glass sheets was staggering the glassware to get hit and dividing/bouncing the light to define each edge. However, this would often lead to reflection of another glass or blowing out one edge to define another. We attempted to compensate with multiple lights divided by gobos to minimize blowout to moderate success. I really want to try another crack at this.
I ultimately settled on a single bottle for the reshoot for technical precision in defining the edges and to emphasize the concept and branding of the industry. However in evaluating my selects, I didn’t like how with the curve of the bottle the light edge moved inward and opted for the light-field select with the Bass product glass with properly defined edges and more vibrant content.
In our inaugural studio assignment we were paired to complete a portraiture of a classmate that not only demonstrated our emerging prowress with the studio but shed some light on our subject and how we percieve them differently. Be it by persona, hobbies, or any aspect that shows the unique individual that they are. Preparing toward that end and working within the parameters of the project I wanted to incorporate “props” and a personal element to this assignment while expanding my skills by providing the appropriate lighting conditions to compliment the concept.
In discussing our mutual backgrounds, inspirations, and roles in life with Clay there was certainly a lot to draw from – a professional, a scholar, and a father. I opted to highlight the latter in Clay as just like the right light – his role as father added depth to his character and the other facets of his life including school. I hope you agree seeing the selects below.
Love the music, respect the man, …. and relish the chance to photograph this modern day cultural icon.
After nearly 5 years outside of a classroom my inevitable return was only a matter of time. The first time around, I went in bright-eyed and optimistic about the world wide web and found myself in it’s mecca of Silicon Valley during it’s hayday nearly a decade ago to this date in 2000.
While it has been fruitful in providing me a enjoyable career and numerous friends and experiences I would never trade in, I aim now to expand my previous pursuits in web and graphic design and apply them to my current passion into photography. Over the next couple of months, you’ll see this blog reinvent to incorporate that goal highlighting work and discussion related to my coursework in photography. Don’t worry, you’ll still find my excess ideas in higher education and technology peppered in per usual.
Originally posted for .eduguru Blogger Search Contest in November 2008.
Like most professions it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day projects, politics, and assignments inside Higher Education. However, sometimes especially during holiday breaks or slow fridays we do get some breathing room to catch up or sometimes step forward in our professional lives.
Now most you by merit are visiting this blog (or reading it on your favorite RSS reader) likely suffer from the same addiction as me bogged down with information overload from RSS feeds, Twitter, email and number of other sources that provide a swell of ideas, useful tricks, and inspiration. Now in order to leverage that bit of information you came across, rather then filing it away or sending it to bookmark oblivion. You need to TAG it, try using these handy addons from delicious, Remember the Milk, or your own Get Things Done process. The important part is that you classify the article/idea to help you later act on it.
Now in case you haven’t had your fill of sources, let me point out a few good feeds to add to your inspiration toolbox that vary on your role:
Graphic / UX Design
Marketing / Social Media
Professional Development
Web Design / Coding
Once you found a task from your varied sources you need to quickly tag it with the type of action or category (see catagories above for example). I prefer to cross tagging such as DIY (Do it Yourself) with Office Upgrades or Inspiration and Web Design to aide with some quick context when you revisit the task later.
Just like attending a conference, schedule the time for yourself to work on these individual projects – such as a slow Friday afternoon, a quiet holiday break. And in case your boss wonders what your up to – reassure them this is to develop your skill set just like conference or training seminar and doesn’t cost them a dime.
The key to making this work, is that you select projects that interest and challenge you, especially if you haven’t flexed those skills in a while or EVER!
For instance, take a tutorial on creating a movie poster in photoshop – can increase your understanding in typography, graphic layering, and help you ace that next marketing design or HTML email.
Or try that integrating your favorite social media service into your portfolio or blog – not only will it help professional site it will give you the skillset to deploy the same integration in your next project website.
Finally, take the time to write that guest blog you’ve been itching to do to highlight your latest projects and expand your ability as copywriter and educator.
All these actions benefit your value as a working professional and build on your existing strengths to both your employer and yourself – so I encourage each of you to make the time to pick a new and fun project for the holiday season and sink your teeth in.
Sound off below and share your tips for professional development, everyone has method to organize the maddness – what’s yours?
Finally dropping by Missouri State campus to kickoff HighEdWeb 2008, we were welcomed to some upgraded scwag, wifi necessities, and our introductory workshops for us lucky few who arrived early and could afford this unique sessions.
I was fortunate to catch Derek Tonn last year in Rochester and was floored by his presentation on “Graphics Optimization for the Web: Advanced Tools and Techniques”
Needless to say, this is not your mom’s “Save for Web” in photoshop 3 hour workshop; instead opting to delve into the nitty gritty and occasionally command line wage war on the file size of your images.
By the most impressive aspect, is the ability to take staple images in your design and reduce thier filesize by nearly 60-90% in most cases with these techniques – now why would you want to do this?
So let’s look at some of the helpful tools to get you there, mind you I reccomend using this for your graphic designers and web developers – I would not reccomend use of these applications to your content owners. I will be doing a followup post this week on useful tips and software geared toward the end user.
More to come later… now it’s time to dash. For complete details and tutorials, be sure and visit Derek’s site at
A higher education web evangelist focusing on UX, social media marketing and analytics. Only 28, I have found myself criss-crossing the country and private and public sectors providing my expertise in a myriad of topics and web-based technologies.